Recently professional sports is tarnished by scandal, performance enhanced drugs, and all different ways of cheating, players getting season-long suspensions in the MLB, Tom Brady being suspended for tampering with balls and then smashing his phone to destroy the evidence when asked about it. Steroids and PEDs has been a constant issue in MLB. Numerous ways of getting an edge exist for those who are willing to try, as was revealed in the Biogenenics report featuring numerous star players including Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, etc.
But I'd like to talk about another way of cheating, a very obvious but now accepted part of the game: pretending on in-game plays, or flopping in soccer/NBA,
In dodgeball, believe it or not, there is an honor code among players to take their own outs. Players are encouraged not to wait to be called by the refs, but to just walk out if they know they've been out. Now this is a moot point when the ball hits someone squarely in the chest and bounces onto the ground, or someone throws a ball and it gets caught with 2 hands away from the ground by the opposing team. The real crux of this is when a ball skims a player in the shirt (considered an out), or a ball hits another ball in the hands of a blocker and it also gets a part of their hand, or the ball hits another player first and bounces on the fly off the body of another player. These are very close plays that the ref sometimes (and honestly, usually) misses and it's up to the player to take their own out. As a veteran player, the players know 95% of the time when they are out. Soemtimes it might be a close call and a player's not entirely sure, but there's a lot of factors like hearing a sound from the ball grazing your body, or how the ball feels hitting one's body whether it touched the ground first or not (the ball will lose a bunch of its force if it hit the ground first thus feeling more like a soft blow).
I think professional sports should be more like dodgeball. Pros nowadays complain about calls everytime it goes against them. Football players ask for a flag when they think they've been fouled, or complain about the flag when it comes out against them. Basketball players complain about every foul or non-foul. Soccer players complain, and then they flop when they don't get the call to try to get the call. Baseball is mostly immune from it except for balls and strike calls, where "pitch framing" comes into play. I think pitch framing should be disallowed, btw. I don't care that it's an "art" perfected by catchers or not, if people are complaining about having a "automated strike zone" to replace the actual ump, why don't we first get ride of "pitch framing?"
Sure, there are players in dodgeball who cheat. These players get a reputation for not taking the close ones, and over time people know that they can't possibly be "avoiding all the close ones" and realize that they're getting away with things and tell them. It's a small community; people talk and eventually the person who's not taking their outs gets wind of their reputation. And usually those people get shamed into taking their outs more frequently, or the refs watch them more closely, or they just get the social shame of being known as a cheater.
"Well, dodgeball is a sport where you can feel the ball hit you! There's no gray area! It's easier to take your outs in the sport!" Well, this may be true, I've never played football or professional baseball, but in basketball games I have a pretty idea when I "made contact" with someone causing a foul or not. I see pros who know they've "gotten away with one" all the time. I'm pretty sure when you play a game for a living and have been playing it their whole lives, they know to a pretty certain degree whether something was a foul or not
"Pretending" in professional sports sets a bad example for kids and amateur players in all sports. Everyone watches the best players "pretend" on national TV, and it carries over to their own game. "Play until the ref blows the whistle" becomes accepted. Imagine if pro sports players had an honesty policy of "being the best sportsman." I understand they're being paid millions of dollars to win, win, win, and that winning is prioritized over everything, but if sports is part of our national identity (and really, universal identity) and "sportsmanship" actually physically includes the word sport, shouldn't we prioritize "integrity" over "winning?"
To me, winning but knowing I "pretended" dampens the experience for me. I didn't actually bring my "A" game because I had to "pretend"/"cheat" to gain an advantage for myself. If I want to win, I want to win knowing I did it of my own merit, from skill and maybe a bit of luck. Sure pro athletes are motivated by money and endorsements, but at some point aren't some of them motivated by pure competition and "being the best?" Probably sweeter to win if you're not a "pretender."
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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