Start with a reading – not from Scripture, but from the next thing to it.

“One reason for more meticulous recording of full names is that many of the figures in the current news will pass from the pages of newspapers in a few years, but The New York Times remains as a permanent record which will be searched for its accounts of events long after the principals of those events have gone from memory.” (from the New York Times Style Book)

Now we turn to Mr. Latrell Sprewell.
For the uninitiated, Mr. Latrell Sprewell is currently unemployed.
Mr. Sprewell was recently employed by the San Francisco Warriors, a franchisee of the National Basketball Association.
Mr. Sprewell was paid at the rate of $8 million dollars per year.
He only worked seven months per year, so he is free to accept other employment in the five off season months.
His deal is sort of like schoolteachers who are free to augment their incomes during the summer months.
Now, in a belated apology, Mr. Sprewell has suggested that he must learn to “control my temper when I’m put in a situation where frustration mounts and you don’t want to lose control”
Well, let’s see how he must learn to “control my temper and frustration mounts”:
On December 1, 1997, Mr. Sprewell choked the coach!
Then he threatened to kill him!
Then he left practice and returned to strike the coach again!
Two years ago, a teammate of Mr. Sprewell was threatened with a two by four. He was protected by four of his teammates until the mood passed from Mr. Sprewell’s mind.
Now Mr. Sprewell has been fired for violating the “good moral character” clause of the NBA Contract and is suspended for the next year.
I suspect that the old Rip Van Winkle came into play here with Mr. Howell Raines. HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON? HAS THIS JUST STARTED?
And so, we take time out from the several calls for Janet Reno to call for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the fund raising case to address a matter of cataclysmic proportions.
Old Latrell, the only thing that would accord with the NY Times Style Book is to COME DOWN HARD, — TO LOWER THE BOOM.
Yes, on the cancellation of the Contract!
Yes, on the suspension of one year from further employment by the NBA!
I don’t disagree with the suspension and the cancellation of the contract. I think it is long overdue.
On the other hand, Mr. Howell Raines didn’t need to look way out west to the San Francisco Warriors. It’s closer to home.
How about Mr. Tito Wooten coming home from Philadelphia on Sunday, December 7, 1997 to promptly punch out his girl friend. He said that one shouldn’t let personal things
interfere with a professional contract to play football.
Now how about Mr. Christian Peter, of the NY Giants, who assaulted three girls and had his pro career halted for awhile?
What about Mr. Robie Allomar who spit – or spat – into an umpires face?
What about Charles Barkley who threw a man through a plate glass window and Allen Iverson who turned up with a concealed gun during a 90 mile per hour chase by cops.
How about Will Cordero of the Boston Red Sox, who confessed that he had been beating his wife for years. That got him released from his employment with the Red Sox.
There are dozens of abuses by professional athletes. I’m sort of astonished that Mr. Howell Raines would leave his delphic heights to give 6” or 7” to Latrell Sprewell. Now that you’ve joined the fight, there is more than enough abuse to go around. You may wish to start with the people who push their wives and girl friends around. That’s a very good start.
Or you may wish to start with one of America’s more unpleasant little secrets. There is the matter of illegitimate children – children whose fathers make anywhere from $1 million to several times that much.
Leave out all the other calculations about illegitimacy for the whole of American society. Let’s start with NBA professional basketball, Mr. Raines.
Mr. Sprewell has as many as four children sometimes living with him and some living somewhere else. In a recent interview with a San Francisco paper, he declined to state who is the mother of his children. It is a good guess that Mr. Sprewell pays minimal or no support at all. He used to make $8 million.
Portland guard Kenny Anderson, from right here in Queens, seems to have set out to assault a local record. Kenny is 27 years old. His first child happened in high school. Then there was the girlfriend at Atlanta where he went to college. Since then, Anderson has fathered five more children, two of whom he claims by his wife. In an interview with the Times, Anderson says that with the demands of the NBA, he is not really around to “deal with all the problems of fatherhood.” Translation: He doesn’t keep in touch at all. Mr. Anderson takes home from his Portland contract and his shoe contract over $8 million per year.
Exhibit B is Minnesota guard, Stephen Marberry, the pride of Coney Island, N. Y. Mr. Marberry is only in his second year, so his earnings will rise after the next year. He is 21 years old and has acknowledged three children are his. His interview with the Times says that the children are his former girlfriend’s responsibility. So don’t bother me while I pursue the pleasures that the world has to offer. Translation: He sees them not at all. Mr. Marberry, is paid by the Timberwolves contract and by the pact he has with the sneaker maker some $4 million per year.
Now Shaquille O’Neal who earns some where near $30 million, says he had to move from Orlando to Los Angeles where “they don’t pay attention to those kinds of things” – read illegitimacy. He has at least two children in that category.
There are many, many cases of child abandonment in professional sports. Former girl friends have gone to newspapers and to law enforcement agencies to shame the payment of children’s expenses. It shouldn’t have to be that way.
As I said, it is one of America’s unpleasant secrets. It’s one of America’s below-the-scope of the radar. It is down here where we may not want to see it.
I have a sporting proposition for you Mr. Raines. Let’s start by “Lower The Boom” on cheats, of say $3 million or more who don’t provide the basic tenets of fatherhood. Your sports staff will provide you with most of the information you may need to “Lower The Boom.” And then, in a year or so after you clean up the big cheats in NBA basketball, we’ll move down to the $2 million or $3 million range. If you’ll accept this sporting proposition, it may be the first ever launched by an Editorial Board. Pulitzer Prize anyone?
E. Carr
December 12, 1997
Essay #11 (Old Format)
~~~
I’d posit that pro athletes aren’t that much scummier than the general population in this respect, but since their lives are so public we notice their transgressions more often. Either that, or all the head trauma caused by sports like football starts to change your personality to be more volatile, which wouldn’t really be shocking.
Regardless, when you’re making millions, failing to pay some basic child support is almost preposterously coldhearted.
On a different note, Pop’s formatting is pretty unique on this one. I wonder if he tried out this style for a letter or two but ultimately it wasn’t for him — lots and lots of line breaks makes it seem more disjointed than normal.