Sports figures should get opportunity to fight back

Vytas Mazeika E-mail Mazeika at [email protected].

Bite me. Yeah, you, reading this column. You can bite me.

I feel like using some expletives, but my editors disagree. So
I’ll comply and keep it at “Bite me.”

And I have every right to say so, although not yet. I should
wait for the hate mail before being rude.

Insults aside, I would like to point out the following: fans and
media today feel they can get away with anything ““ a syndrome
I call ignoramus stupiditis.

The latest victim of this syndrome is recently-fired Dodgers
general manager Kevin Malone. Now, please don’t send me that
righteous e-mail about how he officially quit and I’m wrong.
We all know that the resignation was a public relations move and
the incompetent Dodger brass forced Malone out.

The calls for Malone’s head peaked after his verbal
altercation with a Padres fan (wow, who would’ve guessed
those still existed). The L.A. Times was relentless with its biased
criticism and baseball fans all around the nation were
appalled.

Malone, though, had every right to yell back at the Padres fan.
After all, the fan was wrong. Sheffield doesn’t suck,
he’s only no good.

Fans and media today feel they have a right to berate athletes
without fear of repercussion. If a guy like Malone dares to talk
back, he’ll either be suspended, publicly flogged or forced
to resign.

Once again, don’t send me another righteous e-mail, this
time telling me how I should practice what I preach.

Three years ago, while covering the baseball team, I wrote a
column saying Rick Majerus should replace Steve Lavin as our
basketball coach.

Tim Leary, the Bruins’ pitching coach until this season,
didn’t particularly like my column. So a couple of days later
when I called him for some quotes for a feature on a player, he
bluntly told me in a couple of sentences how he didn’t
appreciate what I did to Lavin, told me he wouldn’t give me
any quotes and hung up before I could respond.

I was caught completely off guard.

Later, while trying to make sense of what happened, a friend
told me Leary lost 19 games in 1990 with the Yankees. Imagine how
the New York media must have crucified him.

Once I found out where Leary was coming from, I could understand
why he chose not to cooperate with my feature. I never complained
about the way Leary treated me and in fact respected his
stance.

I shouldn’t have been allowed to escape the whole Lavin
column fiasco without some lesson, and Leary provided me with one:
athletes, coaches, owners, GMs, etc., have every right to criticize
you.

Whether you’re a fan, an upstanding member of the press
(not sure how many of those still exist) or a student writing for a
college paper, you’re not immune to criticism.

Fans have always felt that spending $50 plus on a ticket gives
them the right to do more than cheer or boo. After all, they think,
what right does the athlete have to respond?

Ignoramus stupiditis is rampant in sports today. Criticism of
sports figures is the norm. But at least athletes are fighting back
and, for the most part, coming out as heroes.

Three recent examples include a fan jumping into the penalty box
in an NHL game to attack Tie Domi, a fan making racist remarks at
Allen Iverson throughout an entire NBA game, and an intoxicated
Cubs fan reaching over into the bullpen to take Chad
Kreuter’s hat.

Thankfully in the Domi incident, the fan got hurt. In the
Iverson incident, the harassment became public knowledge and
Iverson was vilified for the anti-homosexual remarks he made in
retaliation. And in the Kreuter incident, a barrage of Dodger
players jumped into the stands and didn’t let the Cubs fan go
unscathed.

Shame what happened to Malone, though. The man deserved better
after standing up to an ignorant Padres fan.

And for those of you who still feel sports figures must take
your crap and turn the other cheek instead of defending themselves,
get a life.

Oh yeah. And you can bite me.