The cord that binds what we call our modern “sports culture” — the difference between now and then, whenever “then” was — is the removal of common sense. Sense has been beaten senseless by style.
In baseball, posing at home plate is now standard. That such hopeful or expectant preening has no upside, that the player risks embarrassment, often settling for a base or two less than where he should be, while placing his team’s goals in peril, makes no impression significant enough to inspire change.
And if there’s a manager, general manager or team owner who insists, as a matter of common sense, that such counterproductive fashion statements cease, I figure we all would know about him by now.
In basketball, players risk the same personal and team peril by eschewing easy layups and dunks to perform wild, twisting, SportsCenter-op slams. And if you don’t injure yourself or make a fool of yourself by clanging it, you don’t get back on defense, you give the TV camera beneath the basket a bad-### stare — even if there is no TV camera.
In hockey, upon scoring a big goal, you now bolt to the nearest corner and throw yourself, with a jump, into the boards and glass. On skates. It’s the fad. You risk the risk, you “board” yourself, commit a high-speed physical act on yourself that would draw a penalty if perpetrated by an opponent.
All of the above have been copied by what players saw — then saw again and again — on TV. As spontaneous acts, they’re bereft of spontaneity, but worthy of slo-mo replays and promos.
Then, there’s football.
In an irony-rich collision of circumstances, Steelers wide receiver Santonio Holmes was voted the 2009 Super Bowl MVP when he as easily could forever be known as the most infamous all-about-me stylist in Super Bowl history.
With the Cardinals up 23-20 and under a minute left, Holmes caught a pass, then ran to the Arizona 6. The clock was running; Pittsburgh had one timeout left. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger desperately waved his team to the line, perhaps to spike the ball to stop the clock …
… but then, he spotted Holmes, who was beyond the new line of scrimmage, engaged in an obligatory self-impressed routine. He was too busy me-dancing to think, know or care about anything else.
The Steelers had to use their last timeout. With 35 seconds left, Roethlisberger threw the winning touchdown pass — to Holmes.
Mike Tomlin was Pittsburgh’s coach then and now. And nothing has changed. Tomlin’s teams still regularly provide aid, comfort and 15 yards for misconduct to the enemy. No change from Holmes, either. He brought his me-first act to the Jets.
Sunday, after catching a touchdown pass from Roethlisberger, Steelers receiver Antonio Brown did his best to enable the previously 0-3 Buccaneers’ stunning upset in Pittsburgh.
Brown, who in 2012 was fined $10,000 for excessively immodest and taunting unsportsmanlike conduct, spun the ball on its tip, then, in a continuing, plain stupid performance, stood at attention, then fell like a tree, as if he still hadn’t gotten over himself.
Fifteen yards.
Anyway, Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch, who hadn’t missed a game in over eight seasons, is out for the year, having wrecked a knee performing a wild dance designed to mock Aaron Rodgers, who he just had sacked.
However, Tulloch, a college man who had full scholarship to North Carolina State, claimed he suffers from neither embarrassment nor regret.
“Hell, no,” he told Detroit’s Free Press, “I’d do it again, brother. You do it every time. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”