Sports

Ethics Dunce: An Ex-Nurse With Something In Her Craw

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

angry-womanSeemingly nice and good people still fall prey to habitually unethical thinking. This was illustrated to me vividly just now when I heard a call fielded by Rush Limbaugh while I was driving to the cleaners. Today, like every Friday, was a free-for-all in Rush’s domain: callers get to pick the topic.

A middle-aged woman called Rush to announce that something was “stuck in her craw,” namely, that former NFL players with serious cognitive disabilities were suing the NFL, because they had not known the extent of damage the repeated head trauma their football careers entailed would cause them later in life. She was indignant because, we learned, she had suffered a concussion when she was a nurse (due to a violent patient), and now, years later and well into retirement, she suffered vertigo and the loss of the use of one arm as a consequence of that injury.

She said. in essence, “These football players were paid millions to bang heads, and they are complaining. I wasn’t paid millions, and I didn’t agree to get hit on the head. All I did was help people as a nurse, and nobody’s going to pay me for my disability.”

“So you don’t support the NFL players being compensated?”Rush asked.

“No! They got their millions. Why should they get more when people like me get nothing?”

And there you have it. This is what passes for fairness among a large number of our neighbors, colleagues, relatives and friends, even though it makes no sense, has no relationship to fairness, and is as mean and self-centered as a the revenge of a four-year-old.  The attitude is also at the root of a great deal of political advocacy. The underlying thought: if I have to suffer, it is unfair that everybody doesn’t have to suffer too.

This is ethics fatally tainted by non-ethical and unethical motivations like jealousy, envy, bitterness, anger, bias, hate and frustration. It is the exact reverse of the truly ethical impulse, which is “I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I have.” From that misbegotten vantage point, it metastasizes into thorough bile and illogic: Continue reading →

Angel Hernandez’s Botched Home Run Call, Continued: Now THIS Would Justify Over-Ruling It

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments
"You blew that call deliberately! Didn't you? DIDN'T YOU???"

“You blew that call deliberately! Didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU???”

Yesterday I wrote about the terrible, tomato-worthy botch of a home run call by Angel Hernandez in an Oakland-Cleveland baseball game, and how as bad as it was, the rules of the game don’t permit such rules to be over-turned, and thus over-turned they must not be, lest the game’s integrity be damaged. But on the Dan Patrick radio sports show today, renowned baseball writer Peter Gammons theorized that Hernandez may have refused to credit Adam Rosales of the A’s with a home run, despite the instant replay proving to anyone with eyes that it was not a double as he had ruled, because he, like many if not all major league umpires, hates the concept of allowing instant video replay to over-rule umpire judgments.

And, of course, Hernandez has a well-earned reputation as a spiteful jerk.

Hernandez would never admit to so unprofessional an act, but I think Gammons’ speculation is fair, and also very possibly correct. The alternative is to conclude that Hernandez literally can’t see, which seems unlikely. What seems far more likely is that he and his umpiring crew decided to register a nasty and unprofessional protest over the gradually expanding trend in Major League Baseball of letting technology do better what umpires have traditionally done well. Continue reading →

Mom Ethics and Kobe Bryant’s Plight

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Ah, how many of you must identify with Kobe Bryant today!

Did Mom throw them out?

Did Mom throw them out?

He is enmeshed in an ugly family dispute, suing his own mother in response to an unethical wound that mothers have casually inflicted on their children for centuries.

The superstar Los Angeles Lakers guard’s lawyers argued in a court filing that Bryant never gave his mother permission to sell his memorabilia from his high school days and early professional basketball career, in an attempt to block the auctioning off of jerseys, balls, trophies, championship rings and more for his mother’s profit. His mother, Pamela Bryant, says that she has the right to sell the stuff, because the NBA star told her the memorabilia was hers. She has already received a received a $450,000 advance to have Berlin, N.J.-based Goldin Auctions sell it all for top dollar. Continue reading →

Once Again, Fairness vs. Integrity In A Baseball Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
George Brett was a bit chagrined when his home run was disallowed...

George Brett was a bit chagrined when his home run was disallowed…

It has happened again, as it has thousands of times since the great game of baseball was invented. A result that is permitted by the rules violates the sense of fairness of  objective observers, who thereupon demand that the result be “fixed,” after the fact, by baseball’s powers that be. The most infamous recent example of this scenario was in 2010, when umpire Jim Joyce robbed a deserving pitcher of the perfect game he had pitched (27 batters, 27 outs) by calling the final batter safe at first on a close play, when the player was obviously (to all but Joyce, that is), out. The umpire quickly and openly admitted his error after the game, but there is no provision in the baseball rules for the League or Major League Baseball reversing an umpire’s judgment call after the fact, no matter how bad it was or how unjust the results. Baseball’s Commissioner Bud Selig, to his credit, refused to yield to the popular outcry to give the unfortunate Detroit Tigers pitcher, Armando Galarraga, the achievement and place in baseball history that should have been his. The rules say that unless umpires have actually misinterpreted the black letter rules of the game, there is no remedy. Umpire errors, like player errors, are part of the game.

Last night, what should have been a game-winning home run was called a double by umpires, and what was worse, they held to their mistaken call even after the mandated video review MLB now allows for disputed home run calls. The umpires viewed video that clearly shows the Oakland A’s Adam Rosales’ hit clearing the wall, but crew chief Angel Hernandez bizarrely claimed that the video wasn’t conclusive enough to justify a reversal. Since the A’s lost the game by one run, this altered the result, and there have been calls for an official reversal with the game being replayed. Continue reading →

Law, Ethics and Gender: California’s “Bathroom Bill”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Barry Bonds identifying as female...kind of like he identified as "not being on steroids"

Barry Bonds identifying as female…kind of like he identified as “not being on steroids”

The fur is flying in California and also in the internet culture wars over California’s latest foray into social engineering, officially known as Assembly Bill 1266, and popularly known as “the bathroom bill.” In its current form, the proposed legislation states…

“A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs, and activities, and facilities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

Here is such a wonderful example of the inherent limitations of laws as opposed to ethics that I’m considering having it framed and mounted. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Columbus (Texas)Track and Field Officials

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

An athlete who points skyward after an athletic victory in acknowledgement of his faith is not engaging in “excessive celebration,” as prohibited by University Interscholastic League rules. If that is a common interpretation of the rule, it should have been challenged and excised long ago. The equivalent of a quick personal prayer is neither obtrusive, obnoxious nor mocking, and any observers who find it thus are so virulently anti-religion and intolerant that they warrant no respect or attention whatsoever. And still…

Yes, Columbus (Texas) High’s re 4×100-meter relay squad had won its event, spurred by the stellar efforts of  junior Derrick Hayes. Upon learning of the team’s victory, he pointed a finger to the skies. This common gesture, which can be seen dozens of times every day on videotapes of baseball games, was ruled by officials at the meet to have violated the University Interscholastic League (UIL) regulation barring “excessive celebration.” As a result, the entire 4×100-meter squad was disqualified and  barred from moving on to the state championships.

If that harmless and inoffensive gesture was going to be interpreted as a celebration, which it is not, and if it is, excessive, which it also is not, the UIL had an obligation to warn coaches and athletes that it intended to enforce the rule idiotically and in a manner hostile to personal faith.  It does not appear that such a warning was given. The penalty was unjust and cruel, and its effect is hostile to religion, as well as common sense and rationality. Columbus High should rally to the support of Hayes and his team mates, and the other teams ought to protest this result as well. This is “no-tolerance” in all the worst senses of the word.

__________________________

Pointer: Alexander Cheezem

Source: Yahoo Sports

Sports Commentary Ethics And Bigotry: ESPN Should Tell Chris Broussard To Shut Up

/ Jack Marshall / 154 Comments
Yes, I have a question, Chris: Who cares what your religious beliefs are?

Yes, I have a question, Chris: Who cares what your religious beliefs are?

ESPN has raised some eyebrows for the sports network’s unequivocal support of Chris Broussard, one of its NBA reporters, who in response to a request for his reaction to Jason Collins’ announcing that he was gay, becoming the first active NBA player ever to do so, said this on the ESPN show, “Outside the Lines”:

“I’m a Christian. I don’t agree with homosexuality. I think it’s a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is,” he said (transcript via Blazers Edge’s Ben Golliver). “L.Z. [Granderson, a gay sportswriter and ESPN contributor] knows that. He and I have played on basketball teams together for several years. We’ve gone out, had lunch together, we’ve had good conversations, good laughs together. He knows where I stand, and I know where he stands. I don’t criticize him, he doesn’t criticize me, and call me a bigot, call me ignorant, call me intolerant. In talking to some people around the league, there’s a lot of Christians in the NBA, and just because they disagree with that lifestyle, they don’t want to be called bigoted and intolerant and things like that. That’s what L.Z. was getting at. Just like I may tolerate someone whose lifestyle I disagree with, he can tolerate my beliefs. He disagrees with my beliefs and my lifestyle, but true tolerance and acceptance is being able to handle that as mature adults and not criticize each other and call each other names….

“Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals, if you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I do not think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian.”

ESPN diplomatically responded, In a statement, ESPN said: “We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.”

I find it difficult to believe that ESPN would regard similar sentiments about the sinfulness of women failing to be subordinate to their husbands or inter-racial marriage as “a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints.” Continue reading →

Musings On The Jason Collins Announcement

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Jason-Collins

Jason Collins, a reserve NBA center, became a huge news story as well as symbol of increasing gay acceptance in America when he announced his sexual orientation in a Sports Illustrated cover story this week. This made him,technically at least, the first active athlete in one of the U.S’s major professional sports to “come out.” Since his team is not in the NBA play-offs, and since Collins is a free agent going into 2014, the NBA has yet to see its first openly gay player take the floor in a game, and Collins may not be the one who does it.

What does it all mean?

  • Collins is courageous.
  • I hate the fact that the state of celebrity economics, fame and popular culture makes me think like this, but it does: How can we know that Collins, a borderline and largely obscure NBA player nearing the end of his career, didn’t see a chance at the kind of fame, stardom and popularity, not to mention guest appearances, sponsorships and endorsements that have eluded him in his playing career, and grabbed it? We don’t. This was the kind of act that has nothing but good results whatever the motives of the actor, and so it is an ethical act by definition. Was it a truly selfless act, as it is being portrayed? I think Collins deserves the benefit of the doubt, but I sure have some. Continue reading →

The Steubenville Ethics Train Wreck: So Far, So Bad

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

steubenville

There has been no mention here of the awful Steubenville, Ohio rape case before today, and there was a reason for that. This is a massive ethics train wreck that is not only still rolling and accumulating passengers and victims, but is also too full of debris and wreckage to fully understand. At the end of this month, a grand jury will begin examining the looming question of whether others besides the two high school football players already convicted of the rape should be indicted.  The town is also doing an investigation of its own. These will help. My hesitation in diving into this gothic American nightmare is that recounting the obvious instances of miserable, heartless, ethically incomprehensible conduct by participants, observers, public officials and commentators doesn’t begin to make sense of it.  We will be analyzing and discussing this episode for a long time—we will have an obligation to do so. It is every bit as important and alarming as the Penn State scandal, and more significant than the infamous New Bedford pool table rape case, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film, “The Accused.”

The crucial cultural questions that will have to be answered are these: Continue reading →

“The Only Answer”: An Ethics Hero, A Life Saved, And A Troubling Hypothetical

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
In this universe, a hero...and in an alternate one? I wonder...

In this universe, a hero…and in an alternate one? I wonder…

University of New Hampshire senior Cameron Lyle, a Division I college track and field competitor who excels in the shot put and hammer throw, has chosen to end his collegiate athletic career to save a stranger’s life.

He will donate his bone marrow today to a 28-year-old man suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Doctors told Lyle the man who will receive his marrow will live only six months without a transplant, and that there was a only one in five million chance for another non-family match. Yet the odds came up in his favor, thanks to  Lyle having his mouth swabbed to join a bone marrow registry two years ago. He was a perfect match.

Lyle says he never hesitated in his choice, once he was informed. “It’s just a sport,” he said. “Just because it’s Division I college level doesn’t make it any more important. Life is a lot more important than that, so it was pretty easy…It was kind of a no-brainer for a decent human. I couldn’t imagine just waiting. He could have been waiting for years for a match. I’d hope that someone would donate to me if I needed it.”

“He made his decision. He gave up his college season to do this. He’s a gentle giant,” Lyle’s mother said of her 6-foot-2-inch, 255-pound son. “He’ll do anything for anybody.”  Lyle’s coach Jim Boulanger, was also completely supportive, and, according to Lyle, came up with an instant Ethics Quote of the Month when the shot-putter told him of his plans.

“Here’s the deal,” Boulanger told Lyle. “You go to the conference and take 12 throws or you could give a man three or four more years of life. I don’t think there’s a big question here. This is not a moral dilemma. There’s only one answer.” Continue reading →