Sports I lustraded

Tennis players in Australia get so excited one of them may have actually spat at his opponent during a match in front of everyone! Yahoo! News - Hewitt Shrugs Off Spitting Incident

This guy gets so mad that he is losing that he actually aims a serve at his opponent, a serve that is traveling at over 100mph, and then allegedly spits at him as they change sides. What did his opponent have to say about his behavior?

"He spat in my direction," said Hewitt, who won the third-round match 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. "It's unfortunate because we were having a dogfight match out there. We're both competitive blokes, we were going for it."

"It's sad that something like that happens," he added. "But, you know, he apologized to me at the net when we shook hands and I said, 'Just forget about it, mate.'

Chela, the accused spitter, says he didn't do it and doesn't remember anything about a bullet like serve aimed directly at Hewitt. He was just being competitive and things were rough.

Meanwhile officials are reviewing tapes to see what really happened. But let's face it, it's really no big deal right? He did apologize and after all tennis matches are such stressful games that it's understandable one might lose one's temper.

I'm not sure many people experience spitting competitors while at work. I hope this guy gets the big fat fine and sanctions he deserves for his complete lack of sportsmanship and extreme jocko attitude. No one who acts like that deserves the word "pro" anything before their name.

What is it with our society and coaches or other sports figures? Why do we let them get away with horrible things because they can run or jump better than the rest of us? This article at The Seattle Times: Coaches who prey - The abuse of girls and the system that allows it paints a stark picture of the state of youth coaching in America and how sports fans tend to look the other way when trouble comes to their favorite star.

Some of the statistics they cite are startling, especially when you realize these come from Washington state with only 6 million residents. Imagine what it might be in your part of the country.

Get this:

"Over the past decade, 159 coaches in Washington have been fired or reprimanded for sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape. Nearly all were male coaches victimizing girls. At least 98 of these coaches continued to coach or teach."

WHAT? Can this be true? I thought we had laws and lists and things to "protect the children". Oh wait, that's to protect them from bad people, not good folks like our coaches. Coaches are special.

Think I'm over doing it? Read on:

"The number of offending coaches is much greater. When faced with complaints against coaches, school officials often failed to investigate them and sometimes ignored a law requiring them to report suspected abuse to police. Many times, they disregarded a state law requiring them to report misconduct to the state education office."

What, because he took us to state a couple of times and brought recognition to our school? Because we held him up for all to see as a perfect role model above all the other teachers?

Seems this may be the case. The article goes on to talk about the many times school administrators allowed coaches to continue after being caught abusing children and even hired people they knew to be sex offenders to coach their teams to victory.

The story ends with:

"Unfortunately, everyone has an investment in the silence the parents, the team and community," said Sandra Kirby, a Canadian sociologist who studied sex abuse of athletes by coaches. "The measure is, if a coach has had good successes, that's all they are worried about. They're ignoring the victims."

Go team. Is that really all we as a society care about? I wonder how many coaches you can find on a Megan's list?

Electronic Arts plays hardball | CNET News.com reports.

"It's downright predatory," said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter. "There's nothing illegal or unethical about what's EA's doing; it's just good business for them. They're making sure they have exclusive access to the best middleware out there and the best sports license out there, and they're precluding anyone else from taking out Ubisoft. Microsoft did the same kind of things to improve its position."

I guess it's only fair, sports has become pretty predatory and it is big business. Microsoft never did really get into any trouble with their antics and their customers never really seemed to care either. I think it will be the same with sports fanatics.

The ethics score board has a great article about Red Sox first base man Doug Mientkiewicz and his belief that the baseball he caught to score the final out in Boston's World Series victory last year is his to keep. He calls it his retirement fund: Read about this selfish jock and his Ball Games.

This guy really takes the cake and wins my JOCKO of the Month award. I think I'll make that a regular thing. I might even call it the Mientkiewicz Award. What do you think?

Here's the scoop:

It's the last game of the World Series and Boston is about to win their first series in decades. The hit goes to pitcher Keith Foulke and he flips it over to first base instead of running there himself. Doug just happened to be standing on first base filling in for David Ortiz and caught the ball to win the Series.

It's one of the biggest wins in sports history and that ball is going to be worth millions of dollars to some crazy Fanatic out there. Our boy Doug knows that and refuses to hand the ball over for inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, as is the usual tradition.

Nope, this guy says it's his and he intends to sell it for "his retirement fund". After all, he is the guy who won the Series for everyone and he deserves it.

Jocko Doug didn't even have one hit or one run during the whole series. Looks like they stuck him in at the last minute because the real players were tired and it seemed like he couldn't screw things up. Now he thinks he is the big hero and should keep the ball?

The guys over at the Ethics Scoreboard don't see it that way and neither do I. While lawyers battle over whether the ball belongs to the team who paid for it, Major League Baseball or Doug Mientkiewicz, the ethical dilemma seems quite clear.

The scoreboard argues:

If the ball has special significance, it is as a symbol of a team athletic achievement. The ball's value was created, first, by the interest and dedication of baseball fans; if nobody cared about whether the Red Sox finally won the Series or not, the ball would be worthless.

Second, it was created by the collective effort of the team itself. Not merely the players, but the coaches, management and front office -- everyone whose work paid off in the World Championship that was realized in that final out.

Finally, the ball's value is the culmination of special heroics by many Red Sox players who sparked the remarkable eight game winning streak that took Boston from a supposedly insurmountable 0-3 deficit to the New York Yankees in the American League Play-offs to a four game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the Worlds Series.

Well said. Yet these points are often overlooked by many athletes and most fanatics.

How often do we really think of big wins as team accomplishments? When players make the great catch right at the end of the game everyone cheers them and calls them "hero" and tells of the time they "saved the day" or "won the game". Or one guy will run have the ball all day long because he is the only one they ever give it to and then everyone says "he won for us".

Oh really? Who blocked all those big giant guys chasing him? Who threw the ball and who kept him from getting run down? Who developed the play and called it at the right time? Who kept these players in top shape and makes sure they don't get hurt? Who supplied the money for all the equipment and the field and the lights and the power and the cool locker room? Hell, who mowed the grass and drew out those pretty lines so you could even play in the first place?

But jocks on a team are rarely team players. They are there for the attention and the glory and fanatics and general society usually gives it to them. The headlines are always about one person, we give out awards for most valuable player and pick people to paste on the side of a trailer.

That doesn't seem like team sports to me.

But I can understand where Doug is coming from. He never got his moment in the limelight or any big fat advertising endorsements. This is his shot at the brass ring and he is going to take it.

While everyone else made millions and got their pictures in all the papers, this guy sat on the bench until this fortunate day when he finally got to win the big game. Maybe he deserves an extra million from selling a stupid ball to some really stupid sports Fanatic on Ebay.

I think he should give to the Hall of Fame so it could represent the accomplishments of the whole team who worked so hard to bring home this amazing victory and finally give their fans something to be proud of. But I'm not a jock, so go figure.

Congratulations Doug for bringing a new low to baseball and being the first winner of the Sports I lustrated JOCKO of the month award. I'm sure that will look great on your resume when Boston finally comes to their senses and runs you out of town for your poor jock attitude.

In your new life as a little league coach you can charge the kids for signed balls and make a fortune on Ebay.

BLAMMO! SOCKO, KERPLOWY!

EA sports scores a knockout blow and a new low in video gaming with a 15 year licensing deal with ESPN giving them full first rights to all of the major cable networks shows, stars, footage and pretty much anything else. Electronic Arts signs licensing deal with ESPN | CNET News.com

Wow, this is really getting crazy. Multi million dollar monopoly deals going on over professional sports. I personally will not be buying anymore EA games, which is sad because there are a few I love. I just can't support this kind of a company that squashes the competition with the only game in town.

If people were not so fanatical about their sports teams I would say this is no big deal, but the fact is that without any NFL players or teams or even stadiums, every other football game out there has not a chance in the market to ever make it big.

People just don't care about the sport anymore. It's all about the colors.