BYE-BYE, NICE GUYS
OCCUPATIONAL hazard: From time to time, I start to doubt both my courage and my convictions. I begin to wonder if I no longer get it, if I ever did. Or maybe it’s that spitting into hurricanes for a living inspires occasional selfpity.
But then someone slaps me straight, asks if I saw what he or she saw, felt about it the way they did.
This latest round of selfdoubt began in midMay after Mets’ rookie Noah Syndergaard accidentally beaned Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez with a 97 mph speedoffright pitch. As Gomez went down and stayed there, Syndergaard had to adhere to the Code of Remorseless Tough Guy Sports Conduct: He had to stay on the mound, as if it were none of his business.
Though Syndergaard appeared upset — after the game he expressed his deep regrets and full concern — he was not allowed to demonstrate such in public after that pitch.
That brought an email from Joel Cohen, the author of many sports biographies for kids: “The Mets’ pitcher was visibly distressed, but through some insensitive unwritten law, Syndergaard could not take a step toward the injured batter to express his concern and remorse.”
And if he saw that, and I saw that, and we both felt the same about it, there had to be others, right? So why weren’t we heard? And why didn’t I write it?
Is it the fear of being scorned as so out of touch with hereandnow sports as to be dismissed as a fringe lunatic who doesn’t get the Codes of Cool, no matter how cold?
Pat Riley came to mind. His NBA players would risk his wrath if they dared help an opponent to his feet, as if such a sporting act conveyed weakness. That’s right, even the accidental is best perceived as malicious and remorseless.
And yet, two boxers, having openly vowed to knock the other out before clearly trying to do just that, are civil enough within sports’ most uncivil conditions to tap gloves in apologetic acknowledgment of an unintended foul.
Sunday, Mets starter Steven Matz debuted with strong pitching and, with three hits and four RBIs, a rebuttal to the DH.
Relieved with two out in the eighth, Matz left to a sustained standing ovation. With his head down, his every step toward and into the dugout was followed by SNY. The Code of Modern Cool didn’t permit him a mere touch of the brim of his cap nor even a quick wave or nod of his head, nothing to show he saw or heard the applause, let alone appreciated it.
Matz had to appear so conditioned — afflicted — by modern cool as to appear blockofice cold. Even if he had to fight the urge to look up at the crowd to savor this one timeonly moment — and to give a thankful wave — the Code of Cool forbid it.
Pity, I thought, alone, I suspected, with that thought.
But then, an email from reader Fred Spadaccino: “It wasn’t long ago when a pitcher who’d per formed really well was taken out to rousing cheers would doff his hat or raise a hand in appreciation. Saw Matz walk off the mound, a few moments ago. Nothing. Oh, well, just me being me.”
Thursday, when the Knicks drafted Kristaps Porzingis, the live audience in Brooklyn, which seemed to have been invited to create an uncivil atmosphere a la the NFL draft, became screamingugly.
Naturally, ESPN, the procourtstorming network, was eager to shoot the angerblooded, outrages-trained faces and antics of these “fans,” a crowd no doubt raised on ESPN’s “He Got Jacked Up!” prompts. Did it matter that a 19yearold — someone’s son — who few knew anything about was a few feet away, being trashed for the gall to have been selected to play for and in New York?
Nope. The crowd was too busy demonstrating its own Code of Modern Cool. But that ship long ago sailed.
Then this, from reader Scott McCall: “[Those] Knick fans demonstrated their remarkable combination of cluelessness and classlessness, the former by being infuriated that their team chose a 19yearold they know nothing about over some other 19yearold they know nothing about, the latter by heaping invective, scorn and ridicule upon a teen who’d done nothing wrong other than show up to be drafted. ...
“ESPN showed a kid appearing to be no more than 12, flinging abuse at Porzingis as loudly as he could. I assume one of the nearby adults setting that example was his father. I wonder what that dad’s feeling would be if his son ...”
Again, the genuinely cool — goodguy cool, niceguy cool, goodforwhatailsus cool — has been lost to the cold version, the one promoted and instilled as cool.
Then again, Porzingis is about to enter a league in which so many players demand everyone’s respect while giving none in return. That, too, is contained in the Code.