A seemingly innocuous line from a box score on Sunday:
J. Lueke: 0.2IP, 2H, 4ER, 1BB, 2K.
This was, in pure sporting terms, an inconsequential appearance at an inconsequential point of what will be seen as an inconsequential game. It was only the third game of 162 that the Seattle Mariners will play this year.
It was hugely significant for other reasons. The pitcher concerned, Josh Lueke, was making his major league debut. He is 26, and was acquired along with three other players from the Texas Rangers in last year’s Cliff Lee trade. So far, so normal.
If you google Lueke’s name, you’ll quickly realise why his acquisition was, to say the least, problematic. In the summer of 2009 he faced charges of rape dating to an incident which took place in the May of 2008. Lueke spent 40 days in jail and agreed a plea bargain to the lesser charges of false imprisonment with violence.
Lueke missed the majority of the 2009 minor league season due to his legal troubles. His trade to the Mariners last summer caused a bit of a scandal in Seattle. The M’s have long prided themselves on being a moral and family orientated franchise. They run a ‘Refuse to Abuse’ campaign which sets itself squarely against domestic abuse. In the summer of 2007, they suspended and later traded pitcher Julio Mateo when he was arrested on domestic abuse charges. They are a whiter than white organization.
Lueke’s inclusion in the Lee trade was quickly seized on by journalists. It only took a basic google search to do so. The Mariners, apparently, had not performed this basic task before sanctioning the trade, or so they claimed. As media pressure grew, the Mariner’s top brass began to send out mixed signals, claiming both that they had not done their research, and that they were misinformed by the Rangers as to the severity of Lueke’s crime.
Ultimately, Carmen Fusco, the director of pro-scouting, was singled out as their sacrificial lamb. Fusco was fired in September of 2010, presumably for not having done his homework. It was widely assumed thereafter that Lueke would be moved on or released outright. There was no way that he would appear in the major leagues in a Mariners uniform.
Lueke, throughout it all, put together a very impressive minor league season in 2010, and, as spring training progressed this year, it quickly became apparent that, on baseball grounds alone, he would make the big league team. Lueke had remained silent since the trade, but in February, a number of carefully placed stories appeared in the local media to prepare the way for his emergence.
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I offer the above as a quick and dirty introduction to the problem which presents itself. The problem, as it appears to me, goes right to the heart of fandom itself. Without getting into the details of the Lueke case, can I, as a fan of the Seattle Mariners, cheer for Josh Lueke when he’s on the field? I’m still conflicted.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that we know very little else about Josh Lueke. We know the following things. Josh Lueke is a very promising relief pitcher. He is from Kentucky. His surname is not pronounced the way you’d think it is. He maintains an active Twitter account where he quotes passages from the Bible as well as various motivational mantras without ever saying much of substance. Finally, we know about The Legal Issue.
Lueke is not the first sportsman to be implicated in a case involving allegations of sexual assault. The list is a long one. The Premiership, for example, throws up many similar cases every year. Allegations of rape have been leveled at players as diverse as Titus Bramble, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Robin van Persie. All were exonerated and the incidents forgotten. People laugh and joke when the latest story about ‘roastings’ emerge in the press. Sure, it’s not sexual assault, but there seems to be an attitude of ‘boys will be boys’ that almost tolerates such acts when we consider high profile footballers.
Although charges were never brought against Ben Roethlisberger, the allegations levelled against him were greatly damaging and resulted in him losing a number of high profile endorsements, as well as a six game suspension to begin the 2010 NFL season. Within twelve games, Big Ben was a hero again, based purely on his sporting achievements in helping the Steelers to the Superbowl. However, Roethlisberger never tried to initiate proceedings against Sports Illustrated, who published many of these damaging allegations against him. They don’t make for pretty reading.
The difference with Lueke, it seems to me, is that we know very little else about him. All of the aforementioned players had already established themselves as sportsmen of the highest calibre. We knew something of their skills and their personalities. They were sportsmen first and foremost.The went from heroes, to villains, to heroes again. That is the established narrative. It seems that we don’t like to let villains become heroes unless they have some experience of the latter condition already.
It seems that Josh Lueke is perceived as a someone with a legal history first and foremost, and an athlete second (where as, lets say, Roethlisberger was seen the other way around). The crime defines him. This is a function of the fact that he was an obscure minor league pitcher when the offence happened. Lueke had not risen, so there was no fall. Would the perception be different if he was an established major leaguer at the time? I don’t have an answer for this, nor do I seek to lessen or belittle the nature of Lueke’s case.
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The Lueke situation raises more fundamental questions about the nature of fandom. Jerry Seinfeld was right when he claimed that when we support a team, we are essentially rooting for laundry. The guys wearing the uniforms or jerseys change frequently, moving from team to team, so what matters is the clothing, not the guy wearing it. To add to Seinfeld’s theory, lets also consider the following: that a great proportion of professional athletes are probably not people that we would choose to associate with, all things being equal. Surely, this is another factor which contributes to us rooting for laundry.
Whether they are Premiership footballers, Major League Baseball players, NFL stars, or even GAA players, we know the following: many of them will get into fights, cause criminal damage, drive while drunk, and hold questionable political views. Athletes reflect society more generally, and society is not perfect. In fact, athletes often tend to reflect a certain stratum of society that is underprivileged to begin with. This is an unfortunate fact of life.
Despite all of these foibles, we tend to forgive our sporting heroes. They are only human, as the saying goes, despite the drunken brawls, the racist outbursts, the dangerous driving, and so on. Everybody deserves a second chance and many receive multiple second chances.
So, we know that sportsmen are often not the nicest guys in the world, and we still cheer for them. Or, to be more accurate, we cheer for the shirt that they’re wearing. I think that everyone is entitled to a second chance. And surely that is the point of legal systems – to ensure that, when people transgress certain laws, they are punished accordingly. Thereafter, however, they are entitled to make good.
The nature of the allegations against Josh Lueke make this very difficult for me. This statement goes against all of my own political beliefs; namely, that everyone is entitled to a new start after they atone for their transgression. Lueke spent 40 days in jail and then took his plea bargain (for a different offence to the original charges). He has, as the cliché would have it, served his time. However, here we get into murky world of relativism. Does this alleged crime stand apart from other infractions which sportsmen can be guilty of? My gut says yes. My head tries to reason that the legal system punished him as it does for other offenders. I just don’t know where to stand.
The details of the case are out there, and they don’t read well.
For now, I think I’ll stick to rooting for laundry.
