In a Seinfeld episode, after Jerry allows another driver to merge ahead of him and then doesn’t receive a “thank you wave,” he complains to Elaine, “How could you not give a thank you wave?” It’s just good manners.
Holding the door open for a stranger, saying “Please,” and writing Thank You notes are all clear examples of good manners. And as manners account for the interests of others, such acts earn moral praise. Yet failing to act in such a manner does not result in acting immorally—holding the door is not a morally required act in the way that returning a $20 bill dropped in line at the market surely is.
Certain moral “rules” do exist, such as: don’t lie, return others’ property when feasible, prevent harm to others, etc. And then there is this other class of actions: those not morally required yet morally praiseworthy, like holding the door or consoling a distraught friend. This is the landscape that sportsmanship inhabits.
Consider, for example, yelling at an infielder preparing to catch a fly ball in order to distract him, causing him to drop it. The New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez did just this in the late innings of a 2007 game against the Blue Jays. As he rounded third base he yelled at third baseman Howie Clark, playing in his first major league game of the season, as he readied to catch it. Clark thought it was a teammate calling him off the ball—Who else would yell at him?—and so he stepped aside. The ball fell to the ground and the Yankees went on to win the game.1
The act didn’t violate the rules at the time. In that sense, one may be inclined to absolve Rodriguez of cheating. Yet it does serve as a good example of lacking sportsmanship. It’s the moral equivalent of not just failing to hold the door open for someone, but intentionally letting it close on him as he walks through the doorway with groceries in hand.
Acting in an unsportsmanlike manner need not lead to an advantage on the playing field as Rodriguez’s did. Many commentators have condemned the recent actions of the Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman as unsportsmanlike. Following a defensive play in the final seconds of the NFC Championship Game while covering receiver Michael Crabtree, Sherman mocked quarterback Colin Kaepernick with a “choking” gesture as if suggesting Kaepernick choked by his throwing the interception.2 Following that, in a post-game interview, Sherman exuded, “I’m the best corner in the game! When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree that’s the result you’re gonna get.”
Examples of good sportsmanship abound. In the culture of soccer, for example, it is common practice when a soccer player is injured during a game, if the opposing team has the ball they will kick the ball out of bounds so the injured player has an opportunity to recover. After this, the injured player’s team awarded the ball with a throw-in will immediately return the ball to the opposition. Clearly no rule could mandate this action, just as no moral law could require us to hold the door for each other. It’s just good manners.
And we don’t really want rules to govern such actions. Think of how you might react to that friend who spent half a day to console you upon your getting fired/divorced/etc. all because he felt he had a moral duty to do so.
This is what makes manners—and thus, sportsmanship—so rich. They provide an opportunity to act out of consideration for others not based on obligation, but because it’s the right way to treat each other. Ideally, we learn our manners at home and then easily map that attitude onto how we play sports. But if we learn our manners in sport, it’s better than never learning them at all. Thank you for reading: I’ll get the door for you.3
1 Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda defended the action based on precedence (of his own action). While coaching first base, Lasorda recalled yelling, “I got it!” at the time of a fly ball causing the opposing first baseman to drop the ball, which eventually led to Lasorda’s team winning the game. The only logic here being, “I did it once so anyone else can rightly do it too.”
2 Sherman’s gesture actually contradicts his self-proclaimed excellence: an athlete “chokes” when he fails to do something he should easily have done. So in this case, according to Sherman, the failed play was due to a poor play by Kaepernick and not a phenomenal play by Sherman.
3 In my non-scientific (though accurate) account: While writing this article at a café in Palo Alto, CA, 13 of 14 who had the opportunity to hold the door for another person did so, with the one failing to do so seemingly because she had two young children and a hot latte in her hands.