His Talent Isn’t Worth Price

Two Sundays ago, in search of a column, I went to the ballpark. I was going to interview a New York Met player named Bobby Bonilla.

Bonilla proceeded to duck me at every turn. Now, while this is not a wholly unexpected development with a lot of players, I found it mystifying in this case. Bonilla explained he had to “take infield,” to “run”--do everything but call his broker or go to Confession. He advised me to seek out the team press man, Jay Horwitz, for sanction and otherwise stalled me effectively.

Only when a visiting TV network guy stuck a microphone in front of me did I find out why. The TV guy wanted to know what I thought of the story that a Met, Vince Coleman, had allegedly heaved a bomb at some fans only the night before. I was startled. “He did what ?” I wanted to know.

“He was driving away in a car with Eric Davis and Bobby Bonilla,” the TV guy explained.

Oh. A light went on.

Bonilla thought I wanted to talk about that incident. I didn’t. By then, we had two people on the story.

I did the interview with Bonilla on the subject of his stormy reception at the hands of New York fans. I had earlier attempted to say hello to Vince Coleman, on whom I had done a column--a positive one--two weeks earlier, but he gave me a look Billy the Kid might have given the sheriff, as he disappeared down the dugout steps. Then, I heard another Met snicker to Coleman, “Here they come!” as a parade of camera, microphone, tape recorder and notebook wielders poured toward him.

By dribs and drabs I began to hear the story of the strange goings-on the day before. They were so totally incomprehensible that, when one source allowed as how he thought “it’s just a gimmick for a lawsuit,” I was half-prepared to believe him. I mean, no one could possibly throw an explosive in the vicinity of a 2-year-old girl, could they? Naw! Not even Jeffrey Dahmer would do that, never mind a $3-million-a-year ballplayer. It had to be an overblown case. Maybe the car had backfired. After all, eyewitnesses said the players drove off laughing.

Then we saw the pictures of the little girl in question. Obviously, these players must have driven away laughing as her right eye was bleeding from fireworks fragments.

This made the unthinkable probable. This made you sick to your stomach.

What is going on here? Have we gone so far in our worship of sports heroes as to permit them excesses of human behavior we don’t allow South American dictators? What in the world kind of people are we putting in sports uniforms these days? Guys who should be in stripes?

The heavyweight champion of the world is in prison for criminal behavior. OK, you say, boxing is a violent sport. “There are very few archbishops in boxing,” the late Red Smith used to say to me.

Football is a violent sport, too. You don’t get your players out of a monastery. But do you have to get them out of San Quentin? If only thugs can play a game, let’s abolish it.

Tennis used to be the most genteel of sports. Then the guys whose nicknames were “Nasty” or “the Brat” took over. The sport became an embarrassment of bad manners.

But even so, what would impel a grown man to lob fireworks, no, a semi-hand grenade, in the direction of a crowd of fans that included children?

His actions, Vince Coleman says, were “inappropriate.” Inappropriate! Using a wrong salad fork is “inappropriate.” This was unconscionable.

Do we need a Vince Coleman so badly that we have to put up with an attitude and behavior that would get him one to 10 in a civilized society?

Sure, he is having a good year. They got him to steal bases and he’s stolen 38 of them. Caught only 13 times. He’s hitting .281. He once stole 110 bases in a season. He’s valuable.

Valuable is the operative word. We’ve got another guy in the game who has been caught seven times violating baseball’s drug rule. But he’s valuable, too. He still has his fastball. So the team adopts the pious attitude that we should give him an eighth chance. The arbitrator thinks he’s merely a misunderstood kid. They’ve got that right. Baseball is a lot easier to understand: As long as he can save games, they will save him.

Why shouldn’t a ballplayer be a good citizen? Why do we keep forgiving these guys their excesses of criminal behavior? Their arrogant disregard for the rules of common courtesy?

They don’t have to be role models. But don’t throw explosives at little girls. Or spit on them in the seats.

Is that too much to ask? There was a chart in the paper the other day noting that 45,995,793 have paid to see major league games this season. Vince Coleman shouldn’t be throwing explosives at them. He should be down on his knees thanking them. I don’t want to think what he might be doing for a living without them.