BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | Published September 16, 2010

The stage was set for the perfect showdown. The San Francisco Giants had pulled within two games of the National League West leaders in an unexpected late-season push to the top of the standings and were scheduled to play a four-game series against none other than the current NL West leaders, the San Diego Padres. It was September baseball at its best, and it did not disappoint (well, unless you are a Padres fan, in which case you should stop reading this column).

But what really surprised me in last week’s series was not that the Giants took three of four games after an embarrassing record of one for nine against the Padres earlier in the season or that Tim Lincecum made up for an abysmal August with a solid outing on the mound while contributing a two-RBI single in game four. Instead, it was an offhand remark made in game two that had me confounded.

With the game still tied in the seventh, Aubrey Huff came to the plate as the leadoff hitter for the Giants. Clayton Richard lost control of one of his pitches inside and ended up hitting Huff on the elbow. As Huff did the I’m-trying-not-to-cry-on-national-television dance towards first base, the commentators shrugged off the injury, saying, “It’s OK, he’s Texas-tough.”

This struck me as odd. What exactly is Texas-tough, and, if it can make being hit in the elbow by a 90 MPH pitch hurt less, where can I buy some? Although I’m sure this comment was simply supposed to fill the time until the next batter stepped into the box (for those who care, when he stopped jumping around, Huff eventually stole second and scored the only run of the game), it is representative of a much larger tendency for sports commentators to inherently portray American athletes as tougher and more hard-hitting than athletes from other backgrounds. It makes sense that a country that so prizes individuals working their way to the top would also prefer athletes who play through anything, but it is unclear to what extent American athletes have actually established themselves as the world’s toughest competitors and how much of this reputation is simply what American fans want to be true.

This perception of tough American athletes becomes most prevalent in high-
profile international competitions like this summer’s World Cup. Many fans in the States took offense at the acting jobs many international players put on to get fouls called. “Maybe the world accepts the complaining and thrashing around on the ground, but it goes against the general sports culture found in North America,” a July San Jose Mercury News article reported on the subject. Faking an injury to get a call, according to this journalist, was simply un-American.

This attitude can even be seen in fringe areas of the sporting world. The New York Times Magazine in July looked into the future of jousting in the US. Participants were worried that there was not enough contact to draw American crowds. “The sport of jousting is only going to survive in the United States if there is that ferocity in it,” the article said. “If it is just a bunch of guys hitting each other with balsa-wood lances, the only people going will be the Renaissance crowd.”

While I question how many people are really going to show up to jousting competitions even with more contact, it touches on the heart of the toughness debate: it is not that the athletes are inherently more aggressive, but rather that American fans demand blood, sometimes literally, in exchange for their support.

Rodney Fort, in the Scottish Journal of Political Economy, discusses the possibility of differences between North American and European sports. Although he is not convinced of many differences between sports on the two continents, he does look at how fans may differ in their approach to the teams they support. He suggests that in North America, teams have to compete with a variety of other forms of live entertainment and thus American fans demand a show for their attention. Certainly it is true that the aggressive nature of sports distinguish them from other live TV programs like Dancing with the Stars (I for one would be much more likely to watch if dancers were allowed to tackle each other in between dance sets).

Unfortunately this is not a subject that lends itself to empirical study. Even comparing foul rates between American teams in international competitions in sports like soccer and hockey fails to show the mental and physical toughness many claim is the heart of American sports. The only way to truly demonstrate this point is to have more international play. American teams over the last year have been amazingly successful in world competitions. US hockey won silver at the Winter Olympics, US basketball just won gold at the World Championships in Turkey, and while the American World Cup team might have exited the competition too early for their liking, they still managed to get a nation notorious for not being soccer fans cheering as loud as ever for them. The success of these teams should encourage organizers and players in the top tiers of sports to look not just at national competitions as the pinnacle of their careers, but dream even bigger and put that American toughness to the test.

Story time with Aubrey Huff

During this past spring training, Giants hitter Aubrey Huff became mesmerized by teammate Nate Schierholtz’s ripped abs. So he did what anyone would have: took a picture on his cell and sent it to his wife with the text, “Look honey, I’ve been working out!”

Huff and Giant’s teammate Pat Burrell were also teammates at the University of Miami. Huff, in his first few weeks there, was not very happy and wanted to go home. While talking with his mother in his room one day, he got an unexpected visitor. “There is a knock on the door, and before I can even get off the bed, Pat comes barging in with a six-pack in his hand, dripping wet, buck naked.” After that, how could Huff not stay? This story was then published in an article right before Burrell returned to play in Philadelphia, where he won a World Championship last season, only now wearing a Giants’ uniform. Of course Phillies fans took this opportunity to nag him about the story from the stands. Quite unexpectedly, Burrell turns around to the fans and says, “Actually, it was two six-packs.” Only in Philadelphia would fans be able to nag a player enough to get a response.

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