Spitting - A Sporting Tradition

People are up in arms this week over a golfer spitting on the green before he putted. Some kind of nervous tic, a part of his pre-shot routine. There is quite a to-do about it and the story was a featured item on Yahoo news. Seriously - because the man spit out of doors onto the grass.

Apparently, these stodgy, anti-saliva milquetoasts have never watched another sporting event outside the gentlemanly world of golf. The links are their domain and the Golf Police will not have their beautifully sculpted grounds sullied by a golfer's overflow. It is a gentleman's sport and gentlemen do not spit. Fortunately, these folks have never had to golf with me and my ilk. We have not only been known to spit on a golf course, but to also curse on it, drive carts in an incredibly irresponsible manner (sometimes while innebriated), urinate on it (usually behind a bush - after all, we're not animals) and we have been known to occasionally walk down the fairway with our pants around our ankles after driving short of the ladies' tee-box. They would be suitably appalled.

Well, thank God baseball is not a gentleman's sport, otherwise the dugout cleaning crew would be out of work.

The baseball dugout - a mini-biohazard in the making.

Baseball players don't even wait to get out onto the grass to spit - hell, they just sluice it right onto the floor of the dugout, where their teammates can all walk through it. Baseball, known for its spitting, is equally notorious for the scratching of genitalia. The Golf Police would shudder to watch such activities on their hallowed field of play. Sometimes baseball players even spit on umpires. Let's see Tiger Woods pull that one off. In fact, players often load up with materials so they can spit even more.

Tobacco - it's what's for dinner.

I don't want it to seem as if I am picking on baseball - most other sports tolerate spitting as well. Football and soccer players don't have any qualms with spritzing the field of play, and I'm nearly certain I saw a racecar driver spitting on the ground during a pit-stop while I was clicking past NASCAR on my way the Food Channel. This could be extra dangerous and cause spinouts, I would think. Not sure - not a big fan, but I digress...

Spitting can lead to creative and classy headlines when utilized properly.

I suppose that my point is that the Golf Police should probably stick to fretting over the important stuff, such as whether or not a patch of dirt is a bunker and therefore unavailable for incidental club-grounding. Then they can assess penalties and cause a player to lose a tournament. Or, they can debate whether or not the boulder in front of the player's ball is actually a loose impediment and allow a few husky bystanders to move it so the golfer can have a shot at the green and then go on to win the tournament. Is spitting really that big of a deal? Let's get our priorities straight - until you can get the baseball players under control, you might be best served to overlook the occasional golf-goober - you'll only continue to look like a churlish sewing-circle of uptight, Victorian fussbudgets with your panties all in a bunch.

One for the road...