COMMENTARY : Sports Fans Never Get Angry About Someone They Like

The story was lost underneath all the other baseball news, because stories about drunk drivers in sports usually are, right up until somebody dies. All the real baseball action was in a New York City courtroom, and no one paid too much attention after the general manager of the Yankees, Gene Michael, was arrested in Fort Lauderdale for driving under the influence of alcohol, driving under the influence with property damage, leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, and failure to use what the police call “due care.”

According to the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, Michael did very poorly on a roadside sobriety test. Things like this happen all the time in sports, the way they happen all the time to everybody else. But stories such as Michael’s never get sports fans as hysterical as a rich ballplayer testing positive for drugs, or a rich ballplayer talking back to his coach, or somebody like Darryl Strawberry or Pete Rose cheating on his taxes.

And late Wednesday night in Fort Lauderdale, Gene Michael was more of a threat to all of us than Dwight Gooden or Derrick Coleman or Darryl or anybody. He hit a light pole and the light pole could just as easily have been another car, or a person getting ready to cross a street. Or Gene Michael could have been the one who got himself broken in half, or killed.

Sports fans never seem to get as angry about someone like Michael being drunk behind the wheel of a car as they do about Gooden testing positive again. It is always exciting when it is a millionaire star. Drinking is never as interesting as drugs. The ones who always want to give someone like Gooden the death penalty always say this: But drugs are illegal. Well, so was Gene Michael Wednesday night.

So was Lenny Dykstra, the night he nearly killed himself and Darren Daulton a few years ago after a bachelor party for John Kruk. Pelle Lindbergh of the Flyers was drunk out of his mind one time, and would have been in big trouble with the law if he hadn’t been dead when they finally managed to pull him out of his sports car.

People look the other way because drinking is an essential part of the culture of sports, from all the beer-company sponsors all the way to the idea, as strong as ever, that you are supposed to play hard and then party hard afterward.

Gene Michael is one of the good guys. From the time he was a player, all the way through tours as both the Yankees’ manager and general manager, he has managed to handle himself with grace while in the impossible circumstance of working for George Steinbrenner. It does not matter whether you are manager or GM, when you have either one of those positions, part of your job description is being a punching bag. Michael, after all these years, knows as much about that as anyone, and is tough enough to stand in there with Steinbrenner.

It has been a difficult spring for him, the way it has been a difficult spring for a lot of good guys in baseball, all of whom have had to participate in the burlesque of replacement baseball. Michael has crisscrossed Florida again and again, going from the replacement players to the Yankee prospects over in Tampa, then back again. Michael, who had a team good enough to go to the World Series last season, hated this baseball spring as much as anyone I know, and that includes Buck Showalter.

Last Wednesday night, he had one too many. The cops say he hit that light pole, drove off and got stopped because of smoke coming from a flat tire. He refused to take a Breathalyzer exam, and the only reason to refuse is because if you have been drinking, you know that as soon as you take it, you are gone. He was then released on bond.

I am told Michael is embarrassed. Good. Maybe he has learned his lesson. Maybe he will never again have a few belts and then think he is in great shape to drive home, or back to the hotel. We always hear how dumb Gooden was for blowing everything. We always hear that about Darryl. Great indignation. Something about the way they fell thrills us all. Gene Michael could have done the same Wednesday night, when he was more dangerous in that car than anyone in sports.

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Everybody acts as if baseball was saved Friday when Judge Sonia Sotomayor ruled against the owners, and I am wondering if we all should have been rooting the other way.

Just this one time.

Because now that Donald Fehr and his players think they have the hammer back, I wonder if they will ever make a deal that they don’t feel they can tie a great big bow around.

If Sotomayor had issued a decision in favor of the owners, I think we might have had a new collective-bargaining agreement within a couple of weeks.

Now this thing goes on and on, and a cloud hangs over baseball, even as baseball asks us all to love it the way we always did.

Knowing there could be another strike, or a lockout, either this season or next.

You go ahead and cheer what happened in Judge Sotomayor’s court.

I’ll just sit the whole thing out for the time being.

I am going to ask a question that I asked back in early February, because I think it still applies: Do the Rangers know these games count?

I want to see Christopher Darden fight Johnnie Cochran before I see Mike Tyson fight George Foreman.

If these two keep going after each other this way, Judge Ito is going to have to implement the NBA’s taunting regulations.

Wait a second, I thought Don King was supposed to be more washed up in heavyweight boxing than Gerry Cooney.

I mean, it was in all the papers.

There haven’t been this many people jumping the gun since everybody had Phil Simms signed, sealed and delivered to the Cleveland Browns.

When the real baseball players are back on the field, and all is supposed to be right again with the national pastime, I want someone to figure out how much this strike cost Fehr’s members.

We know that it cost baseball owners a ton, and that always has to give you a warm feeling.

But owners can always afford it.

When baseball’s 100 free agents go into the marketplace soon and start listening to offers, I want to hear them say they’d strike all over again.

I rooted for them all along.

I’m glad Fehr managed to keep a salary cap out of baseball.

But in the end, the players association made almost as big a mess of this negotiation as the owners did.

I love Tom Hanks, but I was afraid he was on the verge of a full Sally Field there at the end of his Oscar speech.

I really was waiting for him to say, “You like me, you really like me.”

I did think Hanks might mention Winston Groom, who happened to write the book “Forrest Gump” and sort of start the ball rolling for a movie that already has made about a half-billion dollars.

But Hanks didn’t, because none of the Gump winners did.

Apparently, “Forrest Gump” just invented himself.

Which is kind of a neat trick, if you think about it.

You ever wonder how the Knicks’ season would have gone if Hubert Davis had gotten to take as many shots asJohn Starks did?

Those three thumps that Kato Kaelin heard?

I think we’ve pretty much established they weren’t coherent thoughts colliding inside his head.

LETTERS

Mr. Lupica,

Do you think the Knicks should install Lo-Jacks in opponents when Hubert Davis is guarding them?

Michael Rosenzweig,

Throgs Neck

I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.

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Mr. Lip,

Do you think the reason President Clinton was refusing to throw out the first ball in any replacement games was because his whole cabinet is full of replacements.

Mike the Mailman

Ozone Park

I am devoted to the leader of the free world, but he really does pick these guys the way Steinbrenner used to pick baseball managers.

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Dear Mike,

It looks like Jets coach Rich Kotite plans on playing James Brown on the offensive line next year. Now all the team has to do is sign Aretha Franklin as a free agent. Playing her at cornerback would guarantee their secondary a lot more r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Marshall Siegel

Bardonia, NY

I don’t want to show any disrespect to the queen of soul, but my feeling is that her days at safety are over.

*

Dear Mike,

With the free agent moves the New York Giants have made, I’m literally sick to my stomach. How do you let a guy like Dave Meggett go? I wouldn’t be surprised if they signed Scott Norwood to a long-term deal, because it’s obvious they don’t want to win.

Joe Scopo

Farmingville

You’re going to have to relax about this, at least until mini-camp.