The French rejection

It's time for sports to show how patriotic they are, to join with their better countrymen as we in the United States pile on the hated enemy. But no, the Sports Curmudgeon says, it's not enough just to skip the french fries and spit out the good Bordeaux or to forget that if the French troops and the French fleet hadn't been with George Washington at Yorktown, then, yes, Tony Blair would be our leader today. It's time to make sports 100 percent pure American, free of all-Gaul taint.

No more grand prixes, no more tournaments, no more champions. Lance Armstrong, you and your United States Postal Service Team, you better just forget about that Tour de F-word. The Sports Curmudegon says: What this world of the willing needs is a Tour of Texas, and pronto.

We better not allow anymore French poodles or Great Pyrenees into the Westminster dog show, and we oughta start profiling those French-Canadian hockey players. Why, some of them probably don't even understand how ice hockey is an American game.

It's unlikely that any of our athletes have ever had frogs legs or quiche Lorraine, but eighty-six the French toast, guys, and on your salads, go for Thousand Island or even better -- Ranch dressing -- instead of French. And obey the new patriotic dating rules: no French-kissing.

Hey baseball announcers. When two outfielders converge on a fly ball and let it drop between them, let's hear no more of this "Alphonse and Gaston" foreignization of our national pastime. The ball drops there right between Jones and Smith, as they play Tom and Jerry. That's the home-country spirit.

And the Sports Curmudgeon says: Any ballplayer who screams at an umpire or referee -- "You blind, no-good blankety-blank," but then says, "Pardon my French" -- must be thrown out of the game post haste ... uh, right away.

It pains the Sports Curmudgeon to say it, but all right-thinking Americans also have to wonder about Larry Bird. Born in French Lick, educated at Terre Haute. Hey, is that Larry Bird or Larry Frog?

Our precious American children must not be allowed to play kick the can(nes). And we mustn't have them thinking about the French Riviera instead of the Jersey Shore.

What are we gonna do about Notre Dame? Oh sure, it covers up by calling itself "the Irish." But Notre Dame can't fool the Sports Curmudgeon. He knows where the school's true heart is.

Nobody should be allowed to take Marquette in the NCAA office pool. And as for Lafayette College -- talk about your nerve, playing in the Patriot League. Throw Lafayette out until it changes its name to Pulaski College or Kosciusko College, after a freedom fighter from a country we can trust.

But worst of all, an incredulous Sports Curmudgeon asks: can you believe NASCAR? The All-Americanest sport of all, which has been virtually run by -- oh, the horror -- the France family for its whole existence. Call off the races until the chairman of the NASCAR board, Bill France Jr., changes his name to Bill United States Jr.

And of course, every time we have a champion -- I mean a winner -- there will be no champagne. Raising his glass of Old Grandad, the Sports Curmudgeon says: We need nothing less than an executive order. Henceforth American winners can only pour bottles of bourbon on each other's heads.

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to SI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. He is a longtime correspondent for HBO's Real Sports and his new novel, An American Summer (Sourcebooks Trade), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

 

Related information

Stories

The French rejection

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video