Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-06-20, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013. PAGE 5. Once in a while – about every six months or so – a letter drops through my mail slot addressed to “Doctor Arthur Black”. It’s true. I am a doctor. Have been for about the past 20 years. And it embarrasses the hell out of me. I don’t deserve the title of doctor. I couldn’t stitch somebody’s leg up or diagnose a sprain or de-code an X-ray chart. Cripes, it’s all I can do to prise the lid off an Aspirin bottle. But that’s not the kind of doctor I am. My field of expertise is much more useless than that. I am a Doctor of Letters. Whatever that means. In my case, it means that sometime towards the end of the last century, a university I never attended, decided to confer an ‘honorary’ degree on me. All I had to do was show up on Convocation Day dressed like a transvestite with a black pizza box balanced on my head and give a speech. Hey, presto! A doctor was born. I gave a pretty good speech if I do say so, but it was hardly the equivalent of eight years of study and practice that most doctors put in before they get their diploma. And yet, if I cared to, I could have cards printed up with ‘Doctor’ in front of my name. I could perhaps enhance my chances with reservations clerks by letting it be known that they were dealing with ‘Doctor’ Black, not some doofus who usually wears a ball cap and running shoes. I don’t. With my luck I’d just be checking in to a hotel as Doctor Black when the guy in line behind me would turn purple, swoon and do a face plant. Someone would sing out “IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?” And the check-in clerk would point at me. “Yes, well, not really…that is, I am a doctor but…” Mind you there are a lot of fake doctors out there who really do ride their trophy credentials in the hope of gaining some kind of social prestige. In my experience, the more a person talks about being a doctor, the less chance he or she is a doctor of anything useful. And even at that, being a doctor doesn’t automatically confer respect. I know a heart surgeon who went to pick up his motorcycle from a garage he’d taken it to for a tune-up. The mechanic who worked on his bike smirked as he wiped his hands with a cloth. “You know doc, we’re pretty much in the same line of work. I took the cylinder head off your bike this afternoon. That’s like a heart. I open it up, take the valves out, fix ‘em, put ‘em back in and it purrs like a kitten. So how come you get the big bucks and I get chicken feed when we do the same work?” The surgeon smiled and said, “Try doing it while the engine is running.” Arthur Black Other Views This Doctor Black is a fake On Saturday, June 8, the Toronto Blue Jays triumphed over the Texas Rangers by a score of 4-3 in the longest game in Blue Jays history. It lasted 18 innings, two full nine-inning games and nearly five and a half hours. Pretty long game, eh? Well it wasn’t even the longest game of the day. In Flushing, New York, the Miami Marlins and New York Mets played a 20-inning affair that lasted nearly six and a half hours and ended with a 2-1 win by the Marlins. I was lucky (yes, lucky) enough to be at the Toronto game and yes, I stayed for the entire game. However, two of these freak occurrences in one day has sparked a debate that has long dogged baseball: the length of its games. Baseball has been played for hundreds of years, but the first rules of baseball were published in 1845. Those rules made no mention of a game clock and in the subsequent 168 years we seem to have gotten along alright. It remains, however, the only major North American sport without some sort of clock. Baseball runs on its own time and baseball purists will tell you that’s how they like it. Baseball is one game that harkens back to years gone by more than any other sports, except perhaps golf. It moves at a snail’s pace and it takes a truly patient person to understand it and even to find the joy in watching it. Some of the recent whining seems to blame Bill James, Billy Beane and what’s commonly referred to as ‘Moneyball’. Moneyball is the blanket term for statistical baseball evaluation, where more emphasis is placed on walks and getting on base, rather than flashy glamour statistics like home runs and stolen bases. The theory is that because batters are taking more pitches, games are lasting longer and people are becoming bored because of it. There is a statistic out there stating that the average baseball game today lasts 30 minutes longer than the average game 40 years ago. The blame has also been placed on players and their extravagant and self-indulgent routines. Critics point to a player like Nomar Garciaparra, now retired, and his lengthy “ritual” before he faced a pitch. Garciaparra, who no doubt was a card-carrying member of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder club, was reviled by many for a process before every pitch where he adjusted his batting gloves several times and performed a series of toe taps before he would face a pitch, every pitch, every at-bat. I’m also getting irritated at the debate over “bean ball” as it’s called, where for one reason or another the pitcher of Team A hits a player on Team B with a pitch and the next inning, Team B’s pitcher hits a player on Team A with a pitch, letting that team know that kind of behaviour will not be tolerated. It is the best form of self-policing in sports. However, every time there is a bench- clearing brawl in baseball, like last week’s involving Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke and Diamondbacks’ pitcher, every talking head on the television and every newspaper columnist now calls for stiffer penalties and a change to the “Wild West” way of playing baseball. They always act as though violence has recently “cropped up” in baseball. Ty Cobb used to sharpen his spikes, for Pete’s sake. Baseball has been this way since it began, leave it alone. It doesn’t need to be timed and it doesn’t need to be less violent. Both bench- clearing brawls and 20-inning games are extremely rare, but they are a part of the game’s fabric and they always should be. Leave baseball alone Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Many times when a story comes out of Quebec about segregation or discrimination, it’s about language and language barriers and using English as well as French. What that translates to, in my mind, is that many of these stories come from a place of pride, a place of wanting to maintain one’s history. I don’t have a problem with that. A more recent ruling coming out of Quebec, however, has nothing to do with history, nothing to do with culture and nothing to do with politics and government at all from where I’m standing, and I couldn’t agree more with it. Unfortunately, the Parti Québécois decided to make it political. The Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) recently suspended the Quebec Soccer Federation (QSF) for maintaining a ban on turbans, patkas and keskis (religious coverings). The decision to ban them was labelled as a precautionary measure until soccer/football’s governing body, the Federation International Football Association (FIFA), could clarify the religious coverings presence in the game. When FIFA declared that it could be used provided it was safe and the same colour as a players uniform, the QSF subsequently reversed when they received clarification. For those of you who don’t follow this as intensely as I do, the ban was controversial because it is essentially said that, for safety reasons, cultural or religious clothing could not be worn on the field. The rule, in my mind, likely stems from other rulings that have been issued regarding headwear on the pitch. Law 4 in the 18 written laws of the game handed down by FIFA dictates that equipment, beyond the normal garb and gear of a footballer, shall be inspected and allowed on the pitch at the discretion of the official. It also states that additional equipment shall only be worn for the protection of the player. That law seems fairly straight forward to me, however, FIFA seems to believe otherwise. There are now exceptions to that rule. People wear goggles instead of glasses, people with skin disorders wear hats to not become sunburnt and people with light sensitivity and a note from a doctor can wear sunglasses. Banning turbans, patkas and keskis, however, was considered by the QSF as a safety decision because Sikh individuals are mandated to not cut their hair which could create a hazard. The argument is that turbans and the like should be allowed because the individuals may run into situations where their hair is a danger. It’s also been proposed that not allowing them to wear it would be discriminatory. When I hear statements like this, my mind jumps to, as my father likes to say, a bull sitting in the commode reading a newspaper. Let me, first and foremost, state my stance has nothing to do with religion. My beliefs and, if I were still on the pitch, my decision would have to do with the safety of players, both those who would wear the religious covering and those who don’t and even those not on the field because this is a slippery slope. When I was young and first becoming a referee, I was told that, with no exceptions, headwear was not allowed on the field. It was a good rule. The reasons for it ranged from the realistic (catching a ball off the “smartie” or bill of a hat hurts, you could hurt someone with the bill off the hat, it could come off and become a distraction or a hazard) to the ridiculous (someone could line a sweatband with nails and gouge other players, a player could hide a weapon in their hat, a player could put a sharp edge on their headwear to attack other players). It was a ruling made not to appease anyone, not to be overly inclusive and, most importantly, it followed the 19th – or unwritten – law: common sense. Should you call an intentional hand ball? Yes. Should you call an intentional hand ball if the offending team had a goal scored against them in the same play? Well no, that would defy common sense. Should players be allowed to wear a hat in a game where you literally have to use your head? No. What if it’s religious? Who cares. This is a safety issue and common sense states no one is forcing them to play the game. I’m not saying there isn’t a time and a place to defend the rights of people to wear their religious and cultural artifacts. If you’re not allowed to wear your turban, your confirmation necklace or your yarmulke at work and it has nothing to do with actual safety regulations, then there is an issue. Playing a sport, on the other hand, is a choice and it’s a situation where safety is much more of a concern than in some workplaces. I’m not against people being vocal about or outwardly displaying their religion. I am, however, against common sense taking a day off so we can worry about being inclusive of every person the world over. Not to fuel any stereotypes here, but any headgear at all can be used to hide things in it, any headgear at all can become a hazard and, beyond that, any headgear at all can be pulled off or pulled on or mistreated. Part of why soccer has become so successful is because of how accessible it is. Uniforms are provided to the players and all they ever have to worry about are a pair of cleats, a pair of socks and a jock or a jill if they’re not feeling adventurous. You could splurge on the cleats, or, like me, you can get by with whatever pair of mostly-black cleats are on sale at Canadian Tire in the off-season for $10. It isn’t about name brands and status. The more we add to the uniform, the more it becomes about status and the less it becomes about safety and inclusion. I believe that the right decision was to not allow any religious items on the field. FIFA missed an opportunity here to enact a socially conscionable ruling. They didn’t though, and now I fear where this decision’s impact will end. Today it’s a turban, tomorrow Scotsmen will wear their horsehair sporran, the day after that, a ceremonial knife will be on the field and I’m sure that will end well. Between previous announcements to stop keeping score of the game and announcements like this, I have to wonder when soccer will become nothing more than 24 players without a team affiliation (we don’t want there to be any kind of organization, then someone might get left out) each wearing whatever they want (we don’t want to infringe on their individuality, even if it is a team game) trying to kick a ball in no particular direction (because goals provide too much competition and someone might get their feelings hurt if they don’t score a goal) for four minutes before we give them a 15 minute nutritional break (because heaven forbid they go longer than that without a chance to eat one of a dozen meals throughout the day). Is it too late to check out of this world and find a new one? Denny Scott Denny’s Den Soccer: Now common sense free!