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Wednesday, July 6, 1994
SPORTS UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports' bad boys need bench time
Why is it when an O.J. Simpson or a Mike Tyson goes to court America's ears suddenly perk up? The answer is simple. It's because athletes seldom reach the point in our judicial system where a courtroom or a judge is required. This would lead you to believe that 99 percent of all athletes wouldn't dream of breaking the law, right? Wrong. They do it all the time.
NBA players broke the law in the majority of the playoff games this year. And our boys of summer aren't exactly perfect angels either. Malicious acts of crime occur every week on the baseball diamonds.
Most of these wrong-doings come in the form of fighting, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that violence is increasing in professional sports at an alarming rate. Something needs to be done. My solution: take them to court. Treat these overpaid, pampered brats like normal people.
For some strange reason, society has accepted the validity of physically harming another human being as long as its within the arena of play for any given sport. This makes no sense!
What's the difference between a man throwing a beer bottle at another man and Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens intentionally hitting a batter? Well, besides Clemens possessing the ability to throw an object 95 m.p.h. with great accuracy, there is no difference. Yet when Clemens, obviously the more lethal, hurds a fast ball at a batter, he might be suspended for a game. Who cares? But the drink guy who works for $5 an hour throwing an empty beer bottle will probably be arrested, go to jail, pay a fine, and go to court.
Why can't we treat athletes like everybody else? Maybe they'll think twice, even three times, before throwing a punch, or a baseball, at another human.
And just for the record, the NBA is even worse than professional baseball. The 1994 NBA post-season was marred with fighting. These incidents were highlighted with a bench-clearing brawl between the Miami Heat and the Atlanta Hawks on April 30th. The episode was started by Miami's Grant Long, when he put a rather
impressive choke-hold on Atlanta's Duane Farrel. Isn't that referred to as battery in the real world?
Looking back to that Clemens fastball, couldn't a good lawyer, a really good lawyer, prove that a baseball thrown at an innocent batter, which usually brings negative results like broken bones, is grounds for attempted murder?
Maybe Kansas City Royals catcher Mike Macfarlane, who at the end of the 1993 season, had been hit by 47 major league pitches, should give a call to Robert Shapiro.
Here is an additional thought: hockey, traditionally the roughest of our major sports, is now experiencing less and less fighting. This is because the National Hockey League offices have implemented several disciplinary actions to be taken against both the players involved in fighting and, in some cases, their coaches.
Because taking players to court is a slightly radical idea at this time in sports, maybe sports like baseball and basketball should take a lesson from hockey. In hockey, when a player is penalized, he often sits out for a two minute period, while his team is forced to continue play shoredhanded. What if other sports adopted this policy? Could you imagine an NBA team playing with only four players for two minutes? Or how about a Major League Baseball team playing with only eight players on the field?
Maybe if we start treating athletes like everyday people by formally charging them with the crimes they commit, then athletes will start acting like athletes again
Ely Goldstein is an Overland Park senior major in advertising.
Ken Geiger / Knight-Ridder Tribune
Count them out
U. S. defender Marcelo Balboa (17) is consoled by teammate Tony Meola, goalkeeper, after the United States' loss to Brazil in Stanford, Calif. Brazil won the match 1-0 Monday and advanced to the quarterfinals.
DA: Simpson had opportunity to kill
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A limousine driver and a guest at O.J. Simpson's estate told a tale of thumps in the night and a shadowy figure hurrying into the mansion as prosecutors yesterday sought to establish that Simpson had as much as 75 minutes to commit murder.
Limo driver Allan Park testified that he arrived early at Simpson's mansion for a 10:45 p.m. pickup the night of the murders and that no one answered the intercom until after he saw an African-American person slip into the house close to 11 p.m.
"He told me he overslept, that he just got out of the shower and he'd be down in a minute," Park said of the voice over the intercom that he believed to be Simpson's.
And Brian "Kato" Kaelin, who lives in a guest house on the estate, said that he and Simpson returned from dinner about 9:45 p.m. and that he didn't see him again until he went out to investigate thumps he heard at 10:40 p.m. He saw Simpson a short time later getting into the limousine.
Earlier testimony at the preliminary hearing has suggested that Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, a friend of hers, were killed between 10 and 11 p.m. June 12.
Howard Weitzman, one of Simpson's previous attorneys, said he
was told by police that the slayings happened about 11 p.m. and that Simpson was at home at that time waiting for his ride to the airport. Simpson's lawyers have not disclosed his whereabouts in the hour or two leading up to 11 p.m.
In morning testimony, Park told of arriving early at Simpson's mansion on June 12 for a previously arranged 10:45 p.m. pickup, set to take Simpson to the airport
Park said he repeatedly buzzed Simpson's intercom by the front gate from around 10:40 to 10:50 p.m. but didn't get an answer until around 11 p.m. Moments before, he said he saw a tall, African-American person slip into the front door of the estate.
Park said the mystery figure was about 6 feet tall, 200 pounds, dressed in dark clothes and "was walking pretty fast." He couldn't tell it if a man or woman, but he acknowledged the build was probably that of a man.
Asked by Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark about Simpson's behavior when he came out to the limo, Park said, "Tnever met him before, and everything seemed OK to me." He said he saw no sign of injury to Simpson.
Park also testified that he didn't remember seeing Simpson's white Ford Bronco outside the house when he drove by one of the compound's gates. He spent most of his time waiting at the other gate.
Baseball dispute continues
The Associated Press
NEW YORK—Baseball players are expected to present their opening contract demands when negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement resume today.
At the session, the Major League Baseball Players Association is expected to ask that the threshold for salary arbitration be lowered to two years, the level from 1974 through 1985. It then was raised
to three years, but the top 17 percent by service in the 2-to-3 year group had been eligible since after the 1990 season.
The union also is expected to ask for raises in the minimum salary, currently $109,000, and per diems.
Management is demanding a salary cap from the players' association, and the union's executive board will consider setting a strike date when it meets Monday in Pittsburgh.
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