Sportsmanliness

Andy Roddick, the Times tells us, was very sportmanlike in the US Davis Cup loss to Spain, even though he couldn't win on clay to save his life. Good work, kid. Back in the day, I would have been into his Green Day affectations and other goofiness, but now I think it just detracts from his already sufficiently boring game.

I remember back when Ben Jonson and Carl Lewis went head to head in the Olympics and Ben, with steroids making his eyes a blazing, raging red, was like: "I'm gonna kick that skinny boy's ass" where Lewis, in his quasi Michael Jackson voice, allowed that "I just want to go out and do my best and run my fastest..." and I just wanted Jonson to crush him like a bug, because Jonson was being more honest and forthright.

But now, when I hear athletes attribute their success to God and the like, particularly African American athletes (as middle American white people's Christianity just gives me the willies), I think there's something rather touching and earnest about it, an understanding that success combines something received and something made, a refusal to be egomaniacal about accomplishment.

But I dunno. Maybe this graciousness is deceiving, yet another example of ideology as bad faith. The corporate world rewards the steroidal alpha dog before all else. Better go do that.