How Cheaters Prosper

It happens a hundred times or more each baseball season. A player is thrown out on a close play at the plate, and immediately the manager comes boiling out of the dugout, charging onto the scene with cap pulled low on his forehead, his jaw jutting, and fury in his eyes. Then comes the emphatic gestures, the dust kicking, the words the TV networks carefully don't pick up delivered into the face of an umpire with spittle-flecked fury. Finally, with a last snarl and an over the shoulder look of disgust, the manager stalks off the field and play continues.

You see something similar in basketball, where players hurl themselves back from the slightest contact, sliding across the floor on the seat of their glossy shorts before springing to their feet, spreading their arms, and appealing to the gods against such gross injustice. When the theatrics don't generate the desired call, the player shakes his head, clearly saddened that the ref should be blind to something so obvious.

In both situations, players and coaches know well enough that they are probably in the wrong. The runner was out. The contact too light to deserve a foul. The umpire or referee got it right the first time. But being right is not the point. The point is to introduce the idea that the ref is not being fair; that he's calling things with a slant toward the other team. Do it well enough and often enough, and maybe the fans in the stands will start to mumble on the next call. Maybe the ump will let one slide your way that's really not deserved. Maybe your man will get the call on a below the knees strike. Maybe the ref will let you have an extra step (or three) when approaching the basket. You know, so he looks fair.

The problem is that this idea of fair, the idea of giving one side an extra nudge just to keep the game balanced, isn't really fair at all. It may be exciting, it may keep the fans in their seats for another inning, but it's really a complete rejection of fairness. It's sacrificing the integrity of the game for the illusion of fairness. It's admitting that the rules of the game are less important than the take from the turnstiles.

Which is exactly what the Republicans want from politics.