from Amazon
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sportsmanship: Federer v Nadal
Federer is the ultimate in class. He shows that you can drive yourself, while still keeping your composure. You don’t have to create some fictitious hate of your opponent in order to win. I guess the closest we have in baseball is Mariano Rivera.
Federer is so revered that Rafael Nadal, his equal if not his superior, will still only say just good things about him. Not the kind of “don’t wake the sleeping giant” platitudes, but outright respect and admiration, things he doesn’t even need to say, but he does anyway. Even a non-nice guy like Andy Roddick publicly said of Federer: “You know, you really are a nice guy.” Federer is everything that is right about sports.
One nice baseball rivalry is Felix and Beltre, who talk playful smack with each other when they matchup. One young umpire was unaware of their friendly rivalry, that when Beltre “pretended” to be upset with Felix, the umpire ejected him from the game.