Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, August 14, 1987
Opinion
Revenge does taste sweet
My high
school basketball
coach and I
never did get
along.
Looking back
on that period of
my life now, I
John
Jams
Guest Columnist
can see with relative ease what it was
that made us never quite able to
communicate.
It was a personality conflict.
He didn’t like me.
them. I didn’t get to go into the
game before halftime (I never did
anyway, so it wasn’t anything new to
me), but I figured that the chances
were pretty good that I would at
least get into the game in the early
fourth quarter.
By the fourth quarter, we were
ahead by about 30 points, and
everybody but me had been put into
the game. No sweat, I told myself.
I’ll be next.
Seriously, though, we didn’t get
along, even though I was only on the
varsity team one year. I played
forward on the basketball team all
four years in high school — one year
on the freshman team, two years on
the junior varsity, and one on the
varsity team — but I was never very
good at it. Actually, I was damned
good at defense, but I couldn’t hit
the broad side of a barn with a
basketball if I was standing three
feet away from it. That part my
coach disliked intensely.
At this point, you could ask
yourself how in the world I ever got
on the team if I was that bad on
offense. Well, I’m from a small town
(Pleasanton — about 35 miles south
of San Antonio and with a
population of 6346), and almost
anyone who tries out for basketball
is guaranteed a spot on the team.
Especially if you’re a senior.
So there I was on the varsity
basketball team with a coach that
couldn’t stand me. If you think I’m
exaggerating, listen to this: No one
else on the team ever got put into a
game with only 16 seconds to go in
the fourth quarter when we were
behind by 26 points. That included
juniors and sophomores that I could
beat in one-on-one competition that
supposedly (according to the coach)
determined how good a player was.
This was not an isolated incident,
and believe me, I got tired of this all
through the basketball season. But
I’m not a quitter, and I was
determined to show this man that he
couldn’t break my spirit and make
me quit. I love to play basketball,
and I wasn’t about to let anything or
anyone — including him —get in my
way.
Surprisingly enough, I may have
lost all these battles with him, but I
eventually won the war.
It started with the second-to-last
game of the season. We were
playing South San High School (on
the south side of San Antonio), and
for a while, our teams were playing
pretty even. But as the game wore
on, we began to pull away from
I was wrong.
Coach continued to put
everybody else in the rotation to
play, but he left out one person —
me. And I was getting extremely
mad. Quarters only last eight
minutes, and five had already gone
by. We were now ahead by 35
points. Across from our bench, in
the bleachers, I happened to look up
and see a junior-varsity player who
had been on the JV team with me
the year before. He looked at me
and asked, “Why haven’t you gone
in yet?” I threw my hands up in the
air and mouthed, “(expletive
deleted), I don’t know!”
I eventually got into the game
with 56 seconds to play. We won by
38 points.
I had totally forgotten about the
incident by the time the game was
over, but evidently I had done
something more with my hands than
just throw them up in the air. At
least that’s what the athletic director
(who was sitting across from our
team in the bleachers) thought. I
honestly don’t recall if I did make an
obscene hand gesture or not—I’ve
only been that mad two or three
times in my life, and my memory
seems to quit during those times.
After the game. Coach came up to
me and asked if anything was wrong
— if I was upset with anything
(evidently the athletic director had
talked to him about my “gesture”
after the game). I looked at my
coach and, lying through my teeth,
said, “I’m not upset about anything
at all.” I wasn’t about to admit to him
that I was mad as hell.
close to being bad. Mischievious,
maybe, but not bad.
“What for?” I asked as we headed
to the office. Coach was getting
worked up about something; his
face always turned red when he was
really upset. “You flipped the bird
during last Friday’s game, and I
don’t like that,” he answered.
Oh, great, I told myself. What else
could go wrong?
Well, we stepped into the
principal’s office. The door shut
behind me, and there I was, looking
at the principal, the vice principal
and my coach. “The S.O.B. must’ve
been planning this all weekend,” I
told myself.
Coach started this meeting by
telling what had happened during
the game, then told the principal
and vice principal how the
“incident” should be resolved.
Coach wanted to kick me off the
team (so I couldn’t play in the last J
game of the season), suspend me
from school for three days, and
retake basketball pictures so that I
wouldn’t be in them. I really meant
it when I said he didn’t like me.
The principal turned to me and
asked what my side of the story was.
I replied that when I got really mad,
I couldn’t recall exactly what my
actions were. I said I thought I had
just thrown my hands up in the air,
but I could have possibly made an
obscene gesture — I just didn’t
know.
After much discussion, they
decided to let me off with only two
licks for a crime I may or may not
have committed.
That happened on a Friday.
Monday morning, in athletics class,
I’m back to normal, playing some
one-on-one with my friend, who was
our starting point guard. Coach calls
me over to his office before practice
starts, and I amble over to him, not
realizing what kind of a surprise he
had in store for me.
“Let’s go the office,” he said to
me. That kind of shocked me,
because you only went to the office
if you had done something really
bad, and nothing I’d done that
Monday morning could even come
But my revenge was sweet. The
whole school found out about what
had happened to me (our school
only had 650 people in it), and when
the final game came around to our
gym that Thursday, I found out
whose side they were on. I actually
got into the game early in the fourth
quarter (we were getting beat by 40
points — at least!) —and got a
standing ovation from the crowd
when I did. I got fouled, made both
my free throws, and played two
minutes of the fourth quarter, which
was the most I had ever played in a
game my entire senior year. When I
came out of the game, I got another
standing ovation. Coach could only
stare down into his towel with a red
face as I walked off the court. I
knew then who the high school had
sided with.
He may have won all the battles
but I won the war.
John Jarvis is a senior journalism
major and managing editor of The
Battalion.
Cheating is as old as baseball
What has
happened to my
game? What has
happened to the
sport I’ve loved
for so long? Why
is it mired in
Robert
Dowdy
Gu««t Columnist
controversy every
day I read the paper? Whither baseball?
There are only a few of the incidents
that have occurred this season:
• Kevin Gross and Joe Niekro have
both been suspended 10 days for
bringing bits of sandpaper to the
pitcher’s mound. The league office
suspects that they’re using the
sandpaper to scuff the ball.
• Howard Johnson’s bat was
confiscated for suspicion of it being
‘corked’ — a process where cork is used
to fill a hollowed-out bat — and using it
to hit a career-high 27 home runs. In
three previous seasons in the majors,
Johnson never had more than 12.
• Andre Dawson got his jaw broken
by a beanball which pitcher Eric Show
denies ever throwing. He claims he was
throwing a “brushback” pitch, designed
to move an aggressive hitter away from
the plate, but not injure him.
• And the countless brawls that have
occurred, most of them as a result of
beanballs.
But I’m being naive if I try to
convince myself that these are all
isolated events. Something is definitely
wrong with baseball. And what is
happening now is the manifestation of
years of turmoil within the game,
especially during the 1980’s. There are
two reasons for the upsurge in tension
and violence this season. One is more
obvious than the other, but both have
existed for as long as the game itself.
This year marks the 105th
anniversary of pro baseball. It’s also the
105th anniversary of cheating in pro
baseball. The most popular form of
cheating is the spitball. (Actually, the
spitball was legal until the early 1930’s.)
The substance used is not really saliva,
but a slippery substance, such as
Vaseline. It causes the ball to break, or
fall, sharply — more so than a normal
pitch. The outlawing of the spitball
didn’t stop anybody from using it. In
fact, of the dozen or so 300 game
winners in history, at least three of them
are known to have used it. One of them
(I won’t mention his name, but it sounds
a lot like ‘Tommy John’) put so much
Vaseline on the ball that sometimes he
had trouble picking it up off the
ground. It kept slipping out of his hand.
Gaylord Perry was notorious for
doctoring the ball. But first place for
cheating has to go to Don Sutton — if
not for consistency, at least for
originality. He has actually made a video
showing pitchers the best ways to doctor
a ball, and he’s still an active player. He
was wearing a ski mask during the
filming, but it’s no secret who it was.
Which brings me to the more
pervasive, and possibly more dangerous
reason: pride, guilt, and simple human
nature. It’s the blame-it-on-so-and-so
syndrome: “I’m not a mediocre pitcher,
he’s got an illegal bat.” “I didn’t miss
that pitch by a mile because I’m a weak
hitter; he’s doctoring the balls. That’s
the only explanation.”
They’ve become paranoid: “If I don’t
hit .300 this season, they’ll ship me
down to the minors. So I’ll blame it on
the pitchers.” “It’s impossible for me to
give up four homers in a game. They
must be using corked bats.” And on and
Joe Garagiola estimated that about 40
percent of pitchers in the league don’t
deserve to be there. Either they were
called up from the minors before they
were ready, or they’ve lost control of
their pitches and should retire.
Although that’s far from being a
scientific analysis, I think he’s pretty
close to the truth — a heck of a lot closer
than anybody playing the game.
The way I see it, it’s only a phase, a
sort of sickness that baseball is going
through. It’s not a product of baseball,
but a product of the men who abuse, or
overestimate, their talent. Baseball will
survive, although in what form I don’t
know.
Robert Dowdy is a senior English
major and a guest columnist for The
Battalion.
Mail Call
Good riddance, Karl
Just beca
m to hi
[own” doe
n’t victim
EDITOR:
This letter is to Karl Pallmeyer, The Battalion Editorial Board and every®!
who has been forced to read Mr. Pallmeyer’s twisted brand of journalism!
the past four years.
There were 18,000 Aggies who fought against fascism during Worldli;
II. I am deeply and personally offended, and I find it obscene that Karl
Pallmeyer is continuously allowed to imply that the Corps of Cadets is a are forms c
fascist organization. It shows complete irresponsibility on the partof Tlie jtelltale^ign
Battalion Editorial Board. Anyone is entitled to an opinion. However, this;! j t ^ n( j
nothing more than a deliberate attempt to slander the name of those AgRiei ifin t i ona | ;
who gave their lives in support of their country and those Aggies who L r social is
continue to choose to serve their country. IS B 1 * 1-111311 1
I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the UnitedStateiB®^,‘ n
took this oath because of my deep love and belief in our democratic system®^ c ^ rr 1 e{
government. This system allows for a wide range of political and social ||2, s “jf we
beliefs, and this is part of what I love about it. Freedom of speech, howevei
ends when it infringes on the rights of others. Karl Pallmeyer has crossed
line. I think it is sad that a person can earn a degree in journalism without
learning one thing about ethics.
Patrick D. Marshall ’88
Visitor parking inadequate
EDITOR:
While I have heard Bob Wiatt explain his tough stance on parking and I
fstand a
ir task is r
Initially,
rn to i
s of chi
ioug Sn
legist fi
are three m
ual abuse.
“Physical
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while emot
sympathize with him, I really do not think he has fully addressed the issuerl
parking on this campus yet. Particularly irksome to me is how we treat via w jj at a p are
to our campus. We do not have adequate signs directing visitors to visitor w h a t he do<
parking, nor do we have visitor spots located strategically or adequately
marked. Furthermore, we do not do a very good job controlling the used
visitor parking by non-visitors. I have recently visited three campuses,Ohk
State University, the University of Illinois and Clemson University. A few
years back I spent some time on the North Carolina State University camps
studying, first hand, their visitor parking. All four of these campuses have
ample, well marked, accessible (not filled with students), strategically locate: $,885 vali<
visitor parking throughout their campuses. I am personally embarrassedtc ment w ^ re
invite people (many with grants) to our campus, because invariably theywi!
get a parking ticket. While I realize construction is underway on the Bob
Smith sa
lize how
‘Society i
ilies act
n,” he ss
.ccordin
nt of Hu
r and r
ted in a c
Wiatt Memorial Parking Facility, I, as a reluctant stockholder in thatfaciiti f rc ^repo S r
would plead that he take a tiny bit of the money and make a study triptoat mates 35 p<
least the four campuses I mentioned.
Finally, I plead with all Ags — students and staff -
the spot, do not park there. Let’s be good hosts.
Robert B. Schwart Jr.
Extension Economist — Dairy Marketing
if it says “visitor”o
reported be
standing or
get involvec
SUnrepor
higher ecor
Hosey, a ch
■“Child al
ports becai
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the nght to tkke happens to
for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be npuht •> u „
must include the classification, address and telephone number of the uniter.
There’s no place like A&
Before most of
you entered Texas ’
A&M, your parents
most likely told you
the next four to six
years would be the
best time of your
life.
Homer
Jacobs
Gu««t Columnltt
They were right.
Now that my four plus years are winding
down with graduation looming Saturday, I
can’t help but reflect upon those things that
indeed will be missed as the rea/world awaits
• Football — Aggie football is special, no
doubt about it. I’ve been to places like
Legion Field in Alabama and Louisiana
State’s Tiger Stadium where college football
is king. But a football weekend in College
Station with all its hype and hoopla is one of
a kind.
The musty, hops and barley stenchiki
engulfs the Chicken makes me salivated
hungry dog. I have never hadabadtii
there, and I probably never will. It's Hi)
hangout, my home away from home.
There is something about the Chide
that lends itself to having a good time,!:
still haven’t figured out what thatsomeC
is after four years of college.
Frankly, the place looks like a dive,
because it is. But after a few cheap pitch
of beer, and a traditional sing-alongtofi
Allen Coe’s Perfect Country and Wester
Song, the Chicken struts its stuff,andl
miss it.
It all starts Thursday night — the
traditional party night in college — when
Northgate swells with students who have
already begun the pre-game tail-getting.
Friday arrives and the partying continues.
Pre-midnight yell practice parties are always
worth remembering. The only problem is I
don’t remember a lot of them.
• Aggies — The students and fadljl
make this institution run are reallywhit
miss the most. All the traditions of Aill
would be lost if it weren’t for the people
keep them going.
The friends that I have met here wilf
there separate ways in life as will 1. Bui*
our paths do cross, we can always relive
times and what it was like to be a stude®
A&M.
Yell practice is next, and how can you
describe 20,000 drunk Aggies trying to
balance themselves on rickety bleachers? It’s
something you can’t describe, and that’s
what sets football Fridays in Aggieland apart
from those in South Bend and Ann Arbor.
And of course, the biggest yell practice of
them all is bonfire. The first one I saw burn
I’ll never forget. I was in awe. That feeling
will never change.
Game day is again something I’ll treasure.
I’ll even miss waking up, hangover and all, to
the the blast of the Corps of Cadets’ World
War I howitzer as march-in begins.
And halftime performances of the
Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band will always bring
chills to the spine.
• The Dixie Chicken — The Chicken is a
place where I’ve spent way too much of my
time and, rest assured, my money. But if I
had to do it all over again. I’d be through
those swinging saloon doors in a second.
Being an Aggie is a state of mind,
physical presence on some campusintlit
Brazos Valley. Like it or not, Aggiesate
bound to each other through common
experience and spit it, whereas most coif
graduates just share the common expc®
of getting a degree.
I will undoubtedly miss cooking out*:
my apartment neighbors, playing a ga®
quarters with my roommates or dandn| ;
night away to George Strait on Thurscls'
nights.
I’ll miss the BS sessions, the roadtrip! :
away football games and even Scantron
882s.
I’ll miss a lot of aspects about A&M
But absence makes the heart growfo
so I know I’ll be back on campus whent'
“The best time of my life, Dad?"
“That’s right, son.”
Indeed he was.
Homer Jacobs is a senior journalism
and sports editor of The Battalion.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Sondra Pickard, Editor
Jerry Oslin, Opinion Page Editor
Rodney Rather, City Editor
JohnJarvis, Robbyn L. Lister, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
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