The other day I had a phone call from an old friend, Joey Camilleri, who now works as a sportswriter with the Mediterranean Gazette. After letting me know how Sliema Wanderers and Xghajra Tornadoes were doing, Joey asked me the details behind a story that had come across his desk.
"Apparently there was a fight in a baseball game," said Joey. "The only thing is, it says in the wire report that the fight was over some earrings. Now I can understand someone getting upset if a pitcher had tried to hit them, or even if the catcher had made some remarks about the batter's parentage but earrings. This isn't some kind of joke is it?"
Unfortunately for the macho-image of baseball it was not a joke. The game in question was played on Aug. 25th between the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Indians, and Joey was not mistaken, the game was briefly stopped when both benches cleared over an argument over an earring.
Mariners reliever Arthur Rhodes was about to hurl out his first pitch when he started yelling at Cleveland's Omar Vizquel.
Apparently the pitcher was upset that Vizquel had complained that the sunlight was reflecting off the pitcher's right earring and was further incensed that the batter had asked him to remove the offending earring.
"It was like the headlight of a train coming at me," Vizquel said, obviously worried that the blinding light would prevent him from seeing the ball and therefore put him in harm's way.
Players from both benches came onto the field and Rhodes, who was later ejected from the game, had to be restrained by manager Lou Piniella from going after Vizquel.
Joey, whose only experience of baseball was from watching Kevin Costner movies, was amazed that such a thing could happen, and the general consensus from most people who cover America's national pastime was how ridiculous the whole affair was.
"This is supposed to be baseball. It's more like Ken and Barbie go to the beach," mused one commentator.
Cleveland's Travis Fryman said, "When two teams are going to fight over a pair of earrings, it might be time for me to get out of the game."
Dave Boling, writing on the Mariners Web site, joined in the ridicule:
"Don't get me wrong, Vizquel had a right to be critical of Rhodes' earrings. After all what was he thinking wearing solitaire studs that size to a day game. Tres gauche. Even an uncouth minor-leaguer would know that those should be reserved for evening or formal games. World Series, perhaps; playoffs at the least."
However, it got me thinking and the more I thought the more puzzled I became. (Though I guess there is nothing really unusual in that.)
In the last few years there have been dramatic improvements in the equipment used by track and field athletes. Michael Johnson wore shoes that were lighter than a pair of ballerina's slippers; Linford Christie was one of the first athletes to wear a running suit, which besides showing off what the British tabloids liked to describe as "Christie's packed lunch", was designed to make him more streamlined; and athletes are now taking to wearing space-age one-piece uniforms complete with head covering.
As with the advances in swimsuits these have all been designed to give the athletes an edge -- to cut their times by the hundredths of a second that can be the difference between gold and silver. Millions of dollars have been spent on these advances and indeed the times have been reduced, but there is one thing I still can't figure out.
The athletes wear the light shoes, the figure-hugging uniforms and then top it off with what?
Necklaces, bracelets, earrings etc,. Now I am no physicist but surely these accessories cannot help with an athlete's streamlining. Not only that but it can hardly be the most comfortable thing running your guts out as a 550-gram necklace repeatedly whacks you in the face.
Track and field, of course, is an individual event so the only damage done (whether it is a bruised face or a slower time) is to the runners themselves.
The problem intensifies when players playing team sports wear accessories that can injure an opponent or themselves.
Mike Klis writing in the Denver Post said, "Even if baseball is a comparatively sedentary sport, there is enough action in fielding and baserunning to make wearing jewelry an injury risk."
Klis goes on to say that "Baseball's leaders can keep up with the times by realizing a player's safety should not be a negotiable issue."
In England there has long been a horror story of a man who played rugby wearing his wedding ring. The unfortunate player was kicked on the finger and the fracture directly behind the ring was so bad he had to have the finger amputated. It is not going to be long before a soccer player loses an eye when the necklace or earring of an opposing player strikes him as both players go up for a header.
One can only imagine what Ron "Chopper" Harris and Norman "Bite yer legs" Hunter would have done if they lined up opposite a player wearing an earring. A quick yank and the offending earring would have ended up in the dirt together with a small piece of the player's ear lobe.
How long is it going to be before a Juventus game is help up because the beads in Edgar Davids' hair have come out and scattered all over the field. Far-fetched? It happened in a tennis match between Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport.
Indeed, tennis is one sport that has clamped down on what a player can and cannot wear. The authorities at Wimbledon have for some time told players that they can only wear predominantly white clothing and that it should err on the conservative side.
The latter addition was put in after Anne White wore a lycra one-piece outfit that caused dangerous temperature levels in some of the Chelsea Pensioners at courtside.
The players, rather than complain at the conservatism of the All England Club, merely accept that the rules are what makes the tournament so appealing to competitors and fans alike.
Of course, there are some officials who take things too far and the Kanto Rugby Union seems to be leading the field in that respect.
In 1999, the Tokyo Crusaders won through to Division One of the Tokyo Cup. However, in the subsequent Tokyo Cup Sevens a few players turned up without their club socks.
The team played only to be told that it would banned for a year from the main Tokyo Cup competition for "not showing enough respect to the opposition," and forced to start again in the fourth division. However, even the Crusaders admit that was nothing compared with what happened to another gaijin team, Koryo, composed of ethnic North Koreans. Koryo turned up at a cup match minus half its kit. The player in charge had been called to the hospital to attend to his wife who gone into premature labor. Despite a note from the doctor to the Kanto Rugby Union, the team was banned from the cup for two years and, like the Cru, forced to start again in Division Four.
Now that makes the Yomiuri Giants, who banned players from having mustaches and long hair, seem like real liberals, and that's saying something.
Obviously, a line needs to be drawn into the sand somewhere, and preferably one that is based on common sense.
Rhodes' rather pathetic remark that "the earrings cost me a lot of money. Why can't I wear them when I want and where I want?" will have done him no favors.
The bottom line is if there is no potential damage to an athlete then an athlete should be allowed to wear what he wants within reason.
After all no one complained that Payne Stewart's plus-fours put them off their game or that Notah Begay III's earring impaired their swing.
Though for the life of me I still can't see any logical reason why cricket players and tennis players need to wear watches when they play -- though of course the sponsors in question could probably come up with a reason.
As far as the earring fiasco is concerned the real loser seems to be Vizquel. Not only will he remembered as the man in the "jewelry fight" but he also made the mistake of pointing at the offending earrings.
"I got home and my wife told me she now wants a pair of earrings as big as the ones Rhodes was wearing," he ruefully said.