In Team Sports, So Many Times Punishment Does Not Fit Crime

At the moment in America, discipline and justice aren’t what they should be in the major league sports. Thus:

For an unwarranted recent assault on an NFL quarterback, Raider cornerback Albert Lewis will get at most a small fine.

For an inexcusable assault on a baseball umpire, Baltimore infielder Roberto Alomar will get a brief suspension next April.

Here’s the root question: How do you punish millionaire athletes for unacceptable behavior without, at the: same time, unfairly punishing blameless teammates?

In all justice, the penalty should ‘fit the crime. And in most instances, that should mean big fines, not game suspensions.

The fine for the first lawless personal assault on any arbiter or opponent could be, say, 5% of the individual’s annual salary-or $50,000 for a millionaire player- doubling to 10% for the next serious offense.

In a team sport, the problem with suspensions is that they’re usually unfair.

As a way of disciplining an individual, they are unjust to the the other members and fans of the sinner’s team. Suspensions harm the many who are not responsible for his wrongs.

In Alomar’s case, for example, if he had been suspended last week, his teammates’ season, as well as his own, would doubtless have ended on the spot. For, plainly, it was this one person’s hitting that advanced the others who play for Baltimore.

In the Raider case, a one-game suspension wouldn’t be too much for Lewis, certainly, but it would be too much for his teammates, who, to stay afloat in the AFC West this year, need every good player they have. If Lewis’ salary is $500,000, he should be fined, for that hit, say, $25,000.

Moreover, the appeals process, though valuable and necessary, should be accelerated. The $50,000 for every million Alomar makes ought to come out of his present paycheck.

Ease up: You may have noticed that brutality, if unchecked, creeps steadily into sports.

For one thing these days, gratuitous attacks on NFL quarterbacks are being more and more widely accepted by those who continue to say: “They’re part of football.”

But they aren’t.

Full-speed, head-down hits of the kind that Raider cornerback Lewis improperly made last week on Jet quarterback Neil O’Donnell, putting him out of football until November, weren’t tolerated by the league until recent years.

Nobody ever sacked a quarterback with more relish than Deacon Jones, the Hall of Fame defensive end who, decades ago, coined sack as a football verb. But if the ball had left the passer’s hand before Jones struck, he invariably eased up and softened the violence of his attack on a defenseless man.

Lewis, on the other hand, kept charging at O’Donnell well after the ball had been dispatched, making contact at top speed and grinding him into the ground, separating O’Donnell’s shoulder.

The officials failed to penalize Lewis, and it isn’t clear that he ever will be punished.

For, in America, the tolerance for brutality and coarseness is rising. And one explanation is that many of the nation’s television announcers are now old NFL linemen who often applaud violence against quarterbacks, rarely distinguishing between legal and illegal violence. It is a distinction that’s essential.

The officials are doing one thing right this year. They are discouraging illegal and unfair attacks on pass receivers by calling interference penalties against defensive players after what seems like not much contact.

This bothers some fans, who would prefer to let the players play. But the fact is that pass plays, to succeed, must be so closely timed these days that what seems like insignificant contact can be the difference between an incomplete pass and a completion.

The essence of the modern game, in the opinion of most spectators, is a great pass and great catch against great defensive performance. There is a general recognition that it takes uncommon skill now to make big plays when so many active linemen and others are rushing the passer at the same time that gifted defensive backs are maintaining a close surveillance of the receivers.

If the defense wins legally, that’s football.

But if it wins illegally, that isn’t football. And a slight tug at a receiver’s jersey, or a slight nudge as the man goes toward the ball, is often enough to ruin the play. The rules are clear on that. And it’s a break for sports fans that in general they’re being enforced.