Why is it so hard for people in sports—and in life—to simply say, “I blew it?”

I was in my car on Sunday morning en route to my first swim meet since the heart surgery (I was very pleased with my butterfly swims; not so happy with my god-awful freestyle) and I happened to come upon a local golf show here in Washington hosted by Steve Czaban, whose weekday show I appear on once a week.

As luck would have it, Czaban and his co-hosts—local golf pros—were interviewing a guy from The Middle Atlantic PGA about—you guessed it—the ending of The PGA. If I remembered his name I’d used it, but I don’t. The guy was basically blathering The PGA’s company line about how David Price did nothing wrong in not making sure Dustin Johnson knew he was in a bunker on that fateful 18th hole at goofy Whistling Straits nine days ago.

I’m not here to go over that whole mess yet again. I’ve made my position—which is backed up by most professional rules officials—clear and I’ve tried to clear up a lot of the factual inaccuracies that have been bandied about since the incident occurred: that rules officials aren’t supposed to give players warnings about potential rules violations (wrong); that not all groups at the PGA have rules officials walking with them (wrong) and that there was no change in the PGA of America’s approach to those bunkers in 2010 from 2004 (wrong, many were designated waste areas in 2004. That was a mistake repeated by this rules guy on Sunday).

My point here is this: Why is it so hard for people in sports—and in life—to simply say, “I blew it?” I make mistakes all the time. I have a bad habit, because I have a good memory, of not double-checking facts I THINK I know and sometimes I get it wrong. But that’s not really the kind of mistake I’m talking about. You CAN’T argue when you get the facts wrong. If I say Alfonso Soriano hit the home run to put the Yankees up 2-1 in game seven of the 2001 World Series in the ninth inning when he hit it in the eighth inning (as I once did, I would have SWORN it was the ninth) I’m wrong—no ifs ands or buts.

The kind of mistake I’m talking about is the one Price made. Or, on a much broader level the kind Roger Clemens made—not just screaming he’d never used steroids but swearing under oath he’d never used steroids. You see umpires in baseball do it all the time: they blow a call, they KNOW they’ve blown the call and so they overreact when someone argues and toss the guy from the game—making their mistake even worse. Recently I saw an umpire toss Ryan Zimmerman for throwing his bat down after striking out swinging. Zimmerman never looked back so he didn’t ‘show up,’ the umpire but got tossed anyway. Why? Because the ump, apparently reading Zimmerman’s mind, knew Zimmerman was upset about a 3-1 pitch he thought was ball four.

I still remember when I was researching, ‘Living on the Black,’ seeing an umpire named Tony Randazzo miss a call at first base by a full step—a much worse call than the one Jim Joyce made earlier this year to cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. When Mets manager Willie Randolph came out of the dugout, largely to keep Tom Glavine from getting tossed from the game (Glavine, who might have argued five calls in 23 years) he said to Randazzo, “look Tony, just tell me you missed it and I’ll go back in the dugout.”

Randazzo began screaming at Randolph that he had NOT missed it and ended up ejecting Randolph. The next day, knowing Randazzo would have had the chance to see the replay, I knocked on the door of the umpires room and asked to speak to Randazzo. He wouldn’t even come to the door to talk to me.

That’s the opposite, as we all know, of the approach Joyce took. He saw the tape and instantly said he’d blown it, even went to find Galarraga to apologize. So what happened? Joyce almost became a heroic figure for simply saying, “I got it wrong, I’m sorry.”

Sure it’s tough to look in the mirror and know you’ve screwed up—especially in public—but admitting it is always the best way to go. My worst public mistake, as many if not most people know (God knows I get reminded about it enough) came during a Navy-Duke football game five years ago. The officiating was brutal—so bad that Navy Coach Paul Johnson after WINNING the game chased the officials off the field) and I—inexcusably, regardless of the circumstances, muttered ‘f------ referees,’ after an especially bad call, somehow forgetting I was on the air.

As soon as I realized what I’d done, I pulled myself off the air, found Eric Ruden, who runs the Navy radio network, told him what happened and offered to go on the air and resign. Both Ruden and Navy AD Chet Gladchuk said absolutely not, so I compromised and went back on and apologized. That was not—as Eric and Chet had said—‘the end of it;’—they had to fend off calls from some in the media that week wanting to know why I wasn’t going to be suspended.

“John made a mistake, he offered to resign and then he apologized on the air within minutes of the incident,” Eric told the AP that week. “We don’t need to do anything more.”

For the most part, people said and wrote that I should be given credit for instantly apologizing. To me, it was the only thing to do. Saying the refs were brutal would have just been excuse-making. It didn’t matter. I was un-professional.

How would people have reacted if Clemens had admitted what he’d done and said he was sorry the day after the Mitchell Report came out in 2007? They would have ended up cheering him for being man enough to admit he had behaved badly. Heck, look at how Andy Pettitte and Alex Rodriguez have been treated for ‘confessing.’

In 1993 a freshman Navy kicker named Ryan Bucchianeri missed an 18-yard-field goal in a driving rain at the buzzer that would have won the Army-Navy game. He didn’t hide from the media when the game was over, he stood up and said, ‘I lost the game.’ He refused excuses offered him—wet field, wet ball, rain in his face. He became a national hero to the point where Sports Illustrated did a nine-page story on him the next fall.

On the other hand there’s the newly-single Tiger Woods, who stalled and hid and then refused to take questions when he finally made a public appearance almost three months after he piled his car into a fire hydrant. Everything he’s done this year in public has been part of a strategy to get sponsors back. If you think you’ve seen any genuine remorse or sorrow, you’re just wrong. He’s sorry he got caught and that’s it. The public knows that which is why there might be many who want to see him be a great golfer again but there are few who sympathize with him on any level. If he’d REALLY been sorry and said so and acted that way—rather than blaming everyone else most of the time—people would not have condoned what he did but would have been more forgiving.

The same goes on a totally different level for David Price and The PGA of America. If Price had said when it was all over, “you know hindsight is 20-20 but I wish I’d said something to Dustin—especially given what happened,”—that would have been pretty much the end of it. The mistake would still be there, but Price would be remembered for grace under pressure (like Joyce) after an officiating mistake. Now, as the PGA and guys like the Middle Atlantic PGA guy continue to make mealy-mouthed excuses, the entire PGA looks bad.

From bad can come good. But not until you admit to your mistake.

More insights on Clemens, the steroids issue; Follow-up on the comments on the PGA Championship

Tom Boswell’s column in this morning’s Washington Post is worth reading because he makes important points about great athletes believing they will always be believed—no matter what they say—and about how often he saw Roger Clemens do good things during his long (too long as it turns out) Major League career.

I didn’t know Clemens as long or as well as Boz did but my experiences with him were similar. The very first time I met him was in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore in 1992. I was working on my first baseball book and I was on crutches because I had torn my Achilles heel. A few minutes before Clemens showed up in the clubhouse, I’d been sitting on a chair up against a wall so I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way while I waited for Clemens to arrive—I’d been told he was coming on the team bus, unusual in itself for a superstar—with my crutches standing against the wall next to me.

Jody Reed, then the Red Sox second baseman, walked by, glanced at me and the crutches, and said, “You better make sure those things don’t fall and trip someone.”

Feeling fine Jody, thanks for your concern.

A few minutes later Clemens arrived and walked to his locker. I stood up, grabbed the crutches—which somehow had not fallen and created the havoc Reed envisioned—and hobbled over to introduce myself to Clemens.

“What happened to you?” he asked as we shook hands.

I told him it had been one of those fluke old guy injuries—I wasn’t THAT old at the time but what the heck—and he nodded, took a few steps to his right and grabbed an extra chair. “Sit down and tell me what you need,” he said. As I did, he took the crutches and put them behind him in his locker.

When I told him I was doing a book on baseball and wanted to chat with him at some point he shrugged and said, “sure, no problem.”

To make this long story a little shorter, we talked for a couple of hours the next day, then resumed the conversation in Boston a couple of weeks later. On that day, when it was time for the clubhouse to be close to the media, Clemens walked me outside the clubhouse and sat on the back steps for another 45 minutes so we could finish up. (I was off the crutches by then, much to Jody Reed’s relief no doubt).

I never once encountered him over the next 15 years when he wasn’t cordial or available if I asked. When he came back to the Yankees in 2007, I was working on my book on Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina and he jokingly asked if I’d chosen Mussina because he knew so many big words.

In short, like Boswell, I like Roger Clemens.

But I wasn’t the least bit surprised—nor was anyone else in baseball—when his name showed up in The Mitchell Report in 2007. To quote one of his former teammates, “if he’s not taking steroids then he must be from another planet.”

His numbers were just too outrageous to be believed—not unlike Barry Bonds, except for this: Clemens was in decline when he left Boston in 1996 at the age of 34. He’d thrown a lot of innings and dealt with a lot of injuries. That’s one reason the Red Sox let him leave. Then, as we all know, Brian McNamee came into his life and he miraculously turned his year around in 1998. In 1999—without McNamee—he had a mediocre year in New York. After that, McNamee was hired by the Yankees and the miracles began—a 20-3 record in 2001 at the age of 39 and then, most unbelievably an ERA of 1.87 in 2005 in Houston the summer he turned 43.

I watched, like everyone else, in awe and wonder. As usual, there were people who used the, “no one works out like Roger Clemens,” excuse—the same one heard about Bonds and Sosa and McGwire and other miracles of human nature. No one doubts that. But there’s a REASON why players approaching 40 can continue to push their bodies so hard and, unfortunately, it isn’t Gatorade.

The day Clemens testified before Congress along with McNamee in 2008 was painful. As committee chairman Henry Waxman said in conclusion: SOMEONE was lying. And, while you might have chosen Clemens over McNamee given McNamee’s sleazy background and the fact that he’d provided information only to stay out of jail, you weren’t going to choose Clemens over his pal Andy Pettitte. If Pettitte was ever going to lie it would have been to protect Clemens. But he didn’t. He told the committee Clemens had told him he had taken HGH.

Game, set, match.

I don’t believe Clemens will go to jail. Neither will Bonds, who seems to have found his way to a judge in San Francisco who is going to rule out any testimony that might convict him. But in the big picture it doesn’t matter. They’re both disgraced forever in the eyes of the public. In all likelihood, neither will ever be in the Hall of Fame and they will always be looked upon as cheaters. The sad thing is both had Hall of Fame careers before they got involved with steroids. They just wanted more.

In the grand scheme of things, baseball’s nightmare just goes on and on. Bud Selig and the players’ union (and the media—we aren’t innocent in this either) buried their head in the mid and late 90s when it started to become abundantly clear that players were growing at alarming rates and singles hitters were hitting opposite field home runs on a regular basis. It’s smaller ballparks, better workout regimens, better lights, lousy relief pitching. There were enough theories to fill Yankee Stadium.

None were true. Here’s what was true and I know I’ve told this story before but it is so apt it bears repeating. Ron Darling remembers arriving in Oakland after a trade in 1991 and being struck by how different the clubhouse was after games there than it had been during his Mets days in the mid-80s.

“With the Mets we came into the clubhouse after a game and went right to the food,” he said. “Then we showered, got dressed and went out for the night. In Oakland, guys came in, changed into shorts and a T-shirt and went to the weight room. Every night. After a while it occurred to me that it was just about impossible to work out that hard, that often in-season without some kind of help.”

We all know now what kind of help those A’s, led by McGwire and Jose Canseco, were getting.

I like Roger Clemens. I like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro—and no doubt plenty of other steroid users. But they cheated the game. They damaged themselves. And they have left a taint on the sport that won’t go away anytime soon.

*****

I try to read the posts on the blog at least a couple of times a week because they are often smart, informative and funny. Sometimes I disagree with them but that’s fine too.

That said there were a few posts in response to the blog Tuesday about the fiasco at The PGA Championship that simply made no sense to me. To begin with, some people clearly didn’t READ what I wrote. I didn’t exonerate Dustin Johnson at all, I said he was ultimately responsible (for those of you who need help with vocabulary that means final) for his fate. I also said that AFTER TALKING TO OTHER RULES OFFICIALS it was clear to me that David Price should have said something to Johnson about being in a bunker. His defenders say he was not OBLIGATED to do so. They’re right.

There are two kinds of officials in sports—pro-active ones who try to prevent athletes from committing penalties or violations—simple example as mentioned by one poster when a basketball referee tells a player, “you can’t move,” before an inbounds play. Does the player know that 99 times out of 100? Of course. The official is trying to avoid the 100th time. The same is true when football officials warn players they’re close to getting called for holding. Or even when a good official—unlike short-tempered baseball umpires—says to a coach or manager, “that’s enough,” before he tees him up or tosses him from a game.

Price chose not to be pro-active as every rules official I spoke to told me they would have been: “Dustin, you know under local rule you’re in a bunker.” That simple. As one very experienced official said: “there was nothing bad that could come from him saying that.” Plenty of bad, as we know, could come from not saying it, from saying, ‘I’m not obligated to say anything.’

To the guy who wanted to lecture me on the job of USGA officials: those were PGA of America officials out there. To the guy who has played in ‘high-level,’ competition and thus knows more golf than I do—call me when you’re in the last group of a major. In the meantime, ask real rules officials what they would have done in that situation. They’ve done it in a lot higher competition than you’ve played in. And finally to the guy who says I’m a ‘disgrace to sportswriting,’ for taking Price to task—really? Are you his brother, dad, son—or wife? If thinking David Price screwed up Sunday is the most disgraceful thing I ever do as a sportswriter I will have had one hell of a career.

And for those who want to write in today and say, ‘gee John, aren’t you being sensitive today,’—maybe. I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me or with pointing out when I’m wrong—which is often. But at least read what I’ve written before you go off.

Unfair to Kaymer, but he is not the story of the week – it’s the course, rules official and Dustin Johnson

Honestly, I don’t mind the driving—as I’ve said before I kind of enjoy it—but it can make the return trip feel pretty long when you have a lot to do when you get home. But I’m at last home from Whistling Straits.

Let me pause here to mention Martin Kaymer, the PGA champion, a guy who has a chance to become a real star. I mention him here because that’s the last time I’m going to mention him today because, unfairly, he’s not the story of the week.

Anyway…On Sunday night I left a message for Frank Nobilo and Brandel Chamblee, my colleagues at Golf Channel (since I wasn’t on the postgame show except for an essay): “I told you it was a goofy golf course!”

Brandel, Frank and I had spent a good deal of time arguing about Whistling Straits during the week. It wasn’t as if they loved it, but they defended it on the grounds that it brought all sort of different players into the mix. My friend Paul Goydos said this about that: “Any golf course can bring different kind of players into the mix. The difference is, on most golf courses today, the bombers have more margin for error and can recover from mistakes more easily.”

I also pointed out that no one on earth thought much of Valhalla as a golf course and it produced one of the great PGA finishes ever: The Tiger Woods-Bob May playoff in 2000. You couldn’t find two players more different but there they were. Did that make Valhalla a great golf course? No.

My complaint with the place has always been the same: Herb Kohler told Pete Dye to spare no expense to create a golf course that looked like Scotland or Ireland in Wisconsin. Fine. Except it doesn’t play anything LIKE a links. It plays like a regular old American target golf course. When both the USGA and PGA of America began looking at it as a possible site they were both told there was one major potential problem: morning fog. So why was ANYONE surprised when the first two days were delayed by fog. Heck, from what I was told by the locals—the ones in Sheboygan were very friendly—they were lucky not to have fog every day given the heat and humidity (not to mention the mosquitoes. The local Target ran OUT of bug spray by Wednesday).

And then there were the goofy bunkers. Kohler, who has an ego the size of Wisconsin, wanted more bunkers than anyone had ever built on a golf course. Well, you can only put in so many that are actually in play unless you simply create a beach with tees and greens at either end for each hole. So, Pete Dye put in bunches of bunker way right and way left on most holes—essentially out of play but not ALWAYS out of play.

The only way for spectators to get around the golf course at all was to walk THROUGH the bunkers. In 2004, the PGA made some of those bunkers waste areas, others bunkers. It created confusion, especially when Stuart Appleby thought he was in a waste area when he was, in fact, in a bunker and committed two violations—laying his club down and grounding his club. So, to be consistent, the PGA this time around said they’re ALL bunkers. It posted that fact on the local rules sheet in the locker room—I remember reading it Wednesday and thinking, ‘jeez, I’d hate to see someone land in a footprint with the tournament on the line,’—and even made that comment on-air at one point.

In fact, that didn’t occur. Something worse did. Let’s briefly review who screwed up after Dustin Johnson blew his tee shot to the right at the 18th hole on Sunday: How about everyone?

There’s no excuse at all for Johnson not having read the local rules sheet. Or at the very least for his caddy not to have read it and have it in his bag. Local rules sheets are not only posted in locker rooms every week, they’re on the first tee when players show up to play. The starter puts out a table that usually has tees on it; pin sheets; snacks AND the local rules sheet. In fact, if there’s something new or unusual—like a new water hazard on a course that might be staked in a way that could be confusing—the starter might make a point of saying, ‘be sure to read the rule about the new hazard on No. 12.’

Johnson and his caddy messed up by not having read the sheet. Ultimately, a player is responsible for knowing the rules and if he has any doubt there are rules officials who can answer any questions.

Which brings us to David Price. Just for background here is how rules officials work at major championships (other than the Masters) that’s different than a regular tour event. At tour events, there are anywhere from eight-to-ten fulltime rules officials who roam the golf course in carts. If someone needs a ruling, they get a call on the radio, drive to the spot and help the player out. The players trust them implicitly about 99 percent of the time because this is what they do for a living.

At The U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship, there is a walking rules official with each group. At the U.S. Open on the last two days the last 10 groups also have an ‘observer,’—also a rules official—whose job it is to stay ahead of the play to warn the rules person that there may be a problem. If he sees Tiger Woods’ ball lying on a TV cable, he will radio back to say, ‘Woods’s ball is on a TV cable,’ so the rules official knows he needs to go there to tell Woods his options. Or he might let him know someone’s ball is in a hazard or out-of-bounds.

The walking rules official with the Johnson-Nick Watney group on Sunday was Price, a club pro from Texas. Most of the rules officials at the majors are NOT fulltime rules officials. They’re men and women who have other jobs, who have passed a rules test and who take off three or more weeks a year to work at golf tournaments.

Through the years I’ve met a lot of them. I liked most of them. They’re golf nuts, who love the game and love to tell stories about the work they’ve done and the people (players) they’ve met through the years. They’re volunteers at this so all credit to them.

Price is both experienced and respected. He’s co-chairman of The PGA of America rules committee along with Mark Wilson and he’s walked with the last group on Sunday at the last six PGA’s. It is fair to say he knows his stuff.

And he blew it on Sunday.

On Monday, I talked to five different rules officials I know well. Here’s the synopsis of what they all said: “Officiating 101—when a players hits a ball into a crowd you go there RIGHT AWAY. You have to establish the state of the ball. Did it hit someone? Did it get stepped on? Is it on someone’s lap? Under someone’s chair? In a hazard?.” Next step: “Make sure the player knows you’re there. His mind can be anywhere at that moment. Let him know you’re there to help AND if he’s in a hazard, REMIND HIM.’ Usually those last two words apply to water, where a spot might be red-staked but it is a little more than a ditch and a player’s ball may be on dry land but still in the hazard. “Usually what you say is something like, ‘now you know you’re in the hazard,’ said one—‘even though 99 times out of 100 they know. You don’t want the 100th time to become a disaster.’

In this case it was even more important for Price to say something to Johnson. He was intent on many different things: clearing space so he could play a shot; getting a yardage; figuring out what the best play was; trying to calm himself down with a chance to win the PGA. When Johnson asked Price to help get the crowd moved ALL Price had to do was say, ‘you’ve got it Dustin. By the way, remember under the local rule here, you’re in a bunker even though people have walked there and there’s no rake.”

That’s ALL he had to do. But he didn’t do it. He just walked away. On Monday, Price told ESPN-Dallas (I hate to credit them but fair is fair) that Johnson had asked him a couple of bunker-related questions (involving bunkers INSIDE the ropes) earlier in the round and, thus, he didn’t feel the need to remind him he couldn’t ground his club.

“All he had to do was ask me,” Price said.

That is, to put it very politely, a bunch of hooey. All HE had to do was tell him. Johnson’s knowledge of the rules in a hazard wasn’t at issue his knowledge that he was IN a hazard was at issue. Question for the self-righteous Mr. Price: What damage would have been done if you HAD taken five seconds to tell him? The damage done by NOT telling him is there for all of us to see.

Price should thank God—or whomever he prays to—that Johnson didn’t make his par putt. As it is this is only the worst golf debacle since Roberto DiVincenzo signed for the wrong score knocking himself out of a playoff with Bob Goalby at the 1968 Masters. Goalby, by the way, never thought he was treated with the respect due a Masters champion. But then he was pretty crusty to begin with. Kaymer is not but he has to know more people will talk about the Johnson/Price blunders—and Price needs to be in the sentence—and Bubba Watson going brain dead on the 18th hole during the playoff, than about his victory.

Which is unfair. But the whole thing was unfair: Goofy golf course; bad local rule; HORRIBLE officiating and a big-time mental error by a player on the verge of what would have been a remarkable victory after his meltdown at Pebble Beach.

The PGA is back at Whistling Straits in five years. I doubt if anyone will miss me if I’m not there.