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Every city should have an inflatable-doll-in-the-clubhouse scandal now and then, if only to prompt the following questions among fans:
Am I really spending my days productively?
And:
Doesn't anyone know how to stash the evidence any more?
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| 'Hey, did you hear what the White Sox did? Like blowup dolls will get them out of a slump.' (AP) |
It's sort of like Dancing With The Stars. You're supposed to know because, well, you can know it, but it isn't like your life is any poorer if you don't.
And herein lies my personal bias. I assume that athletes do things that wouldn't fly in the general public because they are all adolescents who never heard the word "no." I assume sexism exists in the clubhouse because, well, I know it does. I assume that whatever modifications the White Sox make to make sure the valved proxies will be kept from sight hereafter will help dissipate the debate.
In other words, I believe no lessons will be learned from this latest mild grotesquerie except the one teams always learn in such situations, namely: Keep your secrets better. Not "Women are being objectified," or "This isn't cool," or any other lessons about socialization in the new millennium. Just, "Keep it out of sight."
That's not the way the people who are offended by the White Sox's behavior want this little scandalette resolved. They want contriteness. They want apologies. They want abject something or other. And they are certainly within their rights to ask.
But we have reached the point where the only lesson people who get caught learn is circumspection. Roger Clemens doesn't think he did anything wrong except maybe not paying off Brian McNamee when he had the chance. Josh Howard wishes he hadn't shot off his mouth, or had pictures taken at his party.
Yes, it's a YouTube world out there now, and the old saw, "Never do anything you'll be ashamed to have to explain later" has never been more apropos, and more restrictive. Braylon Edwards was right. You want privacy, then don't be public. Only now, the private is pretty much anything inside your house, unless it ends up getting the police interested.
Ten years ago, the inflatable doll thing would have been presented as funny and fewer people would have objected. That doesn't make it any more correct but that isn't how right and wrong are determined any more. Does the latest Internet poll support you? Do the TV ratings support you? Does the sheriff support you? Then you're home free, and quite the character. If not, then woe betide thee, o tin-eared lout.
That's the real lesson here, when all is said and done. No public figure anywhere has control any longer over the one thing that makes good bad and bad good -- the size and shape of the audience. Horse racing wasn't on the casual fan's radar until Eight Belles snapped her front ankles and was put down on TV -- then the sport was in a deep and fundamental crisis. Was the sport in a deep and fundamental crisis before? Yes, because the same issues were every bit as much in play. Only now, the industry is America's piñata because once again a Triple Crown performer has died where everyone could see.
Next to that, of course, the inflatable doll thing seems monumentally trivial, but for some in the new global audience, it isn't. Someone saw something off-color, told someone else, and before you know it, everyone knows, and some people don't like it, or you.
Which is why in the end, nobody will learn anything except how to keep the evidence under seal, and if that fails, deny everything, and if that fails too, then give a vague non-binding non-apology. No lessons are learned except how not to be seen, to borrow from the Monty Python skit of the same name.
And because that is not really a social advancement at all, I am largely unmoved by this new story. Because it's the same as all the old ones -- the real value in it is already lost.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.