CHEAT TO COMPETE?

The New England Patriots and Tom Brady plan to appeal their various punishments from the NFL over Deflategate, and who is surprised? The natural order of things is to get caught, deny the offense, appeal the offense, and then say the offense was never intended in the first place.

Hey, cheating has a long history in sports. Consider some ancient aphorisms: “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” “It ain’t cheatin’ if you don’t get caught.” “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t competin.’”

Baseball has had its spitballs, its corked bats, its widespread use of steroids. Basketball fines players for flopping (trying to draw fouls). Football’s history is rife with Stick-Um on the hands of receivers, silicone spray on the jerseys of linemen to mitigate holding, the artificial pumping-up of sound in the stadium.

Then there’s golf. Golf asks its participants to call penalties on themselves. Your weekend hackers probably (probably???) kick the odd ball back into play but the professionals abide by the code (in general, sometimes when they are confronted with the infraction).

David Toms pulled out of the 2005 British Open over a possible violation with his putter that even videotape couldn’t prove. Tom Kite took a one-stroke penalty in the 1978 Hall of Fame classic when he lined up a putt and saw the ball move a fraction of an inch. He lost by one stroke. And what did he say afterwards? “If you don’t play by the rules, you are not playing golf.” During the 1925 U.S. Open, Bobby Jones addressed a ball in the rough, then saw it move slightly. He called a one-shot penalty on himself though no one else witnessed the violation. Credited for his willingness to do the right thing, Jones answered: “You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.”

Consider the United States Military Academy’s honor code: “A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.” Tolerating a breach is equivalent to committing it.

There is such a thing as honor. Rare as it may be.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .