Asterisk follows Patriots
The New England Patriots head into the homestretch of their pursuit of perfection every bit as reviled as they are respected, and every bit as suspect as they are superior.
They are models of excellence, as their 12-0 record unarguably affirms. Yet they are also another symbol of what’s wrong with sports these days: convicted cheaters in an era in which some of the most impressive accomplishments in sports come with a potential asterisk.
With the remnants of “Spygate” following them wherever they go, the Patriots are a hot topic in sports bars across America, where football fans wonder if they’re seeing a legitimate pursuit of perfection, or just another illicitly enhanced effort to slither into the record books.
“It’s just another one of those things that makes you leery,” said Tom Garcia, while watching last week’s Green Bay-Dallas game at a bar outside of Denver. “You want to believe that what you see up front is what you get. It just makes you realize that you really don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.”
In September, the NFL took away the Patriots’ first-round draft pick, fined the team $250,000 and fined coach Bill Belichick another $500,000 after catching a Patriots video assistant taping from the sidelines during a game against the New York Jets in Week 1. A league rule prohibits clubs from using a video camera on the sidelines for any purpose – including recording signals relayed to opposing players on the field.
Since then, New England’s perfect record has been followed by an asterisk in the minds of many – and more concretely in the New York Post, where the daily standings include a note reminding readers that the Patriots were nailed for cheating.
“It turned me off a little bit,” said Kevin Turner, a Patriots fan from California. “Recording hand signals, it’s just not right. If they did it again next year, I’d be a little less of a fan.”
Some may ask, what’s the big deal? The legacy of cheating in sports involves hundreds of unwritten rules, hazy lines and shades of gray.
In baseball, stealing signals is widely viewed as a time-honored tradition that includes retribution in the form of a fastball into the ribs of the offending player.
In basketball, the widely circulated term “no harm, no foul,” implies a tacit acceptance that some forms of cheating will be allowed if it doesn’t affect the outcome of the action being played out.
NASCAR has long been known for drivers and crew chiefs who will bend the rules and break them.
“But if the NFL condones cheating and baseball doesn’t do anything about steroids, you wonder if eventually those sports will go the way of boxing,” said Turner’s friend, Carlos Garcia. “I won’t pay to watch a boxing match anymore.”