Well - Spitting

Well – Spitting!

It seems to be an athletic sport; spitting, that is. It doesn’t matter what sport you look at, all the players are constantly spitting out their phlegm onto the field. Some of them are better spitters than players I think. Really, these people (unless they’re in a suit and tie) all do it. Yet, if you look around the world, there are fines in a lot of the cities and towns for spitting (among other things). I don’t know if they’re enforced or not, but they are there and they ought to be.

So what gives athletes the right to dispose of their germs all over the sports field? It’s disgusting behavior to start with, akin to having a pee against the park fence. And don’t think those germs don’t travel because they certainly do; only nobody takes note of it.

I think the whole business started with baseball and those players who chewed tobacco (another disgusting habit). Not having a cuspidor or spittoon at their disposal, they emptied their mouths on to the field. Of course they had to step in it and drag their germs all over the place.

The strange thing is that I’ve never seen any women athletes do any spitting, so it must be a male macho thing. In fact, thinking back to when we were kids, the guys used to do it all the time. I suppose it’s a “monkey see, monkey do” mentality.

Well, they used to have cuspidors in public places where you could get rid of your chewing tobacco mostly and any other garbage that had collected in your lungs and throat. In fact my own grandfather had a spittoon he used after contracting asthma. At least he didn’t leave his coughing fits all over the farmyard (though I wouldn’t have envied my grandmother having to clean the dad - blamed thing.) I imagine many a marriage was put to the ultimate test by cuspidor cleaning back in the day.

The point here is that today’s athletes aren’t spitting because something is in their lungs or their throat. They’re just spitting to spit. That’s the macho thing to do. Well, they’re a captive audience on the athletic field and can be fined for their spitting and that’s what I think should be done. Given their hefty salaries these days, one could raise a fair amount of fine money in the process.

That’s what I think.