Eggs, lies & sticky tape
Husband-and-wife comedians and commentators Jeremy Elwood and Michele A’Court share their views.
This is a big weekend for me. I’m a huge baseball fan, and the Major League season is getting under way in the US. It’s a long season, 162 games not including the playoffs, so there’s plenty of time for storylines to emerge. Inevitably, there will be triumphs, failures, unexpected heroes and, almost certainly, some cheating villains. Baseball, like every other sport, it seems, is not immune to players and organisations willing to break the rules in order to gain a tiny sliver of competitive edge.
When the Australian cricket captain admitted last week to a plan to tamper with the ball during the team’s test match against South Africa, many cricket fans were appalled, but not particularly surprised. Cricket has had a dreadful decade (at least) of scandal. This particular incident isn’t anywhere near the top of the list in terms of seriousness, which is perhaps why Steve Smith thought he could ‘fess up and move on as if nothing had happened. Sadly, maybe he can.
Sports fans have almost become numb to cheats. When someone achieves something remarkable, there is always a thought, somewhere in the fan’s mind, that it’s going to be undermined by some dark revelation – mainly because that is exactly what has happened, time after time. Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Diego Maradona, Marion Jones, the list goes on and on, and includes entire teams, such as the 1919 Chicago White Sox and the 2000 Spanish Paralympic basketballers. Personally, I clearly remember cheering as Ben Johnson broke the 100m world record at the 1988 Olympics, and I think most of us know how that turned out.
So why does it happen? Is it money, pride, sheer bloody-minded competitiveness? Probably all of the above, but I would also argue that professional sports exists in such a surreal bubble that those inside it think they can, and must, do everything they can to remain there. Our sports stars are held up as role models and examples – and in most cases paid accordingly – so in order to justify that insane level of worship, we’re all too willing to sweep bad behaviour under the carpet until we are absolutely unable to any more. It wasn’t Tiger Woods’
first affair that got him in trouble, was it?
How can we stop it? Realistically, I doubt that we can. We can make examples, hand down fines and bans, but unless we all collectively decide to stop watching, or caring about what happens on the field, some athletes will make nefarious plans off it.
The other option is to keep enjoying sport, albeit in the knowledge that, as in any other area of life, some of our heroes will turn out to be all too human.