One of the cultural misapprehensions of our time is in assuming sports is a moral sphere. That the things that happen within the lines of play are guided, first and foremost, by considerations of goodness or badness.
They aren't, and thank God for that.
Sports push the boundaries of our common morality, but only because they are largely amoral. The starting point of any great cultural transformation led by sport – racial integration, gender equality, et al – is "Can he play?" Morality is subjective, but that question is ruthlessly objective. It's either demonstrably true or false.
Jackie Robinson didn't integrate Major League Baseball because he was a surpassingly decent person, though that is true. He didn't manage it because other people – some decent, some self-interested – wanted it to happen, though that is also true. And it didn't happen because it was right, though that's the truest thing of all. Robinson integrated baseball because he could play.
Regardless of their level of talent, everyone deserves a chance to make a living. But not every man gets to play baseball. That's not unfair. That just is.
Robinson blazed a trail in one field that helped open hundreds of others. He used America's obsession with baseball to unsettle its notions about who was capable of what.
This pointed in the direction of equality, but it started in inequality. Robinson's athletic abilities – only gifted to a few of us by a combination of good genetics and hard work – made the moral cause he represented possible. If Jackie Robinson was a .260 hitter of slightly-above-average speed and instincts, someone else cracks baseball's colour barrier.
Go down a list of sporting path-cutters and its heroes in the culture wars, and that's the only thing they have in common. They weren't just good. Almost without exception, they were great. They stood above the rest of us in the only endeavour in which their greatness is measurable and accepted. Their talent – apparent even to the bigots, because the bigots are fans, too – was the propulsive force that made their rise possible.
So hooray for sports. Every once in a while they help make life better for the rest of us, including those who don't give a damn about Monday Night Football.
The billion-dollar machine behind the big leagues is keen to talk up that angle, since it serves as an effective shield from criticism. They want you to believe sports made Jackie Robinson possible (while conveniently forgetting that for all the years before he showed up, they helped make him impossible).
The less advertised truth is that that starting point – "Can he play?" – cuts two ways. It pushes up the good. More often, it redeems the bad.
Committed a crime? Done some time? Okay, that's a poor start to this job interview, but can you play?
Was briefly ad-hoc commissioner of dog-fighting league? Again, we don't support all extra-curriculars, but since you can play …
Anti-social weirdo with strong sociopathic tendencies? Normally, we wouldn't make this sort of exception but … who are we kidding. You can play.
Over the weekend, the Buffalo Bills took a long look at offensive lineman Richie Incognito and decided he can play.
By all accounts, including his own, Incognito is a troubled fellow and not much fun to be around. Leading a small gang of malcontents, he hounded one of his Miami teammates, Jonathan Martin, temporarily out of football.
We spend so much time these days talking about "bullying" that the word is starting to lose its meaning, but this was a committed and oddly sexualized campaign of terror. Most of it was done in person. There are also hundreds of taunting texts, including an entire genre related to the proposed rape of Martin's sister. This was more than cruel teasing, which happens on most teams. This was someone taking sensual pleasure in another person's suffering. It was erotic and deranged.
When he was introduced as the new head coach of the Bills, Rex Ryan laid out his vision for the team: "We're going to build a bully."
After signing Incognito on Monday, he's got one.
Understandably, people are lining up against Incognito and the Bills for re-admitting him. We can argue about whether he's a despicable person, but he's certainly done despicable things. You wouldn't want him dating your sister. You wouldn't want this guy walking your dog. But there is room for him in football or any other game.
And that is, without caveats or qualifications, the way it should be.
The notion that all "bad" people should be barred from modern-day sports is a perverted sub-species of the one that kept the Jackie Robinsons out of the games 60 years ago. It may have very different motivations, but it ends up in the same place – a subjective barrier to entry. Who defines that code? Where do they derive their authority from?
If we're going to draw the line at a criminal conviction, well, spin that one out. Good luck with the two million men who are currently in American jails. It's going to be hard to handle them once they get out and aren't permitted to work. That way lies the police state.
This isn't to say that every reprobate should play in the NFL or NBA or what have you. Teams get to make that decision considering a number of factors, character being one of them (several have already passed on Incognito). Fans get to decide if they will continue supporting the team once they have. Everyone has a choice.
This is instead an attempt to avoid the other road – the one in which some arbitrary force decides who does and does not belong. That undermines the basic principle that allows sport to do great things in the wider world. That principle states that everyone who has the ability has the right to play. It's an insuperable idea. No twist of logic can tip it over. It's self-evidently true.
It doesn't differentiate between well-meaning people and the worst of us. That's why it works. Morality changes. The idea doesn't.
Be very careful about chipping away at it. Forcing Richie Incognito out of sport may feel like the right thing to do today, but I can see a scenario that ends in capriciousness and a tyranny of status quo.
That would be a genuine shame.
Because, given the stakes, I'll take a hundred current Richie Incognitos to defend the possibility of one future Jackie Robinson.
Cathal Kelly