Bigotry is Bad. Sport is Good.

As of this writing, an NBA investigation has not conclusively proven that a voice message from Clippers owner Donald Sterling revealed a blatantly racist outlook. Whether fabricated by a vengeful acquaintance or coming straight from Sterling’s heart, someone uttered the reprehensible, irredeemable remarks.

The preponderance of the evidence indicates at this point that a prominent owner in one of the world’s most prominent sports leagues did, in fact, utter the statements in question. That anyone would hold such attitudes is horrific. The fact we consider it as such speaks to the nature of sport.

Sportsmen and women tend to have a passion for winning. It often trumps every other consideration related to gameplay, including fitness, business, and appreciation of athleticism. Sometimes an unswerving quest to win can have negative consequences. In the case of racism, however, it becomes a positive.

The need to win requires one to evaluate people based on their individual abilities to help achieve that goal. It has little tolerance for bunching individuals into arbitrary groups based on criteria other than helping you win. In a competitive environment, you get to indulge your irrational biases or you get to win. Whether you’re football-playing southern colleges in the 1960s and 1970s or a modern-day pro team owner, you don’t get to do both.

Teams tend to care more about winning a ring than about what color finger it goes on.

 If Sterling is an inveterate racist (which he has denied in a statement), sport has forced him not to implement policies based on his outlook, at least not openly and to the extent he might have preferred. He has had to hire African-Americans into the most prominent and highly-paid positions in his organization, including management (q.v. Elgin Baylor, Doc Rivers). He has had to pay them the market rate of millions of dollars a year because they give him the best chance to win.

In turn, when competitive pressures force franchise management to evaluate players as individuals, others connected to the arena must do the same. Sterling apparently managed to ignore how color-blind hiring helped his team. Most in the business prove more perceptive. When Jackie Robinson first joined the Dodgers, some of his teammates felt racial animosity toward him. Once they recognized how his skin color indicated nothing about his character or ability to help them to their goals, they changed their thinking.⁽¹⁾  While sport will always reflect society’s prejudices to a certain extent, it moves them in a more tolerant direction by its essential essence.

If Jack Johnson boxed today, 99.9% of the discussion about him would revolve around his punching prowess. The mainstream media certainly wouldn’t tout the desperate possibility of a “Great White Hope” to defeat him.⁽²⁾ Indeed, we expect no pundits to rush to defend the Clippers owner’s alleged remarks. We also anticipate every official governing body connected with the incident will roundly condemn the bigotry they expressed.

We see such condemnation because a competitive spirit doesn’t just suppress racism on the court. It is unimaginable that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver would share Sterling’s presumed views on race. But even if he and his senior staff did, they could not rationally indulge their biases. They would risk losing enormous market share in the short and long terms to leagues that instead chose hiring and marketing methodologies that maximized their potential talent and customer pools. In fact, while there is still progress needed in minority business-side opportunities, the sports world’s necessary on-court race neutrality has often given athletes the exposure necessary to demonstrate that they possessed traits that could also help sporting businesses succeed off the court.

Racism, like all irrational worldviews, may never disappear completely. A competitive environment, however, forces it to its deserved fringes. How far to the fringes? Alleged racist Donald Sterling apparently had to hide his hate sufficiently thoroughly that the NAACP had planned to give him an award, and not for the first time. ⁽³⁾  

As Charles Barkley said, the NBA is a “Black League.” ⁽⁴⁾ He’s right. It’s also an international league, a tattooed league, an inner-city league, a Midwest farm boy league, and, most importantly, a merit-based league. Its very nature prevents it from being anything else.

UPDATE : The league apparently has conclusively determined that the statements attributed to Sterling did, in fact, come from him. They decided the remarks and their speaker have no place in the sport.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

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Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ “Bobby Bragan and Jackie Robinson,” Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation. http://www.bobbybragan.org/component/content/article/1-latest-news/141-bobby-bragan-and-jackie-robinson (accessed April 27, 2014)

⁽²⁾ Christopher Lisee, “Black Boxers in the American Media,” Christopher Lisee. http://eportfolios.ithaca.edu/clisee1/essays/boxing/ (accessed April 27, 2014)

⁽³⁾ “Donald Sterling To Receive NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award” Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/26/donald-sterling-naacp_n_5219708.html (accessed April 27, 2014)

⁽⁴⁾ Richard Deitsch, “Barkley and the TNT halftime crew react to Sterling's comments,” Sports Illustrated. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20140426/donald-sterling-shaquille-o-neal/ (accessed April 27, 2014)

A Post Inspired By Socks

I got a present last week from my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces. They gave me socks.

OK, so now you're thinking they must not like me very much. Socks aren't normally a present one brags about. These foot warmers, however, feature a vintage photo of Laker great Jerry West on-court, driving to his left, repeated twice on each sock. They have stripes, too. They look way cool, in a sports nerd sort of way.

I thanked my family for the present, of course, which I truly did like. It also got me to thinking : Why? Why do I have an affinity for these garish stockings featuring a player I never saw play live clad in the uniform of a team I never particularly liked?

At various points in my life, I have shown some fan's animosity for the Lakers. I rooted for the Mavericks in the 1980s, and still contend that Byron Scott shot better against Dallas than anyone else and that Magic Johnson cajoled his way into favorable officiating. Later, Kobe Bryant's legal shenanigans soured me on his L.A. teams. The Lakers' position in the industry and showy image will likely preclude any future embrace of them as plucky underdogs. So maintaining at least a dulled antipathy seems the likely continued relationship between the Lakers and me. But then there's Jerry West. Jerry West is different.

I've never met Jerry West during my career in sports business, so my perspective on him comes strictly as an outsider. But he's the, um, logo. He's the guy they modeled the NBA logo after.⁽¹⁾ The photograph on my footwear looks very similar to the one they used for the design.

That project (the logo, not the hosiery, as far as I know) came toward the end of his playing career. It wasn't done to honor him per se, but it wouldn't damage the mark's credibility if it had been.

The Hall of Fame inducted West in 1980 on the strength of superb offensive statistics (including a career 27 ppg), an impressive defensive acumen, and a reputation for late-game heroics so substantial it earned him the nickname "Mr. Clutch."⁽²⁾ The superb long-range shooter put up his scoring numbers without the benefit of the three-point shot, too.

West played his last game shortly before I turned six, so I didn't get the chance to appreciate his game by watching it. As my elementary-aged self became increasingly sports geeky, however, books like the Lincoln Library of Sports Champions, volume 13 (Traynor to Worsley), helped me understand his greatness.

In addition to multiple professional All-Star selections, the guy also scored 18 in an Olympic Gold Medal Game road win against Italy in 1960.⁽³⁾ He won a high school state title, earned top player honors in an NCAA championship game (albeit in a losing effort) and eventually won an NBA title as well. I kind of think that if I had watched the league in the 1960s, I might have actually rooted for the Lakers as the relative little guys battled the Celtics dynasty (although my parents did like the Celts). West tried his best to get his team some rings. In the 1965 playoffs, he averaged 40 points a game, but the Celtics won the championship series in five games.⁽⁴⁾ I can see myself embracing those sorts of doomed heroics.

As surpassing a player as he became, West's shooting and defending alone don't make him sock-worthy. As I grew up and worked in team front offices, I came to appreciate the difficulty my colleagues in player acquisition faced in putting together winning squads. I also saw that not all players fully grasp the nuances of franchise management.

West stayed in basketball after his on-court years. He coached the Lakers for three seasons, posting winning records in each. He then moved into the front office to help build the Showtime dynasty, and, most impressively, the Bryant/O'Neal powerhouse team. As General Manager, West brilliantly figured out a way to free up the cap room to sign one future Hall-of-Famer⁽⁵⁾ while projecting another's potential as a high schooler.⁽⁶⁾ Like the Lakers or hate them, those were brilliant basketball moves. He later improved a going-nowhere Memphis team, too. The great player made the transition to great manager better than perhaps anyone has ever done it. If you reopened the job of league logo model today, the humble West probably wouldn't apply. But if he did, the addition of his non-playing credentials to the ones he garnered wearing sweatsocks moves his resume to the top of the stack.

Jerry West's record as a Hall-of-Fame caliber executive cements my willingness to wear his likeness on my feet, and indeed, I need to do some research. Maybe these exist as part of a set. If so, I really want the executive version showing West in a suit trading for cap room to sign Shaq or expertly evaluating a Gasol. Note to the family : I do have a birthday coming up.

* Note to any members of the Lakers organization reading this : whatever I thought of the Lakers in the past means nothing if you need some creative services work done. I love my clients and will endeavor to help you entertain fans and win more rings to the best of my ability. Also, I will buy more socks at your gift shop.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ “The story of the NBA logo,” Logo Design Love. http://www.logodesignlove.com/nba-logo-jerry-west (accessed April 18, 2014)

⁽²⁾ “Jerry A. West,” Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/tag/jerry-a-west (accessed April 18, 2014)

⁽³⁾ “Jerry West,” Sports Reference/Olympic Sports. http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/we/jerry-west-1.html (accessed April 18, 2014)

⁽⁴⁾ “Jerry West 1964-65 Game Log,” Basketball Reference. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/westje01/gamelog/1965/ (accessed April 18, 2014)

⁽⁵⁾ Mark Medina, “Jerry West recalls struggles in acquiring Shaquille O'Neal,” Los Angeles Times.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/19/sports/la-sp-ln-la-jerry-west-recalls-struggles-in-acquiring-shaquille-oneal-20120719 (accessed April 18, 2014)

⁽⁶⁾ Lance Pugmire, “Q&A: Lakers great Jerry West reveals strained relationships,” Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/16/sports/la-sp-pugmire-qa-20111017 (accessed April 18, 2014)

My Almost-Favorite Season

Spring training and the season’s early days provide an opportunity for the baseball fan to optimistically speculate. He or she envisions what might happen if the back end of the rotation comes together, and the young closer holds up, and the cleanup hitter finally has that bounce-back year we thought he would the last couple of seasons. You’re allowed to think, "if things go just right, our roster just might put up numbers like this" :

1B : .324 BA, 47 HR, 148 RBI, 1.050 OPS, Gold Glove

2B :.331 BA, 24 HR, 91 RBI, 221 hits, League Batting Champ

SS : .300 BA, 57 HR, 142 RBI, 1.015 OPS, Gold Glove, League HR Champ

3B : .276 BA, 32 HR, 110 RBI, .355 OBP

LF : .300, 20 HR, 101 RBI, .405 OBP

CF : .325 BA, 25 HR, 108 RBI, 27 SB

RF : .325 BA, 35 HR, 140 RBI, .960 OPS

C : .332 BA, 35 HR, 113 RBI, .914 OPS, Gold Glove, League MVP

DH : .330 BA, 31 doubles, .882 OPS, 15 SB

SP : 18-10, .3.27 ERA, 217 K

SP : 14-8, 3.46 ERA, Gold Glove

SP : 16-6, 4.47 ERA, 180 K

SP : 14-9, 5.19 ERA

SP : 12-12, 3.39 ERA, 166 K

RP : 3-4, 2.13 ERA, 49 saves

RP : 4-5, 2.49 ERA, 38 saves

RP : 1-2, 1.96 ERA, 21 saves

RP : 4-4, 2.40 ERA, 28 saves

RP : 3-1, 2.79 ERA, 7 saves

RP : 4-1, 2.52 ERA, 10.8 K/9

That looks like a team that could win some games, huh? Actually, the roster with which I’m associating those stats finished last just over a decade ago.

The squad was the one whose on-field performance bummed me out the most of any baseball team with which I've ever been associated. Of course, they didn't put up the numbers listed above during the year in question. Here were the actual totals that season for those players :

1B : .273 BA, 43 HR, 105 RBI, .962 OPS

2B :.262 BA, .690 OPS

SS : .300 BA, 57 HR, 142 RBI, 1.015 OPS, Gold Glove, League HR Champ

3B : .211 BA, .632 OPS, 49 G

LF : .296, 1 HR, 17 RBI, 51 G

CF : .267 BA, 16 HR, 62 RBI, 105 G

RF : .282 BA, 8 HR, 35 RBI, 70 G

C : .314 BA, 19 HR, 60 RBI, 108 G

DH : .269 BA, 3HR, 23 RBI, 68 G

SP : 9-8, 5.75 ERA, 145.2 IP

SP : 13-8, 3.84 ERA, Gold Glove

SP : 4-5, 5.42 ERA, 111.1 IP

SP : 6-9, 3.93 ERA, 146.2 ERA

SP : 3-5, 4.98 ERA, 28 K, 59.2 IP

RP : 2-0, 1.29 ERA, 10 saves

RP : 2-3, 6.66 ERA, 1-4 in save opportunities

RP : 3-6, 4.22 ERA, 1 save

RP : Did not pitch, injured

RP : 3-2, 3.44 ERA, on the D.L. until June

RP : 3-2, 5.45 ERA, 1.5 WHIP

Those numbers look more like they might have come from a 72-90 team, the record the 2002 Texas Rangers actually posted. Why was that group the most disappointing for me? It was because of how high the ceiling could have been for the team. The numbers in the first table came from individual campaigns posted within three seasons of 2002 by players on that ’02 Rangers roster. Here are the identities of those players and the years in which they put up those monster statistics.

1B : Rafael Palmeiro, 1999

2B : Michael Young, 2005

SS : Alex Rodriguez, 2002

3B : Hank Blalock, 2004

LF : Rusty Greer, 1999

CF : Carl Everett, 1999

RF : Juan Gonzalez, 2001

C : Ivan Rodriguez, 1999

DH : Frank Catalanotto, 2001

SP : Chan Ho Park, 2000

SP : Kenny Rogers, 2005

SP : Dave Burba, 2000

SP : Ismael Valdez, 2004

SP : Doug Davis, 2004

RP : Francisco Cordero, 2004

RP : John Rocker, 1999

RP : Dan Kolb, 2003

RP : Jeff Zimmerman, 2001

RP : Jay Powell, 2001

RP : Todd Van Poppel, 2001

Note : I used traditional stats as opposed to advanced metrics to keep the blog more accessible, but even traditional numbers have no problem supporting the contention that the roster had talent that had recently, or would soon, produce(d) prodigiously.

In the spring, every player aspires to have a career year, and every fan of his franchise shares that hope. Of course, all the guys on a team won’t have their best seasons at the same time. The more talent collected together, though, the better the chances that at least some of it will contribute big years in accordance with pedigrees and track records. The numbers above, for the most part, were not outliers, either. While I picked the best seasons within three years of 2002, almost all of those players had one or more (or many more) seasons nearly as good. You don’t expect it to all go wrong all at once for so many different guys with that level of talent.

What got me so emotionally involved with the 2002 Rangers was a meeting the marketing department had with General Manager John Hart shortly before spring training. He walked us through the thinking behind each player they had acquired and explained how ownership had stepped up to add substantial extra payroll when Gonzalez and Park saw their prices drop a bit on the free agent market. One could tell John was excited about the roster and we were, too.

One of my jobs with the Rangers was creating TV commercials, and I thought fans would be as excited to hear John talk about this Murderers Row as I had been. We shot a spot in Florida that year where he enthusiastically ran through the lineup. He showed up with sunglasses and I asked him to keep them on when we shot. I felt like they added a cool, "yeah, this lineup is made up of some bad dudes" vibe. Fans like feeling as if their team has guys who can put a beatdown on the rest of the league.

The spot backfired. When the team started the season poorly, John's "cool" demeanor in the commercial came to be perceived as "aloof." One particularly hateful columnist dubbed him "The Empty Golf Shirt." He came under a lot of media criticism as the season went south. I will always have a great deal of respect for John Hart, because he could have taken me or another subordinate to task for the spot and its unintended contribution to negative media perception of him. He never did and he was never less than pleasant or respectful any time I worked with him.

When a team does creative based on team performance, it makes sense to have some backup advertising in the hopper. We had such a plan, but injuries defeated it. Two days after we finished editing a spot welcoming Juan Gonzalez back to Texas, he got hurt. A week later Ivan Rodriguez’s injury invalidated a spot starring him and Frank Catalanotto. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway, as Catalanotto joined him on the D.L. less than a month later. Michael Young stayed healthy the whole season, but Gabe Kapler, who co-starred in two of his three spots, got hurt in June.

Michael Young and Gabe Kapler on set (photo courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers)

That wasn’t the worst of it. A lack of scheduling prowess that spring had prevented us doing a spot with Chan Ho Park and Ivan Rodriguez together, but Park’s April 5 trip to the D.L. would have negated its effectiveness anyway. We did shoot a commercial with relievers Jeff Zimmerman, Jeff Powell, and Todd Van Poppel appearing opposite a very cute little girl. It was no fun explaining to her mom why we could never edit the spot, as Powell missed two months and Zimmerman the entire season. Those early season injuries, in fact, caused the John Hart spot, planned for only an early season run, to stay on the air far longer than intended. The extra exposure, with the lineup not performing as hoped, didn’t help its reputation.

Of course, the injury bug caused even more damage to the product on the field than it did to the marketing department. The club set a team record for total days spent on the disabled list. 17 different players, including all the closers, spent time on the D.L. Hideki Irabu had started to flourish in that role, so we did a video to play on the scoreboard when he entered a game. I believe it ran once before blood clots finished his season.

The team opened the season with five quality outfielders : Juan Gonzalez, Carl Everett, Rusty Greer, Gabe Kapler, and Frank Catalanotto. All five spent time on the D.L. Greer never had another Major League plate appearance.

You couldn’t blame all the injuries on age, either. The team carried only two position players over age 33, and neither Bill Haselman nor Rafael Palmeiro visited the disabled list. The Rangers had good young talent, too. Had Blalock, Young, Colby Lewis, Joaquin Benoit, Kevin Mench, Travis Hafner, Mark Teixeira, and Ryan Ludwick been a season or two closer to their breakthrough seasons, or if R.A. Dickey had taken up the knuckleball sooner, perhaps things would have gone differently.

And things might go differently for your team this year. The current team in Arlington seems beset by injuries, but with none season-ending, they could easily find themselves in the thick of the race. Hopefully your favorite will be more the 2013 Miami Heat that lived up to expectations than the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays, whose stars couldn’t duplicate past performances.

Teams (even fantasy teams) have to play the games on the field, with the guys available to play them, and past or future glories have bearing on the game, the season, or the at-bat at hand. We have to accept that reality sometimes delivers a high hard one, and realize that no matter how much it enrages us, we have no way to charge the mound.

Most of my brain understands that.

The other part of my head really, really wants to know what would have happened if Chan Ho hadn’t gotten hurt that spring and Juan had hit like he did for the Indians and Zim hadn’t proven that bad things can happen to good people and Pudge had played the full season, and a July trade had shored up the rotation, and . . .

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

All statistics cited in this article came from BaseballReference.com or Texas Rangers media guides.