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Torture For Athletes
By Larry Gaffney
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I believe I am not alone in being sickened by
the misconduct of pampered, overpaid athletes. Although the mewling
jock-sniffers at ESPN would have us think otherwise, American sport fans are fed
up with egocentric celebrations, demands for higher pay by millionaires, and
criminal behavior such as drug abuse and thuggery. As a corrective for the
improprieties of athletes, I suggest the procedures of motivation and discipline
recently employed by the now deceased, former Iraqi Sport Czar, Uday Hussein.
Mr. Hussein, whose great passion was soccer, had little use for sideline
cheering and positive reinforcement, preferring to goad his players to
excellence by the threat of torture. His methods were so drastic that
by comparison our own tyrants of sport—Woody Hayes and Bobby Knight come
immediately to mind—would seem to be gurus of loving kindness.
The Iraqi soccer team’s failure to distinguish itself against international
competitors is not a fair reason to reject torture as an effective inducement.
Iraq is a small country with a limited pool of world-class athletes, and even
fear of the bastinado could not always ensure victory. But the American
athlete—weight-trained, beef-bred, and supplement-saturated—is a hardy
specimen from a much larger pool, and would, I believe, stand up quite well to
the rigors of torture.
Imagine how a good flogging might improve the demeanor of a haughty superstar
like Randy Moss. The screeches and grunts of bratty tennis professionals
will cease when cattle prods are applied to their throats. Substance
abusers will “just say no” after being forced to take drugs that cause
terrifying hallucinations or protracted nausea.
Errors in the field of play can be addressed by
appropriate means. One of Mr. Hussein’s favorite practices was to count
the number of bad passes made by his soccer players, who would then be punched
in the face an equal number of times. Similar punishment would no
doubt improve passing in the NFL, though it would mean fewer endorsements for
quarterbacks with bruised, swollen faces. Players who consider
themselves too good to hustle (who, for example, merely trot to first base on a
ground ball) can be placed in a labyrinth and pursued by starving dogs. The
pay-per-view broadcast of such an event would undoubtedly generate extra funds
for more elaborate and exquisite schemes of torture.
I will not deny that it is sensible to wonder if the public torture of athletes
might further dehumanize our culture; nevertheless, I believe that the
commonweal will be improved by my proposal. Millions of baseball fans, for
example, have suffered terrible disappointment over the ordeal of Pete Rose,
whose denial of guilt in connection with a gambling scandal has kept him from
his rightful place in the Hall of Fame. How much easier it would have been
to put Mr. Rose in the stocks for a few hours, allow him to be pelted with feces
and rotten produce, then hose him off and transport him directly to
Cooperstown for a gratifying induction ceremony.
And the practice of extreme chastisement need not be confined to rogue athletes. Veteran’s
Stadium was famous for having an on-site municipal court expressly designed to
restrain and punish the many Philadelphia fans given to rowdy behavior. Perhaps
all stadiums should have not only courts of law, but well-equipped torture
chambers so that the drunk who spits on your coat and shouts obscenities at your
children can suffer, fittingly, the immediate extraction of his tongue.
Implement this plan and let the churls of sport beware! We may happily find
ourselves in a world very like the olden days when ballplayers were grateful to
be asked for an autograph, everyone on the field hustled all the time, and you
could take your family to a game without fear of drunken abuse. Fines and
suspensions? Forget it. Torture and mutilation is a much better idea.
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Larry Gaffney unashamedly gorges on Mallomars
and loves kitty-cats. Nevertheless, he is a manly man who would enjoy
going a few rounds with Ted Nugent.
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