From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: Bonds "choke"?
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 92 22:14:37 GMT
Reply-To: mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Corp. Kingston NY

In article <1992Oct7.194501.15226@odin.corp.sgi.com> kubey@sgi.com (Ken Kubey) writes:
>In article <1992Oct6.184644.22727@sni.ca> dave@snitor.sni.ca (Dave Till) writes:
>[terrific essay deleted]
[indeed. kudos, Dave.]
>>To put it bluntly:  every time we use the word "choke", we risk killing
>>another Donnie Moore.  And one is enough.
>I really liked your post.  Very well written.  It made me think a lot.
>
>But, after I while I thought about the other side.
>According to this theory, there should be a lot of guys killing themselves:
>Calvin Schiraldi, Bill Buckner, Scott Norwood, any Florida State kicker,
>Dave Johnson, Serge (sp?) Bubka.

Well, some of the probably weren't bothered by it. Some of them were
probably pretty miserable about it. Only Moore was bothered enough to kill
himself over it. What gives us the right to take that kind of risk with
other people's lives? It wasn't the home run, it was the fact that after
that home run, he could never get away from the "choker" label. Hey, these
are all very good players. Sometimes you get beaten. Give the other guy
credit for beating you.
 
>Should we stop chanting "Darrrr-yl" when Strawberry bats?
>Should we never again boo Jose Canseco?
>Maybe we should stop booing bad calls by umpires and referees -
>they might go home and blow their brains out.

This is a very different situation. Boo all you want. That comes with the
turf. If you're a public figure, some people aren't going to like you, are
even going to cheer for you to fail. And you will fail. Often. Even the best
batters make outs 60% of the time. Cy Young holds the career record for
wins...and for losses. Babe Ruth held the career record for home
runs...and for strikeouts. What gives any of us the right to claim that a
player should have succeeded in some situation, and that by failing he
choked? That, for some reason, he is less of a person, has failed in a sense
larger than being beaten on the field?

Who among us can say what goes through the mind of players during a game?
The whole phenomenon of "choking" is predicated on failing under pressure.
Isn't it extraordinarily arrogant of any of us to claim to know what players
are feeling? I don't deny the existence of "choking"; after careful thought,
though, I deny the ability of any fan to define a choke.

>I feel bad about Donnie Moore, but the only person to blame is Donnie Moore.

Ken, don't take this as a flame. It isn't one. I find your opinion here
pretty cold, and I'll explain why. To a certain extent, you're correct,
because all the guys you named above managed to deal with it. Only Moore was
driven to suicide. On the other hand, none of us knew that it would happen
to Moore. What gave us the right to take that risk?

What gives anyone the right to pass judgement on Donnie Moore's as a
person on the basis of one pitch? Now, you may say that I overstate the
case, but I contend this is not so. Every highlight film and newspaper
story that painted Donnie Moore as the reason the Angels lost (and
there were many) somehow absolve his teammates, paint him as somehow
less, a failure, even though it was certainly not his fault that the
Angels weren't ahead by 5 runs, or 10. He may have made the best pitch
of his life, only to find that Dave Henderson, at that moment, was a
little better. There's no way any of us can know that. We can see the
fatal effects of deciding that he was "a choker". What gives us, fan or
reporter, the right to make that judgement? Arrogance.

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.
	- Thomas Jefferson