Heroes and Villains

  

Roberto Alomar is not a sexy name in baseball. He didn’t have the caché of a big market for the majority of his career. He didn’t hit a prodigious number of home runs, he wasn’t accused of taking steroids, and he never won an MVP. During his seventeen-season career, the words you would use to describe him would have been excellent, workmanlike, and consistent. He rarely found himself the subject of much attention, and he seemed to prefer it that way. Who needs attention when you are quietly the best player at your position since the legendary Joe Morgan?

Unfortunately, all of that nondescript excellence only made his moment of weakness seem all the more glaring.

I remember the spitting incident because it affected my meager personal finances a great deal. I was young at the time, and the best baseball card I owned was a rare Roberto Alomar. I had gotten it with my mom on a trip to the card shop. I don’t know what it was about it that made it stand out to me, but it was the one I chose. A couple years later, I was watching baseball highlights and saw a replay of the incident. Alomar’s old team, the Blue Jays, against his current team, the Orioles. He got called out on strikes, and argued with the umpire, John Hirschbeck. Eventually, after a heated exchange and a lot of chest bumping and posturing, Alomar spit in his face.

I couldn’t believe it. My mom joked that the card would either be worth a ton or nothing at all. From that day on, I followed Alomar’s career. In my youth, it seemed too bizarre to be a coincidence, and I wanted to know who this guy really was.

I followed him to the Indians, where he was a part of one of the greatest offenses in the history of baseball. I looked up his numbers to see how great he really was. A 12 time All-Star with 10 time Gold-Gloves and 4 Silver-Slugger awards. He played for 2 World Series champions in Toronto, a standout player on a team loaded with talent. He was 6th or better in MVP voting 5 times, an amazing feat for a second baseman, particularly one who played with the likes of Manny Ramirez, Cal Ripken and Rickey Henderson. Most importantly, try as I might, I just couldn’t find much other reason to dislike the guy.

To clarify what happened in the spitting incident: Alomar alleged that the umpire used a racial slur when referring to him and said that he was goading Alomar about the strikeout as well. Alomar and the umpire (Hirschbeck) were both angry the next day, and Alomar said that "(Hirschbeck) had a problem with his family when his son died--I know that's something real tough in life--but after that he just changed, personality-wise. He just got real bitter." Hirschbeck had to be restrained from going after Alomar the following day, and was unable to officiate the game.

Am I going to defend Alomar’s actions? Of course not. They were despicable then, and they’re despicable now. To say what he said, even in anger, is such a callous act that one cannot help but feel its sting even as the years pass. Alomar did his best to repent, donating 50K to ALS research (Hirschbeck's son died of ALS) at the time, and has continued to support the cause to this day. He and Hirschbeck are now friends, and Hirschbeck himself has said, "Was I angry at the time? Yeah. I was mad. I was ticked off. But you forgive and you forget and you move on with life. It's one of those things that happened in the heat of the moment. He made a mistake, but I don't hold a grudge about it. And I would hope and pray that nobody else lets it interfere with what he accomplished professionally."

So everything should be fine, right? A man made a mistake and atoned for it in the best way he could, and the man he slighted has accepted his apology and calls him a friend. Hirschbeck even attests to the character of the man whom he once hated above all others. As rational people we can put this behind us, right?

Obviously Hall of Fame voters can’t. Alomar, unequivocally a Hall of Fame player based upon any conceivable metric, wasn’t voted in this year. In addition, if I were to bring his name up out of the blue, the incident I have spent so much time addressing would be most people's first memory. The answer, then, appears to be a resounding ‘No’.

But why?

We can’t let the incident go because it frames him so nicely for us as fans. Everything else in his career was so unassuming that the first time he brought attention to himself, it stuck. Turning a sweet double play, stealing a base, and getting on base at an impressive rate simply don’t register on whatever radar we use as fans to calibrate our interest. Only his spitting incident brought our awareness of his existence beyond that of a familiar name, and as such we compartmentalized him into the role of villain.

Villains are necessary in sports as much as heroes are. It gives us someone to root against, which is almost as much fun as having someone to root for. That’s why there can’t be shades of grey: how can you half root for someone? You either love someone, hate someone, or are indifferent. You can love or hate with degrees, but it is still essentially the same. Anything else requires too much thought, and thinking gets in the way of a rooting interest.

I hated Kobe Bryant for years for reasons that escape me now. It wasn’t based upon anything very tangible, I just didn’t like him. In retrospect, it was probably a defense of my basketball icon, Jordan, and my feeling that comparing this Kobe guy to him was a cruel joke. Sure, I found other reasons to hate him. His cockiness. His brashness. His apparent disdain for the kind of basketball that actually wins games, which seemed to get in the way of him proving how good he was.

To some extent, these things were true. They were also true of Jordan, the man whose career I felt was beyond reproach in every way, shape and form. In addition to these (perceived) negative traits, Kobe is also an incredibly hard worker, a student of the game, and a player whose will to succeed is nearly unmatched. Did I want to see these things? Of course not. What would I do if I were forced to look at him objectively, like a real person with strengths and weaknesses? I wouldn’t know what to think about him, which would make it pretty hard to root either for or against him, and therefore the Lakers. Which would make me indifferent to one of the best teams in basketball. Where is the fun in that?

In the case of Kobe, this is not a particularly unfair phenomenon. I’m not a Lakers fan, so I’m obviously going to be more open to thinking negatively about him. Lakers fans can focus on his positives, and in the end he will get a fairly even-handed public perception, if only by virtue of opinions averaging out. Kobe has a lifetime of deeds carried out very publicly, and to much acclaim and criticism. Every buzzer beating jumper, every game in which he scores 60 points, every court trial and public feud registers on our aforementioned fan radar. We can take the scope of his career and form an opinion because we have felt something about him the entire way.

With someone like Alomar, this is impossible. He plays baseball, which does not lend itself to too many distinct moments over the course of a seemingly endless season. Game winning hits, big home runs, and highlight-reel plays draw us in, but ultimately it is force of personality that will either hold our attention or leave us indifferent. Alomar was simply not a big personality (at least publicly), so we formed our opinions with what little he gave us.

As unfair as this is, I would argue that it is not a particularly damaging or surprising phenomenon. Most people understand that it is just a game, and if they saw Alomar on the street they would almost certainly have the good sense to leave him alone. We create heroes and villains in our lives outside of sports all the time because it is easier than empathizing and understanding, which require a great deal of effort. This is simply a fact of life, and as sports are so often used as a metaphor for life, I see no reason they would be exempt from taking on this trait.

Perhaps, though, we can use this as a lesson to steer us in a more nuanced direction. Clearly the Hall of Fame committee is incapable of this, having embarrassed themselves on so many occasions it is barely worth mentioning. As fans, however, we can achieve a more refined understanding of those we follow by trying to be more even-handed. Isn’t it a lot more fun to root one way or the other on Alomar knowing the spitting incident was an outlier? Maybe you have taken the rest of his career into account and simply don’t care, maybe you realized it was an isolated incident and don’t feel the same disdain. It doesn’t really matter, because now have all the answers and come to a conclusion, rather than cherry picking the incidents you like.

Isn’t it more fun to root against Kobe knowing how hard he works? Doesn’t that make his failure all the more satisfying?

Don’t we want to root for people who seem at least a little human, if only because that makes them more like us?

At the very least, it would prevent us from losing sight of the truth and castigating decent guys like Alomar for mistakes we are all capable of making. Our inability to forget is contagious, having infected those deemed worthy to judge his career. We should have opinions, but uninformed opinions are dangerous and have far reaching consequences. It may not matter as often in sports as it does in life, but it is nonetheless unfortunate when it prevents someone from realizing their dream.

Just be careful. If you’re too objective, you might end up indifferent. Where’s the fun in that?

Image via h-net

You can email Chris with questions or comments at TheSportsKiosK@gmail.com