Postgame actions of football and basketball players as opposed to baseball players

[macro]

Jim Rome was riding LeBron James pretty hard just now for failing to congratulate the winning Orlando Magic players after the last game of their Eastern Conference Championship Series. He said it made him look like a poor sport and a sore loser.

That got me to thinking: Upon the completion of a pro baseball game, the winning team's players congratulate one another on the field, while the losing team simply disappears from the dugout and down the stairs to the locker room.

Why do losing basketball and football teams stick around on the field/court to congratulate the winners, while baseball players get a pass? Isn't this a double standard? Would LeBron be considered a poor sport if he did the same as a player for the Indians following a loss to the Rays?

[Mario-Rijo]

Poor sport or not I'd be right with LeBron, Rome (and while I'm at it Cowherd) is a moron.

[Chip R]

Hockey players always form a line and shake hands with their opponents after the final game of a playoff series. In the NFL it seems optional - much like baseball. Although players do sort of informally congratulate each other and sometimes pray together. You don't see it in baseball past college.

Although you can't say LeBron is a phony. He may be a poor sport but you have to admire him somewhat for taking the loss so hard.

[Razor Shines]

Originally Posted by macro

Jim Rome was riding LeBron James pretty hard just now for failing to congratulate the winning Orlando Magic players after the last game of their Eastern Conference Championship Series. He said it made him look like a poor sport and a sore loser.

That got me to thinking: Upon the completion of a pro baseball game, the winning team's players congratulate one another on the field, while the losing team simply disappears from the dugout and down the stairs to the locker room.

Why do losing basketball and football teams stick around on the field/court to congratulate the winners, while baseball players get a pass? Isn't this a double standard? Would LeBron be considered a poor sport if he did the same as a player for the Indians following a loss to the Rays?

I'd say it's because of the contact. You feel like you've been in hand to hand combat with the other team after a basketball or football game. There's more of a bond in contact sports, at least that's always been my experience.

[Razor Shines]

Did Lebron usually stick around to shake hands after winning a series? It's easy to be a good sport after a win. I have a little bit of a problem with him not congratulating the Magic, but it doesn't make him a bad guy. He just let his emotions get the best of him and made a mistake.

[UKFlounder]

Location, location, location...

If NFL or NBA players were in dugouts with tunnels to the escape, they may be more like baseball players.

In baseball, when the game ends, you have 9 players from one team on the field, with only 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the offensive players on the field at the same time when the game ends. The vast majority of the baseball teams are already away from each other and the dugouts are on the opposite sides of the fields.

In football or basketball, you have more players closer together at the end of the game than you do in baseball, and often times, players have to cross the field/court and pass opposing players in order to get to the locker room. Baseball players have a nice tunnell to escape down.

[DTCromer]

I would think it's more of a tradition thing in baseball.

As for Lebron, no one would really care if it was Ron Artest doing this kind of crap. But Lebron is the face of the NBA. Did Jordan ever fail to shake hands with the opposing team? My guess is no without checking, but Lebron is just a sore loser. Part of the reason I liked the guy so much is because he was so classy and did things the right way. This is a bad blemish on his record with me. Grow up Mr. James. Quit acting like a baby.

[Eric_the_Red]

Didn't two baseball teams line up and shake hands within the past few seasons? I remember seeing it, but can't remember which teams it was. I liked it, and think teams should do it more often.

[VR]

Originally Posted by Eric_the_Red

Didn't two baseball teams line up and shake hands within the past few seasons? I remember seeing it, but can't remember which teams it was. I liked it, and think teams should do it more often.

Little League World Series

[WMR]

One thing I think it's important to remember is that LeBron is 24 years old and in many ways still a kid. He just showed that he's got some growing up to do, IMO, but it's not a black mark against his character or anything.

[IslandRed]

I think the post was lost in some board crash or other, but I started a thread on this a couple of years ago, wondering why teams shaking hands and saying "good game" or somesuch was considered basic sportsmanship after a game or series, in pretty much any sport at any level, except pro baseball. Mostly, it's an "always been that way" thing, rooted in the attitudes a hundred years ago where people thought that if you could bear to shake someone's hand you must not have wanted to win badly enough. I think most people know better nowadays, but tradition is tradition.

[improbus]

Who cares? I want LeBron w/ a chip on his shoulder. I want him angry.

[westofyou]

http://www.freep.com/article/2009060...+media+s+glare

Two of a kind: Sidney Crosby, LeBron James caught in the media's glare

BY DREW SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

The privileged aren't allowed the luxury of being frustrated. They have to smile and take it because every action and reaction is scrutinized.

And when they come across as too robotic or too casual in defeat, they're reviled for not wanting to win badly enough.

And when they expose a human side, complaining a little too vociferously or frowning too much in defeat, they're branded as spoiled brats.

Sidney Crosby and LeBron James are kindred targets, prodigies who are the best players in their respective sports. It's also why they're despised, because they somehow haven't accomplished enough to warrant the lavish attention showered on them.

LeBron didn't shake hands with Magic players after Cleveland bowed to Orlando in the NBA playoffs, and you'd think civilization was rocked to its primitive core.

Crosby clipped Kirk Maltby's skate following the Red Wings' Game 1 victory over Pittsburgh, and the two exchanged verbal pleasantries. Such psychological back-and-forth happens all the time in a playoff series, but because Crosby can't do anything outside of the camera's eye, the shtick with the stick added more Kleenex to the ticker-tape shower for supposedly the NHL's biggest crybaby.

The problem isn't with Crosby and LeBron.

We're the problem. It's the fault of media, fans and a corporate culture that places a premium on establishing superstars. Either you want these guys to win or you want them to lose. But, either way, you're paying attention to them.

Neither Crosby nor James merits any "Aw, poor baby" sympathy because they willingly accept the money that comes from being hockey's and basketball's "chosen ones." But if LeBron's worst sin is not giving Dwight Howard a quick, insincere fist-bump after The Man of Steel humbled His Royal Majesty, then LeBron becomes a candidate for sainthood considering the far more serious transgressions of his contemporaries.

The NHL should tell Crosby to follow James' lead and not shake the Wings' hands once the Penguins have lost the Stanley Cup for the second straight year.

It would keep hockey on the mainstream media radar, even though some players haven't participated in the traditional end-of-series handshake at center ice.

Chris Chelios didn't shake hands with Anaheim after the Ducks eliminated the Wings in the 2007 Western Conference finals. New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur held a grudge against New York's Sean Avery last year and didn't shake hands.

Nobody cared.

Crosby's going to blow before this series ends. Henrik Zetterberg is in his head. And the Penguins must win tonight to have any chance of extending this accelerated series beyond Saturday.

Nobody's disputing that there's oversaturation -- too much Kid and too much King. But there's an idiotic notion that both are somehow overrated, artificially propped up by their leagues and national media and corporate partners.

But the argument that both have been charitably given what others have dutifully earned collapses under this point: If you were starting an NHL and NBA franchise right now and could choose one player to start the foundation at his current age and skill level, you would take the 21-year-old Crosby and the 24-year-old James.

It's not even a debate.

[ochre]

somehow, it's probably all Ty Cobb's fault.

[Scrap Irony]

If they accept congratulations after winning, they should shake hands after losing. Anything else smacks of elitism.