Honor Roll

A star second baseman spits in the face of an umpire and has his punishment postponed until the games are not as important. A 12-year-old boy helps the home team win by interfering with a baseball in play and is treated like a hero. A wide receiver realizes he is down but gets up and runs in hopes that the officials missed the play and is rewarded with a touchdown and applause for his savvy.

It has seemed more apparent than ever in recent weeks that the line between right and wrong has been so badly blurred in sports that officials, players, fans and the media are confused about which side to choose.

Then a professional golfer, Mark Calcavecchia, steps forward to remind us that virtue is still its own reward.

That was what he was left with after reading in Monday’s newspaper that he had been credited in the Texas Open the day before with a 73. Realizing that he had signed an incorrect scorecard because he actually had shot 74, he called the PGA Tour office and disqualified himself. That cost him the $10,817 he had won in San Antonio and perhaps an opportunity to play in next week’s $3-million Tour Championship, reserved to the top 30 money winners. Calcavecchia is 27th and could drop several places depending on the results of this week’s tournament in Florida, in which he is not competing.

It was an all-too-rare example of a prominent athlete doing the right thing, one so discussed and dissected in print and over the airwaves that it would be impossible to charge the media this week with reporting only bad news.

But perhaps there is even more good news than has made the news. An expert in sports ethics, Gen. Mal Wakin of the Air Force Academy said this week that sportsmanship is making a comeback. He even sees good news in the bad news, such as the Roberto Alomar incident.

After spitting in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck in the last weekend of the regular season, the Oriole second baseman’s five-game suspension was postponed until the start of next season by American League President Gene Budig so that Alomar’s absence would not impact the playoffs.

“There was such an outcry from the media and the public that it shows we do have an idea when the line has been crossed between acceptable and unacceptable behavior,” said Wakin, who teaches ethics to cadets in the philosophy department and has been a member of U.S. Olympic Committee ethics committees. “The message was that we as a society would not tolerate his behavior.”

A week later, some of the fans who most vociferously vilified Alomar not only tolerated but glorified 12-year-old Jeff Maier after he leaned over the outfield railing in Yankee Stadium to practically steal a baseball out of Oriole right fielder Tony Tarasco’s glove and help the Yankees win a game. But Wakin was not discouraged by that response, saying that it probably would have been different under other circumstances.

“I think what you saw there was a reaction from fans and media to the appeal of a 12-year-old boy,” he said. “If it had been a middle-aged, pot-bellied man drinking a beer who had stuck his hand out and changed the course of a game, I think the reaction would have been considerably more negative, except perhaps from some Yankee fans who just wanted their team to win the game.”

There are other encouraging signs, Wakin said. There was a loss of respect for authority during the years of antiwar protests, Watergate and the so-called “Me Generation.” But he said that the United States has entered a more conservative cycle in which people are placing more importance on the virtues within themselves and others around them.

“In 1975, there were two centers for ethics in the United States,” he said. “In 1985, there were 38. Today, there are more than 1,400. I don’t think there are any specifically dealing with sports, but you’re going to see an impact on sports. In fact, you already have. The USOC has coaching clinics throughout the country, and I’ve been involved with several of them because they want to include an emphasis on ethics.”

It is not likely Wakin will be asked to speak to PGA Tour players because he’s not needed. When told by a reporter that he was calling to talk about ethics, a spokesman for the PGA Tour, Dave Lancer, said, “We have them.”

There are numerous examples of golfers at all levels sacrificing themselves in the interests of sportsmanship.

This season, Greg Norman dropped out of a tournament in Hartford in which he was in contention after the second round because he discovered that he had used a ball not on the approved list.

While waiting to tee off in a playoff on the Nike Tour in Shreveport, La., P.H. Horgan asked about a drop he had made the day before, learned it was illegal and disqualified himself. If he had won in Shreveport, he probably would be guaranteed a finish in the top five on the money list and earn an automatic berth on the PGA Tour next season. Now, with one tournament remaining, he stands seventh.

“Integrity is part of the tradition of our game,” Lancer said. “We learn from the time we first start playing that we only cheat ourselves if we cheat. Our players have too much respect for themselves and each other to do that.”

The bad behavior of Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Ilie Nastase might have tainted the image of tennis players, but many are reluctant to take points they have not earned. If they disagree with a line call that went in their favor, they often purposely misplay the next point.

In the final of the 1985 L.A. Open at UCLA, Stefan Edberg was judged the winner of a point by both the linesperson and the chair umpire that he knew he had not earned. He went to his chair and sat down, conceding the point to opponent Paul Annacone. That gave the game to Annacone, who went on to win the match.

It might be easier for athletes to sacrifice themselves in an individual sport. For instance, Cathy O’Brien, the winner of the USOC’s Jack Kelly Fair Play Award in 1993, did not have teammates depending on her when she temporarily quit running in a distance race to help another runner who had fallen.

But neither is it the goal of players in team sports to win at all costs, several said. Even though the NHL is often identified with its goons, it is the only major professional sport in North America to acknowledge sportsmanship with a prestigious postseason award, the Lady Byng.

“I think today’s athlete is given a bum rap,” San Francisco 49er linebacker Ken Norton Jr. said in a conversation about Calcavecchia.

“A lot of times, we’re not looked at as sportsmen. Somebody does something like that and it’s, ‘Wow, that’s just not done.’ People think because it’s Generation X and with the money they [athletes] make, they are not good people. But I think everybody is good, and I don’t think something like that should come as a shock. Most of the guys in this locker room would do something like that.”

Of course, not all football players agree.

San Diego Charger offensive tackle Harry Swayne said of Calcavecchia, “He’s a stand-up guy; he’d never make it in football. We’d kick him off the team.

“Golf is a gentlemen’s game. Football is a gladiators’ game--you take what they will let you get away with.”

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Times staff writers Bill Dwyre, Helene Elliott and T.J. Simers contributed to this story.

* BILL PLASCHKE: Kids will be kids, but they can also be incredibly honest when it counts most. C6