Remarkable Behaviour (2012)

Arthur Wharton.

The Action Replay column from the February 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

We’ll not comment on the recent developments in football: one Premier League player suspended for eight matches after being found guilty of racist remarks to an opposing player, one facing a criminal charge, and another apparently being racially abused by a spectator. But there’s no doubt that racism has been a problem in sport, and continues to be so. Athletes, administrators, commentators, spectators – any can be responsible for racist views, language and actions.

In the past racism in sport went well beyond name-calling. US baseball operated a de facto ban on black players till as late as 1946. It was sometimes described as a gentlemen’s agreement, and this was not an ironic use of ‘gentleman’. In apartheid-era South Africa, rugby union was essentially a game for Afrikaners, while football was the game played by the black population.

In this connection it is instructive to look back at the career of Arthur Wharton, born in Ghana (then known as the Gold Coast) in 1865. He came to England in 1882, broke the 100-yards world sprint record, played professional cricket and then played professional football for Rotherham and Sheffield United (he is often claimed to have been the world’s first black professional footballer). But he never enjoyed any kind of fame, and after retiring from sport worked as a miner, dying in poverty in 1930.

Such experiences might make a few phrases uttered in the heat of a match seem like small beer. And it’s hardly original to say that sport simply reflects the wider society. But there’s clearly still a long way to go in overcoming racist ideas.

Paul Bennett

Chips With Everything (2011)

Peter Swan (Sheffield Wednesday)

The Action Replay column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where there is gambling, there is likely to be corruption or cheating, and where there is sport there is likely to be gambling. From betting on prize fights and horse-racing sweepstakes to football pools and the current enormous betting industry, sport and gambling have always been closely allied. But recent complaints and sporting scandals surrounding corruption allegedly caused by gambling have moved to a new level.

Over the decades there have been a number of celebrated betting scandals. In 1919, players in the Chicago White Sox team threw the baseball World Series, so some gamblers could make a fortune betting on their opponents; as a result, eight players were banned for life. In a scandal in the Football League in 1962, three players were imprisoned and banned after betting on their team to lose a match; as one of them, Peter Swan, said, ‘Where there’s money there will always be a fiddle.’ In each case the players benefitted relatively little but paid a big price.

More recently, three Pakistan cricketers have been banned for fixing a Test match against England. They did not conspire to lose but, it’s alleged, to do things such as bowl no-balls at particular points, since that’s the kind of specific event that you can now bet on. They are facing criminal charges too.

The International Olympic Committee is setting up a taskforce to combat not just match-fixing but also illegal betting, an industry worth several hundred billion pounds. Jacques Rogge, IOC President, has said that ‘illegal betting…threatens the credibility of sport’. But the credibility and reputation of professional sport are already undermined, from horse doping to fixed boxing matches to dubious games of snooker or cricket. Swan, it seems, had it half-right: the profit motive leads to fiddles and cheating, where the swindled punters or the corrupted athletes are the real losers.

Paul Bennett

Strikers Out (1981)

From the August 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The major league baseball players in the United States recently went on strike—just as "ordinary" workers are from time to time compelled to withdraw their labour in order to protect their living standards from attack. The superficial observer, knowing the high salaries which baseball players and other sports people can often earn, may doubt this similarity of interest. However, the principles involved are no different from those of a more orthodox industrial dispute. The player, like any other worker, is selling his or her physical and mental energies in return for the wage or salary which the employer, in this case the club owner, is prepared to pay. Furthermore, it is only relatively few star players who earn these high salaries. The run of the mill major league performer receives far less, but clearly also stands to lose if the stars are forced to take a cut. If these "lesser” players felt a conflict of interest with those on the higher salary levels, the strike would in all probability have collapsed quickly. The owners could have recruited a few minor league players to maintain numbers, and been able to force the stars into submission. No such break in fact occurred.

Star sports people are expected to maintain a high life style. The fans expect it, the news media expect it, but most of all it is encouraged by those who profit most by it. If a star is using articles made by a certain company, the latter will lose no opportunity to cash in on the advertising value. Another consideration is the short life at the top for most stars, very rarely more than fifteen years. Some money has to be set aside to try and insure against the leaner years ahead. A former baseball player “Catfish” Hunter, is quoted (International Herald Tribune, 20/6/81) as saying: "The players missed their first paycheck on June 15. The next one is due on July 1. If they miss that one, you will see a lot of them crying”.

True, this strike did not attract the virulent media reaction reserved for a coalmining or dock strike. There was, however, the same misrepresentation of the real issues, the same bias against the strikers. Joe Cronin, a former star, now President of the American League, is quoted (International Herald Tribune, 20/6/81): "I can’t help but think that the guys who worked so hard through the ’20s, '30s and '40s to make the game what it is today must be sick in their stomachs over this strike. The issue they are striking over is not big enough to warrant a strike during the season.” Another former star, Ted Williams, said (International Herald Tribune, 20/ 6/81): “I don't like anything that hurts the game. As for taking sides, in my heart 1 don't know all the issues and particulars so that 1 can’t say which 1 favour. Logically the players haven't given up a thing over the past 8 to 10 years while management has.” These two statements contain a number of misconceptions.

The appeal to the “game itself” as something greater than anything at stake in the dispute appears at first sight to be neutrality, but is nothing of the sort. The implication is that the players (the workers) should, in some “higher cause”, get back to playing the game and abandon their preoccupation with “lesser things” such as pay and conditions of work. The complaint that the issue on which a strike is taking place is a small one is often voiced by capitalist apologists.

Always present, however, is the fundamental class antagonism of capitalism, which is just as applicable to baseball players and their employers as to British coalminers and the National Coal Board. Workers face the capitalists as sellers and buyers of labour power. The former want the highest price they can get, the latter the lowest. In addition, the larger the share that the capitalists take of the wealth produced, the less there will be for the workers who have, in fact, produced all the wealth!

Whatever outward appearances may be, it must always be an illusion to suppose that there is little separating the two sides. In fairness to Ted Williams we should point out that he went on to say: “But if it had happened in my time, I would have stuck with the players’ association”.

Cronin’s comment about the strike occurring during the season is significant. A previous players’ strike in 1972 took place at the start of the season, which was delayed for just over a week. The recent one did not start until the season had begun to take shape. The interest of the fans had been aroused. Airlines were making money from transporting the players to and from fixtures. Telecasting of games had further whetted appetites, and the television companies find the frequent intervals between innings (no fewer than 17 in a game of 2½-3 hours) a lucrative source of revenue from advertisers. In view of these and other considerations, the owners may well have hoped that they could turn public opinion against the strikers and so assist in the defeat of the latter. The loss of gate money due to the strikes could be used as an argument for cutting playing staffs. It goes without saying that if there is reason to believe that the capitalists welcome a particular strike, the workers should think very hard before continuing with it.

In this dispute the baseball players are acting in the only way open to them when their living standards are under threat from their employers. This might persuade them that, beneath the glamour and ballyhoo of a ball game player’s life there is a basic, unpleasant reality.

E. C. Edge