You heard me. You've got to be a lawyer to understand the sports world these days, and I'm not talking about the Sam Spital/Bike Injury Lawyer kind of lawyer. I'm talking about the L.A. Law, Matlock, Perry Mason kind.
In November, we had noted Kingdome slugger Kevin Mitchell arrested for rape, then released. Before that, we witnessed Steinbrenner's "are you now, or have you ever been associated with a noted gambler?" incident. We had Pete Rose's gamble-o-rama. This month it's "Iron Mike" (referring not to his endurance but to what's between his ears) Tyson, in court in Chicago on rape charges.
Since I'm not that interested in jurisprudence much beyond trying to tell the difference between Wapner and the guy on The Judge, I'm going to have to resort to the other kind of sportswriting: brutally attacking people who could kill you with their pinkie fingers.
It's easier than applying to law school. Here goes.
We open on a courtroom in the midwest. The hallway to the court is filled with a mob of people, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive villain. When they finally caught him, it turned out that this wasn't the first time he had done the evil deed. He'd done it repeatedly, and not just in this one midwestern city.
He's been on the cover of a large weekly newsmagazine. He's been the subject of sick jokes by Jay Leno, David Letterman and others.
This is a riddle, folks. Who am I talking about?
Trick question. I could either be talking about a sports hero, someone they name Nintendo Games after, or I could be talking about Jeffrey Dahmer.
Do you suppose that "Jeff Dahmer's Skull-Peelin' II" will be available next to "Mike Tyson Boxing" anytime soon? Doubtful.
Then again, perhaps the reason Dahmer's not getting all the good stuff that Tyson gets is because he doesn't have good management. I'm sure Don King would have no problem taking over Dahmer's account, though. A principled man, that Don.
In Milwaukee, they're trying a man accused of being a serial killer. In Chicago, they're trying a man accused of being a serial buttocks fondler. I'll grant you there's a difference in severity here. But not a huge one.
But if you check the jurisprudence news, you'll find two big trials: Dahmer and Tyson. It's sort of like Betty Broderick and William Kennedy Smith: one's death, the other is rape.
Either way, it's not what the sports world needs. Sports fans shouldn't have to learn to pronounce big worlds (like jurisprudence, for one), and shouldn't have to understand the intricacies of the courtroom. They want to see trials like this:
PERRY MASON: Admit it, Mr. Kelly. You played the way you did so your friend John Elway could feel better about his Super Bowl performance.
JIM KELLY: No! That's not true!
MASON: Admit it, Kelly. You did it for Elway, and for Scott Norwood.
KELLY: Norwood?
MASON: Isn't it true that you told Mr. Norwood that after you were done with the Super Bowl, he could sell his Kevorkian SleepMaster 2000?
KELLY: Yes, I admit it! It's true! And it would have worked, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids! (He focuses his hateful stare on the dog tags of Scooby-Doo before collapsing in tears.)
That's what sports fans should see. That, and maybe some Matlock reruns. And that's what sportswriters should be writing.
To repeat what I said: I'd really like to be a sportswriter. But.
Here's the other "but": ...But I don't want to realize how dense some of the sports readers really are. When I wrote my scathing column about UNLV a year ago, suggesting that perhaps Tarkanian's boys weren't really on the up-and-up, I received a threatening phone call. (Maybe I should go to law school, just so I could realize how many laws these guys were breaking by threatening me, and how much more they'd break if they actually did "kick my ass" for saying those things about UNLV.) True, the guy probably couldn't have even spelled "UNLV," let alone "Tarkanian," but he still intruded into my private life.
Another reason to not be a sportswriter is dealing with people who, for whatever reason, just don't understand what you write. Now, when I wrote a column suggesting that Mike Tyson and Don King were involved in voodoo, I didn't expect people to understand it. Hell, I didn't understand it.
But take Peter Ko's "Bits and Pieces" column, which has appeared in this publication for over a year. He ends it with a Ko trademark: "yikes." It's a word that sounds like it came straight out of Scooby-Doo, so you'd figure that these people would understand what it means. "Yikes" is, of course, a word one utters when one is surprised or stunned by something. It's like a verbal gulp, or the word "wow."
Ko has used his "yikes" to cover all sorts of subjects, from the humorous to the serious. Among the "yikes" have been Willie Shoemaker (after his car accident), Mike Tyson (after he was accused of rape), and the "yikes" of the entire year of 1991 was Magic Johnson. Obviously, a "yikes" isn't meant to be a laugh riot. It's meant to be a reference to a stunning event.
So when Ko "yikesed" Earnest Killum, the NCAA basketball star who died after a stroke, he probably didn't expect much to happen. Killum had been warned about his medical condition, and said he wanted to play basketball. Then he died.
It was tragic, and it was shocking. When I heard about it, my initial response was probably to say "yikes."
However, the Guardian received a letter that not only took exception with Killum being a "yikes" subject, but demanded that Ko be removed. Not from the column, but from the whole newspaper.
Maybe I don't really want to be a sportswriter.
Sure, the games are fun. But the chimps you have to deal with can be hell.
Jeffrey Dahmer? Yikes.