One of our readers was pretty unhappy with me because, he said, I bashed Justine Henin-Hardenne in my last post. True, I did compare her to Justine in De Sade’s book of the same name but it was, at least partly, in fun and I also gave Kim Clijsters a part in the book. The point was that Justine has the top dog gene and Kim does not. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
…statistics can get boring very quickly but personality, and more importantly, perception of personality, is an endlessly fascinating subject.
Bashing athletes is not uncommon in the sports world, you can hear it any day of the week on sports radio. One of the most virulent cases of bashing involves Alex Rodriguez, the beleaguered third baseman for the New York Yankees. Here is a guy who’s never had a DUI, never been arrested for domestic abuse and was the MVP of the league last year, yet he is treated mercilessly by the sports media.
The biggest reason is his huge salary, exactly $25,680,727 per year. For that kind of money, the reasoning goes, he should be perfect. It also happens to be $5 million more than the salary of the shortstop on his team, Derek Jeter, who has also never had a DUI and never been arrested for domestic abuse. Unfortunately for Rodriguez, Jeter is a clutch player and has played on five championship Yankee teams while Rodriguez batted .133 in the 2005 playoffs and has no championship rings.
You can’t really complain when the sports media uses statistics to denigrate a player’s worth because sport is all about results, but when the media theorizes about a player’s personality, then it has the potential to turn ugly. And that’s a problem because statistics can get boring very quickly but personality, and more importantly, perception of personality, is an endlessly fascinating subject.
In Wednesday’s New York Times Sports Section, Selena Roberts called Rodriguez a poser. Not just because he was caught by the paparazzi suntanning shirtless and leaning his perfect body against a rock in Central Park but because everything he does is perfect, no hair is ever out of place. She even calls him out for deferring to Jeter and agreeing to play third base – shortstop is his natural position – as part of being traded to the Yankees: “Acts of selflessness can be exhausting if they’re orchestrated.” Rodriguez did orchestrate the trade but players orchestrate trades all the time and trying to turn a selfless act into a selfish act feels a bit desperate. It qualifies as bashing.
Having said that, the unhappy reader is probably correct. Maybe Henin-Hardenne did have a part of a power bar caught in her throat and was not, as I suggested, feigning choking so that she could interrupt Clijsters momentum in the third set of their match at Wimbledon.
Justine is getting bashed by all sides these days, not just me. Justine’s coach, Carlos Rodriguez, writes on Justine’s website that the Belgian tennis association delayed the announcement that she wouldn’t play the Fed Cup semifinal against the US for three days, presumably so that the US would think she was playing. The late announcement made it look like Justine bagged out at the last minute.
He also says that the captain of the team, Carl Maes, asked her to come to Ostend and cheer the team on. But when she arrived, Maes asked her to go home. According to Rodriguez, Maes said that her presence “would not be good for the atmosphere of the team.” The two sides have patched up their differences and Justine will play in the Fed Cup final so you have to wonder if Rodriguez is embellishing but Maes didn’t help the cause with an open letter in which he asked Justine to play in the Fed Cup final against Italy.
Look at this statement by Maes:
“I always thought that had Justine been injured in a more obvious way the public would have found this a more adequate excuse.”
Is he asking for sympathy towards Justine or agreeing with people who wonder, for instance, if Justine really could have finished the Australia Open final against Amelie Mauresmo instead of retiring?
And this:
“I only have the sporting interest of the team at heart and it is clear that we have a greater chance of success with both top world players.”
And your point is? This sounds like one of those companies that pays a huge fine with the agreement that they don’t have to admit any guilt.
It seems clear that the Belgian Fed Cup team grossly mishandled this matter and that’s unfortunate for Justine because she doesn’t need any more problems than she already has. Dealing with a hidden illness can be very difficult.
But Rodriguez should have taken his complaints to the Belgian tennis association exclusively, not the public. His characterization of the situation makes Justine look like the aggrieved victim and that doesn’t help her cause. People already wonder if Justine acts selfishly at times. By detailing every word and every slight, he put the focus, again, on Justine.