Henning Should Have Gone With His Best

Chronically, we are reminded by entrepreneurs in sports of the need to “preserve the game’s integrity.”

In baseball, one who manages or plays or owns isn’t permitted to make a bet. Even if the match weren’t fixed, suspicion could develop in connection with the game’s integrity.

On the field, rival players aren’t allowed to fraternize. And baseball, worried about public image, won’t allow unauthorized people in its locker rooms before a game.

Even newspapers enter into the spirit of holiness. They no longer allow baseball writers to serve as official scorers. If they were paid for this service, it would create a conflict of interest.

Say, for instance, a writer defends owners for trying to hold down salaries. Immediately, a cynic yells: “Why not? He gets money from baseball for scoring.”

In all major sports, it is a violation of rules for a player who is traded to remain in debt to the club trading him.

The reason: you play for one team and owe money to another, and people arch an eyebrow. Before one can play for a new club, one must settle up with the old.

In the landmark case of Joe Namath and his Manhattan bar, shifty characters were known to drink there. Joe was made to sell the bar. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

But mere presence in the bar of guys who could influence a quarterback shook the NFL office, concerned with preservation of the game’s integrity.

OK, we have a football game last Sunday between the Raiders and San Diego. The game means nothing to San Diego, but a lot to (a) the Raiders and (b) Kansas City, battling the Raiders for a division championship.

Winner of the title gets a large break in the playoffs.

What the San Diego coach does repulses anyone committed to competition. Knowing he is engaged in a game in which something big is at stake for another team, he benches his regular quarterback, Billy Joe Tolliver, and decides to take a look at a rookie wholly untraveled, John Friesz.

Tolliver won’t make the world forget Joe Montana. But he shows a completion record this season of 52.7% and, more important, is the best San Diego has.

Friesz does modestly well for a first starter and San Diego loses a close game, 17-12, leading many viewers to conclude that if the Chargers had played someone at quarterback who knew what he was doing, they might have won on that particular day.

Watching Friesz with a perceptible wince, viewers had a recollection of Gene Mauch, cast often in the role of spoiler in late season. For instance, to try to prevent the Dodgers one time from clinching a pennant, Mauch, languishing in last place, not only opened with his best pitcher, but ordered other starters to the bullpen.

Other managers with character have done the same. This is known as commitment to competition, or, as the owners like to boast, preserving the game’s integrity.

If, in its 16th game, San Diego was playing Denver last Sunday, then maybe it takes a look at John Friesz.

But, in the circumstances, the Charger coach, Dan Henning, is guilty of a shot so inexpensive you picture him an outlaw in the coaching community.

Yet, what transpired last Sunday isn’t Henning’s fault. It is the fault of the San Diego owner, Alex Spanos, for permitting it.

Spanos is responsible for the Chargers. He votes at the meetings, not Henning. He stands in the forefront with other owners, sermonizing on the game’s integrity and on how it must rise above any fleck of suspicion.

And what could be interpreted as suspicious? Spanos is a known friend of Raider owner Al Davis. Davis has counseled Spanos.

Mind you, nothing that transpired last Sunday was shady. Collusion is no way is hinted.

Pete Rose didn’t throw games. But his betting created a suspicious environment, the kind sports is dedicated to avoiding.

Let us repeat, in clear, sonorous tones: Nothing happened in the Raider-Charger game that was crooked. But the fact the San Diego owner is friends with the Raider owner is all the more reason San Diego should have gone with its best.

And, in the future, we beseech those operating teams to bottle their speeches on preservation of the game’s integrity.

Their piety doesn’t touch us as it used to.