TRASH TALK, SELLING TICKETS, MUHAMMAD ALI, AND MICHAEL SHERMAN

Back when Muhammad Ali was still Cassius Clay, he hit upon a plan to sell tickets to his fights. Ali studied the antics of a professional wrestler who went by the name of Gorgeous George. George loudly proclaimed both his beauty and his superiority over his prospective opponents. Everybody hated him and they flocked to his matches to see him get beat. He only seldom got beat. The more he trash talked, the more people hated him, the more they flocked to his matches to see him get beaten. The more he won, the more people hated him, the more they flocked to his matches to see him get beaten. The trick was to keep winning. If a trash talker made a habit of losing, he was a laughingstock, not a villain. Of course, fixed matches kept George winning, but talent kept Ali on top.  

So Ali sold a lot of tickets with his mouth. Few may now remember that before he was “The Greatest,” he was “The Louisville Lip.” He did something else with his trash talking—he got into the minds of his opponents. His victories over Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier came as much from getting into their heads as from superior boxing ability. Liston was the “Bear,” and Frazier was the “Gorilla.” People remember the “Thrilla in Manila.” How many remember Ali carrying around a rubber gorilla and pounding on it while saying words to the effect that this was what he was going to do to the gorilla at the Thrilla in Manila? Frazier never forgave him, and had I been in Frazier’s shoes, I wouldn’t have either.

When did Ali do his trash talking? Before the match. Unless there was real bad blood between him and his opponent (as with Ernie Terrell), he had good things to say about his opponents after the match. Why? Nothing constructive could be accomplished by running down his opponents after the match. All he could do with his trash talk after the match would be to injure his opponent and take the luster off of his victory. Talking about how “sorry” your opponent is after you defeat him accomplishes only three things: (1) It hurts his feelings; (2) it suggests that your victory was not much of an accomplishment because it was achieved against an inferior opponent; and (3) it makes you look like a jerk to no purpose.

A lot of athletes since Ali have emulated his trash talking style without understanding why he did it. I suggest that this is what was going on with Richard Sherman immediately after the Seahawks victory over the 49ers.  From some of the comments he has reportedly made in the wake of the uproar over his display, it appears that he has realized his mistake. Only time will really tell.

Sherman might learn something from the example of Fred “the Hammer” Williamson in Superbowl I. Williamson was a brash defensive back who had a tendency to “sell tickets” with trash talk. In the leadup to Superbowl I, he talked about how he was going to knock the Green Bay receivers out of the game. He became something of an object of ridicule when it turned out that he was the one who got knocked out of the game.

Something all trash talkers need to have is a thick skin. By their antics they invite retaliation. Ali knew how to handle the backlash from his trash talk. Ali used to predict the round in which he would knock his opponents out, and he was often correct. When he fought Doug Jones, however, his tongue wrote a check that his fists couldn’t cover. He began by saying that he was going to knock Jones out in six rounds. Later he cut the number to four. The fight went the distance and Ali won a ten round decision. When it was pointed out to him that he had failed in both his predictions, he defended himself by saying that he was correct after all because six and four equaled ten.

Sherman, it seems, is somewhat better at dishing out disrespect than he is at taking it. When some people called him a thug for his comments, he responded that his critics were being racist and that “thug” was code for the “N-word.” He went on to point out that predominately white hockey players regularly engage in thuggery when they fight on the ice.

Here’s where I agree with Sherman: (1) When he proclaimed that Michael Crabtree was sorry, he wasn’t acting like a thug, he was acting like a jerk. There’s enough real thuggery in professional sports without characterizing boorish behavior as thuggery. (2) Pro hockey players who engage in fist fights on the ice are acting like real thugs. That’s one reason I don’t watch pro hockey.

Here’s where I disagree with Sherman: The mere fact that someone called him a thug doesn’t mean that the name-caller is a racist. It means that the name-caller is engaging in hyperbolic language by taking mere jerkery and transforming it into thuggery. The name caller is doing exactly the same thing that Sherman did to Michael Crabtree when he took Crabtree’s misfortune on one play and suggested that it showed Crabtree to be a sorry player.

I have a suggestion for aspiring young athletes who might want to emulate Sherman's behavior: (1) Don't say things that make you look like a jerk. (2) If you simply must act like a jerk, don't dish out verbal abuse if you can't take it.

A SILLY IDEA

Have you ever had what you thought was a good idea but remained silent because you were afraid people would laugh at you? Have you ever regretted voicing an idea when people had a good horse laugh about how silly you were? If your answer is yes to the second question, it is almost certainly yes to the first.

I have had my face reddened many times because people thought that something I said was a ridiculous idea. I vividly remember being corrected by a world-renowned expert on everything (at least that’s what he thought) for having the stupid idea that Leon Spinks had a chance to beat Muhammad Ali. The expert said he personally knew Ali and there was no way Spinks could win. Of course 20/20 hindsight shows that Ali was so overconfident he lost his first fight with Spinks.

I said all this to make the point that seemingly silly ideas often are not silly at all. And I made that point to keep you from laughing as I share  another silly idea of mine.

First, the problem my silly idea addresses: Although English is a language which is rich in synonyms, there is one area where we don’t have enough words. Just as the Eskimos are reputed to have a multitude of names for snow, I think we need multiple words for “fact.” I’ve always disliked making the objection “facts not in evidence” because half the time I objected, the “facts” weren’t facts. We’ve got an either/or view of truth and falsehood, but sometimes truth and falsehood aren’t either/or propositions. For example, the New Testament refers to Pilate as a procurator, but he wasn’t. He was a praetor, as evidenced by a recently-discovered ancient inscription where Pilate refers to himself as a praetor. This discrepancy doesn’t mean that the Bible is false. The evangelists were describing Pilate as the governor of Judea. Most provincial governors were procurators. They can be forgiven for choosing almost, but not quite, the correct label for Pilate. Even Tacitus, who is admired as the greatest Roman historian, called Pilate a procurator. Most facts are like this—imprecise.

We have some imprecise facts in the story of Abraham Lincoln's Almanac Trial. Over the years historians haven't been able to agree on where the moon was when Pres Metzker got killed. Some have it on the eastern horizon, some on the western; some say it hadn’t risen yet, some that it had just set; some say there was no moon at all that night. They can’t all be right. I recently read a book on the trial which roundly criticized some historians for getting the moon in the wrong place. I think it’s important to know precisely where the moon was, but I’m not ready to condemn other writers’ imprecise placement of the moon. Most of them were wrong about where the moon was, but they were absolutely right about where it wasn’t—and that was what was important. The eyewitness said the moon was high overhead, and it wasn’t, which called his identification of the killer into question. Where was the moon really? I undertook an extensive investigation of the question in Abraham Lincoln's Most Famous Case: The Almanac Trial, and I answer it in the chapter entitled “The Misplaced Moon.”     

Second, my silly idea: I propose two new words for the English language—ffact and phact. Here’s how I see it working. “Ffacts” would be data which have the important point right and are near 100% accurate. I borrowed the idea for the spelling of the word from the technical term “iff,” which means if and only if. “Phacts” would be data which have the important point right, but are less than 50% accurate. I got the spelling for “phact” because “ph” sounds like “f” but isn’t. “Facts” would then be data which have the important point right and are more than 50% accurate. Fiction would remain data which have the important point wrong, no matter how accurate they may be.

Let’s apply my system to the question of Pilate’s office in Judea. (1) It is a ffact that he was a praetor. Pilate’s importance to history stems from the fact that he ruled Judea, and he occupied the office of praetor. (2) It is a fact that Pilate was governor of Judea. This doesn’t tell us his precise office, but it tells us that he ruled Judea. There is a margin for error here, but it isn’t important. (3) It is a phact that Pilate was a procurator. This datum tells us what was important about Pilate—he ruled Judea—but it gets his precise office wrong.

I think it’s a neat system which can serve to add clarity to many discussions. A lot of information gets branded as fiction when it is really phact, and we can be misled into thinking that people are spouting fiction when in truth, they are giving us phacts--data which is inaccurate, but which gets the important information right. That's why  I cringe when I see a book with a title which promises to uncover lies and half-truths about historical events. I fear that they are debunking phacts in order to advance some agenda or the other.