THE CONCLUSION of a fairly successful staging of the XI World Netball Championships in Kingston, Jamaica, has once again highlighted the benefits that sports can bring to a nation, trying to get collective success in so many other areas. The 'Sunshine Girls' may not have gone all the way, but this cannot diminish their top class performance over the last two weeks.
In contrast the airing of a mock ESPN trial over whether the famous (or infamous) Pete Rose should be included in American baseball's Hall of Fame, using the legal wits of Dershowitz vs. Johnnie Cochran, has me thinking on another track. Pete Rose had been one of baseball's best hitters, while playing for the dominant "Big Red Machine" (i.e. the Cincinatti Reds) in the 1970s and early 1980s, setting various hitting records, but has been denied a place in that illustrious hall of achievements. I believe this decision is not based on his baseball prowess, but rather for his gambling antics. Now sportsmen, especially famous ones, are not always the paragon of virtue (ask Kobe Bryant over his latest troubles), but gambling is one of the vices that can lead to major disrepute in sport, just ask Chetram Singh, and his rebuffed attempt at the West Indies Cricket Board's Presidency.
PERPETRATORS
This has me thinking that there are many other names that could also come up in sporting history where its perpetrators could easily win a place in a Hall of Infamy. Let us go back to cricket, where South Africa's most respected cricket captain, Hansie Cronje, shocked the cricketing world, when, faced with irrefutable evidence, he admitted to wagering on cricket. For this he was given a life ban. It is fair to say that cricket can no longer be seen as the game of gentleman. Today the rules on cell phones in dressing rooms and informal meetings with non-cricketers in hotel rooms and specific places, marks cricket out from any other sport, in trying to minimise gambling infractions.
Next up is Lawrence Rowe, Jamaica and West Indies batting stylist of the 1970s. Mr. Rowe was the 'head cook and bottle washer' in arranging the tour to apartheid South Africa, at the time, to become 'honorary whites', thereby weakening West Indies Cricket at the time. Rowe gets chosen not because he went, since others have gone (including Kanhai, Sobers, and Croft) but unlike many others, he has not ever apologised for his actions.
LEGENDARY
In football there is the legendary Argentinian Diego Maradona, whose infamous 'hand of God' goal against England in the World Cup was surprisingly not dis-allowed by the referee or his linesman. Is it any wonder that some footballers claim that referees walk around blind during a game. Maradona, however, goes on to get kicked out of the 1994 World Cup for a 'cocktail of drugs' and later gets himself so mixed up in legal disputes in Italy and Argentina, that his cocaine addicted lifestyle is the least of his troubles. In the end he had to get some rehabilitative help in Cuba.
Another famous or infamous football miscreant is Germany's Toni Schumacher, who blatantly took out France's Battison in the 1982 World Cup semi-final and went on to play in the final, while poor Battison suffered a concussion and had difficulty playing top class football again. Schumacher went on to complete a long career in the Bundesliga until, his drug revelations in his 'tell it all' book ended his career.
The most famous female on the list is Tonya Harding, who popularised figure skating by the knee cap attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan. Of late, Tonya Harding has turned to celebrity boxing to remain in the limelight.
MISCREANTS
Tennis also has its miscreants. There are Americans Connors and McEnroe, whose foul language on the courts, could make the most hardened prostitute blush. Nowadays there is Jennifer Capriati, who with her last tirade, certainly is not on Billie Jean King's best wishes list. I have not even included Ben Johnson, or boxers, since with so many boxers having gone down the wrong road, it would be unfair to single out one of the many such.
So there we have it, a hall of infamy that no one wants to be in, without going into any major details on steroid use, broken cork bats, 'spit balls in baseball, crooked bowling arm in cricket, or outright 'flinging' in cricket.
