is not seen or called by the officials, it is a “blown call.”c
Gamesmanship occurs when a rule is not broken but a norm is violated. For instance, a tennis player takes an injury timeout even though she is not injured.
Cynical play occurs when a rule is broken and a norm is violated. For instance, a soccer player deliberately kicks another player but then screams and falls to the ground, pretending that he is the victim. When an official misses the call, it compounds the cynicism, because the player may be seen as getting away with something that fellow competitors or fans will view to be unfair. Cynical play is the closest thing to cheating within game play, and an area in which much debate over cheating occurs.
Figure 3.1. A Taxonomy of Cheating
“Cheating” is used a lot in discussions of sport, but it is rarely defined precisely. We’ll need a precise definition of cheating in sport in order to explain why I’ve chosen to focus on the five battlefields that take up the next section of the book.
In sport, some rules are meant to be broken. Breaking rules is in fact often part of the game. Athletes calculate costs and benefits of breaking rules and the chance that a penalty will be enforced. Should a cornerback on a football field commit pass interference on a long pass down the field? Should a centerback on a soccer field foul a striker heading toward her team’s goal? Should a basketball team start fouling at the end of a game to try to catch up? The breaking of rules is an essential part of the fabric of sport norms and rules. So the act of breaking the rules, even intentionally, is not by itself enough to qualify as “cheating.”
To understand what cheating is, we need to recall the difference between regulative rules and constitutive rules, because that difference provides a clear basis for defining cheating. Here I define cheating to be the violation of the constitutive rules of a game. Cheating thus threatens the possibility of sport itself. It is far more serious than breaking the regulatory rules of a game, even intentionally or cynically, and more serious than violating widely held norms. Cheating strikes at the “very possibility” of sport, at the very legitimacy of the games that we play. That is why cheating is so important.
Fifty Shades of Gamesmanship
This simple five-part categorization (cheating, cynical play, gamesmanship, penalty, and ordinary play) gives us some conceptual clarity and a language for discussing efforts by athletes, coaches, and others to secure an edge in competitive sport. Because the issues that arise are colored in shades of gray rather than in sharp back and whites, having a language can help clarify the issues and identify where people may agree and where they may disagree. In sport, the rules are what we make them, and interpretations as to what is over the edge will always be based on subjective human judgment. Thus, it is crucial to be able to communicate with one another, even if we may disagree with one another.
Using this five-part vocabulary, Azarenka was guilty of gamesmanship. She broke no rule of tennis, but her use of the injury timeout for competitive advantage violated some strongly held norms. Is the strongly voiced disapproval of fellow players and sports commentators a sufficient penalty for gamesmanship? Or are rule changes needed, as suggested by Chris Fowler? Because the spirit of sport is about adherence to rules, and rules are our inventions, the only way to resolve such issues is to discuss them, debate them, negotiate them (if things get that far), and come to some practical agreement on how to change them if they can be changed. In the Azarenka case, the tennis world moved on after many people expressed their outrage, and rule changes were not made. Azarenka’s gamesmanship (and that of others using the same strategy) was apparently not enough of a motivation to change the rules.
Gamesmanship is complex because it encompasses a spectrum from the accepted (and expected) to the offensive. And what constitutes gamesmanship is not universally shared—far from it. Local context matters enormously.
Consider a 2013 soccer match in the Copa Libertadores (the South American version of the UEFA Champions League) between Atlético Mineiro and São Paolo. During a pause in play, as a result of the ball being kicked out of bounds near midfield, Atlético’s star player, Ronaldinho, wandered over to the opposing goalie to ask for a swig from his water bottle. The goalie obliged. Ronaldinho took a long sip, spat it out, and wandered over to the sideline, where he was wide open as play restarted. He received the throw-in, made a quick pass, and a goal resulted. Ricardo, a former student of mine and a Brazilian, e-mailed me to ask, “Genius or morally reprehensible?”d
Ricardo noted that Brazilian Portuguese has a phrase to describe such behavior—jetinho brasileiro,18 which he describes as “both a reproach and praise, nuanced and complex.” South American Spanish has a similar phrase—viveza criolla. Daniel Rosa, a journalist, explains: “There’s an expression in Uruguay about how you want to win. If it’s in the last minute and with a moment that enrages your opponent, all the better. That is viveza: knowing how to gain any advantage.”19
Gamesmanship is contextual. What is acceptable in Brazil might not be acceptable in Denmark, and vice versa. In the Brazilian league match, Ronaldinho’s ploy was viewed by many as clever gamesmanship. Yet, Adriano’s similar behavior in the Champions League match was formally sanctioned. Both actions were well within the formal rules. But only one violated a well-established, local norm.e
Debates about gamesmanship and where lines governing behavior might be drawn are thus as much about the context of a culture as they are about the game itself. We can start to get a sense of this contextuality by creating a spectrum of acceptability in sports gamesmanship. I’ll start by suggesting two end points, which I suspect very few people will find controversial. One end point is behavior that I’d guess is universally deemed acceptable; at the other end is behavior that I’d guess is universally deplorable.
At the acceptable end of the spectrum let’s place the practice of framing a pitch by a catcher in baseball. Balls and strikes are called by a human umpire, and catchers often try to catch the ball in such a way as to suggest that the pitch was in the strike zone rather than just outside.f The catcher might limit movement or pause ever so slightly after catching the ball. The catcher is trying to influence the umpire’s call of ball or strike through his behavior, not unlike diving in soccer or flopping in the NBA.
The framing of a pitch is not just an aesthetic matter. It can affect outcomes. Steve Yeager, who played MLB for fifteen years and coaches catching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, explained to Grantland, “If a catcher can perfect a great way of receiving the ball, and he gets the ball maybe a half a ball outside—or even a ball outside—off the corners consistently, I think he’s worth his weight in gold.” Numbers back this up. Take Jose Molina, who catches for the Tampa Bay Rays. After taking into account various confounding factors, one model of the impact of pitch framing finds that Molina “saved his teams 111 runs—or, using the standard 10-runs-to-a-win conversion, about 11 wins—because of framing from 2008 to 2013.”20 Grantland concluded, based on these numbers, that Molina’s value to the Rays was actually worth well in excess of his actual weight in 24-karat gold.
Pitch framing is gamesmanship. But it is also an accepted and meaningful part of the game of baseball.
At the other end of the gamesmanship spectrum—the deplorable end—we can place the Harlequins rugby club. In April 2009, the Harlequins faced Leinster in a quarterfinal playoff match. Late in the match, a wing, Tom Williams, had to be substituted because blood was pouring from his mouth. Poor guy. The substitution was fortuitous, because it would not have been allowed except for the apparent injury, and Williams was replaced by a goal-kicker, Nick Evans, who would be more likely than Williams to score, and Harlequins needed points. Unfortunately for the Harlequins, the substitution did not work out in their favor, as Evans missed a late kick and Leinster held on for a close 6-5 victory.21
It was soon revealed that Williams had manufactured the supposed injury by biting into