Japanese children's author Taro Gomi once wrote that everybody poops. He should write a sequel informing America's naive and reactionary sports fans that everybody curses.
Insults are harmful, racial epithets, damaging and backwards, but what about the occasional A−, B− or C−words that have inserted themselves into our everyday lexicon? When does casual slang transform into national outrage? The line, it seems, is drawn along the same boundaries that separate everyday citizens from celebrities.
On Saturday, Daily Executive Sports Editor Daniel Rathman wrote that he was tired of "athletes being blamed for dropping F−bombs on TV, and having to apologize for being excited about a big win. If you feel it's wrong, blame the station for putting a mic and camera in front of them in the heat of the moment."
Rathman is referring to the non−incident surrounding Brewers outfielder Nyjer Morgan, who said the F−word a few times during a postgame interview after his walk−off single sent Milwaukee into the NLCS. With the Miller Park crowd calling for "T−Plush," Morgan's overly confident entertainer of an alter ego, Morgan dropped a couple naughty words into TBS reporter Sam Ryan's microphone, exhibiting a blatant disregard for America's children.
That seemed to be the general consensus surrounding Morgan's — or T−Plush's — actions. He's a renegade, people tweeted, a terrible role model who sets an example no child should dare emulate. This is about as idiotic as trying to ensure that your kid never curses by never cursing yourself.
Think about the flip side, about the video. Ryan approaches Morgan and comments, "T−Plush, they're calling you." Morgan walks away from the microphone, inching closer to the stands to cheer with Milwaukee's fans. Ryan then thrusts the microphone into his face. One F−word ensues. Apparently that wasn't enough for Ryan to remove the microphone. Two more come spilling out. It was a moment of jubilation, of pure candidness by a player who has become baseball's most exciting personality east of San Francisco.
An interesting paradox exists within the public−athlete relationship. We crave for our sporting heroes to be more open, to eschew the cliched — "We gave 110 percent," "Let's take it one game at a time," "We just have to work harder." — for the charismatic. We plead for transparency yet moan when it crosses the line, when emotion manifests itself in words arbitrarily decided as taboo.
The Brewers are, as a whole, a boisterous bunch, the perfect foil to the all−business St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS. Excitement won out in Game 1; the Brewers turned a 5−2 deficit into an 8−5 lead on three at−bats in the fifth inning. Morgan was entered as a pinch−hitter in the seventh, striking out swinging.
But that strikeout hardly matters in the grand scheme of things anymore. Morgan could go the rest of the postseason without an at−bat and he would still maintain that polarizing charm exhibited in the NLDS. Like the rest of the Brewers, he has built an identity — one that's rallied a city and called attention to a dangerous team.
Whether his reputation becomes predicated on cursing is up to us. When discussions emerge about today's youth, words like "sheltered" and "entitled" are inevitably associated alongside them.
Role models cannot curse. Idols are built on the notion of perfection, hoisted onto a pedestal by glorified images of athletic prowess and model citizenship. Babe Ruth was a womanizer and a drunk, yet the media covered up his off−the−field actions.
That cannot happen with players like Nyjer Morgan. Controversy, not idolatry, drives today's sports media. If Morgan wants to embrace his inner T−Plush, then fine. If he realizes the consequences of cursing on national television and then actively rejects them, then that's a personal choice.
Now it's up to us to realize that too.
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Alex Prewitt is a senior majoring in English and religion. He can be reached on his blog at http://livefrommudville.blogspot.com or followed on Twitter at @Alex_Prewitt.
