Baseball Gets Spit in the Face and Turns the Other Cheek

If you’ve ever been spit on, you know it’s no fun, especially if you had left the house without a handkerchief. During my youth in the mean streets and cornfields of Nebraska, I was, on separate occasions, spit on and slugged in the face. Given the choice today of which moment to revisit, I’d take the fist.

Being punched has a manly aspect to it. Among males, everyone from truckers to novelists has been punched, so it’s our universal war story. Getting dazed or knocked down from a good stiff punch lends itself to the kind of bravado that we men seem to enjoy: “Yeah, he caught me with a good shot, but it was no big deal. I’ve been hit harder.”

Spitting, on the other hand, is for punks. Real men never say, “I’ll never forget the time I spit on that guy. I gave him a good one, right on the cheekbone.”

For that reason, spitting as a weapon is definitely declasse.

Leave it to a professional athlete to bring it back.

The culprit is baseball’s Roberto Alomar, who spit in an umpire’s face near the end of the regular season. Some say Alomar’s act was an aberration and that he’s really a nice guy, but I can’t square being inherently nice with being capable of spitting in someone else’s face. Then again, I’m perfect.

Alomar, an All-Star for the Baltimore Orioles, has been suspended for the first five games of next season. The critical issue as it relates to world events, though, is that he’s being allowed to play in the all-important playoffs.

Alomar’s crime was obviously an impetuous act, but even so, his timing couldn’t have been worse. He put the powers that be in the position either of penalizing him at the most important time of the season or, in effect, not penalizing him at all by delaying the suspension until April.

In its infinite capacity of late to always make the wrong decision, baseball chose the latter.

As a selfish baseball fan, I’d prefer to see Alomar in the playoffs--even if he is playing for a wild-card team (that in itself should have made immediate suspension more palatable). Yet, as someone who loves baseball more than baseball players, I could also live without seeing him in the playoffs.

The only real issue, it seems to me, is accountability. Should a player be allowed to spit in an umpire’s face and, to use the vernacular, walk?

The debate has mistakenly turned into a personal one, such as should Alomar be forgiven or not. Yes, forgive, forgive.

Forgive and suspend.

He didn’t commit murder. He just defiled the game and should pay an immediate price.

No death penalty, just accountability for his affront to the game. It’s fairly simple: If players spit on umpires and get away with it, before long you don’t have a game anymore.

It’s ridiculous to argue that a five-game suspension next April is punishment that fits this crime. Don’t believe the old baseball canard that games in April are as important as those in September. If the American League wanted to delay Alomar’s suspension until the start of the ’97 season, it should have sat him down for 10 to 15 games. That would be a punishment that would actually punish.

One reason sports has historically appealed to us is that, unlike real life, rule-breakers are held immediately accountable. Call it frontier justice. Commit six fouls in pro basketball and you’re gone for the rest of the game. No appeal. Slash someone in hockey and you go to the penalty box right now. No appeal. Kick dirt on an umpire’s shoes and you’re outtathere.

Why, pray tell, should spitting in an umpire’s face warrant a five-game suspension . . . next year?

Sport used to be the ultimate practitioner of “justice delayed is justice denied,” but not anymore.

The way things are going now, don’t be surprised if the baseball players’ union eventually insists on immediate appeals of ejections during a game. Why not? What’s the legal distinction between having the power to throw someone out of a game and having the power to suspend him? One of these days, we’ll see someone kicked out for arguing with the umpire in the third inning and be reinstated on appeal in the fourth.

The point is, sport at all levels--from Little League to the major leagues--is built on playing by the rules and, if you don’t, on accountability for your indiscretions. Now along comes Alomar to spit in an umpire’s face and he’s spared. I shudder to think what other high-strung players might do during the upcoming series, knowing that no matter how flagrant their offense may be, they’ll be in the starting lineup the next day.

Just wondering, do umpires carry Mace?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.