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SO
what’s the fuss over LeBron James’s wearing a New York
Yankees cap?
People
were insulted? C’mon. Get a life!
Even
before James played a National Basketball Association
(NBA) minute as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, he
was already a New York Yankees fan. Just because he’s
the face of the Cavs, does that mean he should root for
every hometown boy? It would be nice were it not for
freedom of choice. So it’s also wrong for him to root
for the Dallas Cowboys of which he’s also a professed
fan? Tell that to Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde
who left Akron to pursue her rock star dreams in London,
England (where she found it and more).
Cleveland
is also the home of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame,
should people be upset because James’s iPod has rap
music on heavy rotation? Should James have been more
circumspect of wearing a Yankees cap to the
Indians-Yankees game? Maybe, but what’s wrong with
showing whom you are rooting for? It’s not like it’s the
first time he wore that cap with the interlocking “N”
and “Y.”
Cross-border allegiances are nothing new. Toward the end
of Michael Jordan’s run with the Chicago Bulls, a very
conspicuous presence on the courtside seats of the
United Center was one Jack Nicholson, he of the Boston
Celtic-hating heart and defender of the Los Angeles
Lakers’ purple and gold. Who wasn’t a Jordan fan during
those days? Oh, right there was Isiah Thomas and Bill
Laimbeer and the second edition Bad Boys in the New York
Knicks.
In the
final playing day of last season’s Spanish La Liga,
among the fans at the Santiago De Bernabeu was tennis
star Rafael Nadal. The clay court specialist is actually
from the
island of
Mallorca
whose team was playing Real Madrid that day. But Nadal
was rooting for the Spanish giants who went on to claim
the title that day by virtue of a 3-1 comeback win.
One of
my favorite bookstores is the
Strand in
Union Square,
New York. When I was living in the Big Apple, I would
pass by the bookstore—which would look right at home in
Diagon Alley—at least once a week. In the basement where
you’d find the hardcover and coffeetable books, there
was this clerk who worked the information booth who
always wore a Boston Red Sox cap. One time unable to
contain my curiosity, I asked him why he did so.
Surprised that I had the temerity to ask him such a
question he cast me a stupefying glance (perhaps he’s
been asked that once too often) and replied icily,
“Because the Yankees suck!”
New York’s
allegiances are divvied up between the Yankees and the
Mets, although there is a fraction of New Yorkers who
root for the Red Sox. For the most part, everyone is
left to their own devices until their teams face each
other in fields of play. Heck, a couple of years ago,
the world famous Rockettes from Radio City wore—gasp—the
uniforms of the hated Red Sox! Was this because the
Curse was finally lifted and that the Yankees have been
in decline since Rudy Giuliani was mayor?
Yesterday, Manny Pacquiao (congratulations on your win)
was up against Marco Antonio Barrera, but do you think
that every Filipino was in his corner? Nope. Many people
are of mind that Manny has become swell-headed and that
he needs humbling. Some are envious because they’re not
a part of his posse while some are just anti-anything.
Is rooting for the Mexican traitorous? Not at all.
Whoever they’re rooting for is fine. It’s only people
who look for angles that make issues about race, creed
and baseball caps.
REMEMBER
when Charles Barkley said that he shouldn’t be anyone’s
role model just because he dunks a basketball? Well, he
was both right and wrong. Right because not every
athlete is of role model material. Wrong because of
their standing in society, athletes have the opportunity
to exert a positive influence not just on children, but
also in their communities (e.g. Dikembe Mutombo who put
up a modern hospital in his country of Zaire or Ren Ren
Ritualo who opened a pre-school in
Quezon City).
Stephen
Jackson, long-perceived to be greedy (see his
miscalculation of the free agent market when he left the
San Antonio Spurs but initially found no takers) and a
malcontent (see his tenure with the Indiana Pacers)
seems to have found a home with the Golden State
Warriors. He’s just been promoted to team captain now
that Jason Richardson is with the Charlotte Bobcats. But
of course, here’s where we find out if he’s in the mold
of Jerry Stackhouse (who has come a long way from being
a journeyman malcontent to become an upstanding citizen
in Dallas) or the next Latrell Sprewell (who played with
an overly misplaced attitude that eventually saw him out
of the league).
And
there’s Marion Jones—the latest in a long line of fallen
stars who have been caught or admitted to using
performance-enhancing drugs to win. While it may be true
that despite the drugs, one still has to go out and do
the deed, it still gives an edge over the others. It’s
sad because winning in the Olympics is seen as the
pinnacle of sports achievement and Jones won five
medals, a record for female athletes in the Summer
Games.
In last
week’s column Open Season, I forgot to add a line
that University Athletic Association of the Philippines
Commissioner Ed Cordero said in relation to the postgame
taunts and heckling that has sparked fights or other
unsavory scenes. It’s a line borrowed from the movie
Coach Carter (that also happens to be a true story),
“When is winning not enough?”
In the
case of Marion Jones and other athletes who cheat, “Is
winning everything?” |
