The limits of knowledge

I’m always amazed at what people claim they know.

Not think. Not believe. But know.

As, for instance, in the recent death of Kenyan marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru, who fell from the balcony of his home following a domestic dispute involving his estranged wife and another woman.

One police official called it suicide; another said he jumped to prevent his wife from leaving the house after discovering him with the other woman.

His agent, Federico Rosa, was certain it wasn’t the former.

"I talked to him yesterday and the day before," said Rosa, who claimed the runner’s his training was proceeding smoothly. "It was going well and smoothly and he had no problem at all.

"This I can guarantee, it was not a suicide at all," Rosa said.

Well, sometimes the word “suicide” come with the word “surprise” before it. Two relatively recent ones in the sporting world are Erica Blasberg and Denver Broncos receiver Kenny McKinley. No one saw those suicides coming either. Nobody knows for certain what’s in another person’s mind and heart.

Now, Rosa may be right that it wasn’t suicide. But can he guarantee it? Can he really know?

No.

Yes, I'm sure he's right, and yet ...

In La Belle France, a Socialist leader is also certain about something:
Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have used seduction to have sex with the hotel maid accusing him of rape, “but no way would he use constraint or violence.”

No, no, of course not. Out of the question.

Still, one wonders.

After all, he was arrested on a jet, seemingly trying to get out of Dodge. And there are reports he phoned his wife to tell her he was in some trouble. Then there’s the fact that a French writer and journalist, Tristane Banon is claiming she once had to fight Strauss-Kahn off, saying she is coming forward with her story now because after his arrest, she is finally confident she’ll be heard.

France, of course, is famously relaxed about the private behavior of public figures.

"Politicians and artists enjoy a particular tolerance on this subject," wrote Nicolas Demorand, editor of the Liberation daily newspaper. "Part of the shock comes also from the unusual scene, until now unthinkable here: police arresting a top-level politician on a matter of morals."

Correction: Guilty or innocent, Strauss-Kahn wasn't arrested on a matter of morals. He was arrested on a matter of crime.

Friday column: Recalling day-to-day graciousness

Treating people well — especially those who can’t do anything for you — is a mark of character.

Harmon Killebrew, who died this week at 74, demonstrated that mark.

The adage that it’s impolite to speak ill of the dead hardly deters anyone in this Internet age, but I’ve yet to read something negative about the Twins’ Hall of Fame slugger.

Instead, there are stories about his kindness — nothing spectacular, just account after account of his day-to-day graciousness. How he surprised a family by sending them a personal letter in response to a get-well card they sent him. How he went out of his way to make people feel welcome.

“He was a consummate professional who treated everyone from the brashest of rookies to the groundskeepers to the ushers in the stadium with the utmost of respect,” former teammate Rod Carew said. “I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for Harmon Killebrew.”

Once asked why he was unfailingly nice to everybody, Killebrew said, “You never know. That might be the only time a person sees you play or meets you. I always tried to remember that.”

I never met Killebrew, but I did meet Chuck Tanner, who preceded Killebrew in death by three months.

In the early 1980s, Tanner was a few years removed from winning the World Series as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was the UCLA beat writer for a small Pasadena newspaper and occasionally subbed for our baseball writer.

One night after a Pirates-Dodgers game, I spent too much time in the L.A. locker room, and by time I got to the Bucs’ side, everyone was gone.

Everyone, that is, except for Tanner and his coaches, who were busy plotting next-game strategy in their cramped office.

I had missed the interview session, and Tanner had every reason to brush me off or grudgingly answer a question or two before shooing me on my way.

Instead, he invited me in and acted as though he had all the time in the world, as though nothing was more important to him than giving me whatever I needed to make my story complete. “Are you sure you have enough?” I remember him asking as I backed out the door.

Tanner may have heard of our small daily, but we didn’t mean anything to him in terms of coverage. We certainly couldn’t do anything for him.

But with Tanner, as with Killebrew, that wasn’t the point.
Both Killebrew and Tanner will be missed not so much for what they did — and they did plenty — but for who they were.

Retired Twin Paul Molitor summed up Killebew in words that also apply to Tanner:

“He didn’t differentiate how he treated other people based on their status or social standing,” Molitor said. “Whether you were an 18-year-old minor-leaguer or a clubhouse worker, you got the same Harmon. And that was a pretty good Harmon to get.”

A more critical question

Atlanta pitching coach Roger McDowell has been suspended for two weeks without pay for his odd, homophobic outburst recently in San Francisco.

McDowell, who has issued a public apology, also will have to apologize directly to the fans involved — Justin Quinn and his family — and complete sensitivity training. McDowell is fortunate — very fortunate — he wasn't fired. As it is, I don't believe he likely boosted his chance to have his contract renewed.

According to The Associated Press account of the incident, “Quinn said he was in the stands with his wife and 9-year-old twin daughters before the April 23 game at San Francisco when he noticed McDowell ask three men, ‘Are you guys a homo couple or a threesome?’

“Quinn said McDowell made crude sexual gestures with his hips and a bat. Quinn said he shouted, ‘Hey there are kids out here.’

“According to Quinn, McDowell said kids don't belong at a baseball park, picked up a bat, walked up to Quinn and asked him, ‘How much are your teeth worth?’

The perfect comeback to that question, of course, would have been this:

“How much is your job worth?”

'This could happen to you'

Frank and Jamie McCourt may have taken a proud franchise — the Dodgers — and run it into the ground, but that’s not to say they haven’t done some good.

In Los Angeles divorce court they serve as examples.

A Los Angeles Times story by Bill Shaikin quoted Lisa Helfend Meyer, a family law specialist who has kept up with the nasty McCourt divorce case, who noted that the McCourts “were so focused on destroying each other that they destroyed themselves," Meyer said.

Writes Shaikin:

“Meyer said she was in court last week, working on a case in which the judge felt compelled to remind a divorcing couple to focus on dividing a substantial marital estate rather than attacking one another. The judge held up a newspaper and pointed to a story about the McCourts.

" 'See what happened to the McCourts?’ the judge said. ‘This could happen to you.’ ”

Ah, commerce

Praise of Alex Rodriguez doesn’t flow from my keyboard very often, but I give the Yankees third baseball credit for his take on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Rodriguez put the focus on America’s military:

"I think that the word 'heroes' are (sic) used far too often when you talk about athletes and actors. The real heroes are out on the battlefields, protecting our well being, allowing us the opportunity to play baseball or take our daughters or kids to the park. They're the real heroes."

On the other hand, in Oakland, A's public address announcer Dick Callahan asked fans to “Raise their Budweisers” in appreciation for those who serve the country.

Yes, let’s support the troops — but get in a commercial plug at the same time.

Lovely.

Friday column: What kind of person tweets nonsense?

“What kind of person celebrates death?"

If Rashard Mendenhall’s tweet had stopped there, he would have been OK.

I have my own questions about the rah-rah nature of the reaction to the killing — the justified killing — of Osama bin Laden. Two Tao Te Ching lines from my Eastern mysticism days came to mind:

“Go to war as if conducting a funeral” and “the victory celebration is a funeral service.”

After watching TV coverage of the story, the Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey wrote that the reaction to bin Laden’s killing was “in inverse proportion to how closely 9/11 touched their lives.

“Those closest to the hijacked jets — victims’ families, surviving New York City firefighters, colleagues of flight attendants who died — greeted bin Laden’s death with solemnity. Those who came to know the terrorist mastermind mostly as a symbol — the young who grew up under the terrorist threat but didn’t suffer personal losses — tended to holler, preen for cameras and carry on as if they were watching a ballgame.”

A Roman Catholic priest, Howard Beck, made a related point on Fox News, saying that even when deadly force is justified, it remains “a necessary evil” and shouldn’t be celebrated “like a Super Bowl win.”

Mendenhall, who has played in two Super Bowls with Pittsburgh, knows something about that atmosphere. Using that experience, he might have made a similar point as the priest, then gotten off the stage — in this case, Twitter.

Alas.

Referring to the man who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks that killed thousands, Mendenhall opined, “It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side … ”

I don’t know where Mendenhall’s head is when it’s not in a Steelers helmet, but Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting bin Laden tapes for a decade, his writings have been published, and his biggest statements — those written in the blood of others — are rather hard to misinterpret.

“We’ve only heard one side” is bad enough. But Mendenhall’s tweet got worse.

“We’ll never know what really happened,” he wrote. “I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

Lest we think this conspiracy babble outrageous, Mendenhall went on to tell us he was just encouraging us to think, adding, “There is not an ignorant bone in my body.”
Look again, Rashard.

After a predictably negative reaction by his employers, Mendenhall tried a little damage control, apologizing for “the timing as (sic) such a sensitive matter” and trying to get back to his original point — all the while ignoring the most inflammatory of his posts.

In this Internet world, good luck with that, Rashard. Like herpes and extinction, tweets are forever.

Mendenhall styles himself a “conversationalist and professional athlete.” If he wants to continue being the latter, he might want to rethink being the former.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.