Eons ago, at a sports-themed YMCA day camp, I played soccer on a team with my friend, Howard. Precociously broad-shouldered and preternaturally quick, he pretty much ruled the goal.
More versed in the sport than the rest of us, he captained our motley-but-undefeated crew. In that role, he was not shy. One day, he barked at a congenital ball hog, “Come on, Chuck! Who do you think you are, Pele?”
“Is that spelled ‘P-E-L-E?’” I asked.
“Yeah. Haven’t you heard of him?”
“I have now.”
By then, the once-poor Brazilian had been dropping jaws world-wide for eight or nine years- and was still in his mid-twenties. (As a sublime touchstone to shame a ridiculous wannabe, he was ambrosia next to Spam.)
Five decades later, such contrast still thrived- to the point it was deployed (behind the scenes) against a highly placed, forked-tongued ‘pol hog.’
In Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump (2019), award-winning sportswriter Rick Reilly finds the title troll shooting a round (against no one) at a series of brand-new courses, then claiming their respective club championships. And, moving an opponent’s ball from near the hole to deep in the bowels of a hazard. And, claiming “gimmes” from remote zip codes. And, often lowballing his own score. And, routinely flooring it in a souped-up cart- so as to zoom far enough ahead to find privacy while booting his ball from rough to fairway.
Small wonder Reilly hears caddies furtively dub him “Pele.”
If memory serves, Howard’s scolding helped Chuck to get a grip. But the caddies’ scorn of the lout-mouth who wound up telling militants to “go to the Capitol….to fight like hell” did nothing to stanch the bleeding that still afflicts our body politic.
Moving forward, let’s give the sports immortal and the sorest loser his respective due. May Edson Arantes do Nascimento rest in peace, stay green in memory, and remind generations what greatness looks like. And may the ex-POTUS who nearly stove us don a jumpsuit more orange than his jowls- and rant in prison to the bitter end.