From the Bleachers

What is sportsmanship? Many people will have so many different answers for this simple question.

Sportsmanship is defined has a matter of being good (character) and doing right (action) in sports. But what does this really mean? If you look over the past five years, Barry Bonds has changed significantly since his days in Pittsburgh. Even though now matured Bonds still is hated by many baseball fans. Why?

Is it about a record, too big for any one to break until Bonds has a year of has life. What is the problem what people comparing Bonds 2001 season to Mark McGwire’s 1998 recording breaking year? Is the fact that McGwire did problems in his past such as injuries and personal problems. But if you can remember back to the late `80′s and early `90′s, McGwire had many problems with the media. In 1998, when McGwire and Sammy Sosa both were going after Roger Maris’s home run record, everyone wanted McGwire to pull through and beat Sosa. What is the difference between now and then?

Maybe the fact that Bonds is also playing a pennant race ,where McGwire doesn’t have the luxury to experience both at the same time. After listening to Bonds, this year so many things can run through one person’s head. Maybe this man has actually changed to become a role model and not a stick in the mud. I can see why people do not want Bonds to break such a record that stood for only three years. Before McGwire broke Maris’s record of 61 homeruns, that record stood for 39 years, and I could see people saying that Bonds is doing this too soon after McGwire.

Players who are entering their rookie season will be labeled either with or without sportsmanship. Who makes that label? sure the media does, but what is to say that the player was having a bad day and the media wanted him to speak and he chose not to? Does this all of sudden make that player have a label of being rude, mean, selfish, and let’s not forget, only playing for the money. Why, in one day, do we as fans go from loving a player to hating him? Even when local events, such as the one last week, in which a intramural flag football game was stopped because one player decided to take action against the other team because his team made a bad play, deal with sportsmanship. Where is the sportsmanship in that? There is none. To take actio, against a fellow classmate and break his arm in the act of defeat is just wrong. Here at Georgia College & State University, one of the 3 R’s is Respect, but if students can not act respectfully towards each other, then why do we even have the 3 R’s.

I do hope that Barry Bonds will break McGwire’s homerun record. I think at the time our country is in, this will do a lot of people some good. Bonds has significantly changed his perspective on things since he matured, and why can’t some people see how he has changed. Taking action against an opposing player for the realization that you have been defeated is just morally and physically wrong. Sportsmanship can make or break someone’s career, whether it be in Major League Baseball or an intramural flag football game, people must use their best actions, or we as people can no longer consider sportsmanship an issue in the sports environment.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 5 2001. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry