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!