The Tyrant Inside the Little Man

I was reading Mike Lupica’s column on the New York Daily News website, an expository warning regarding Alex Rodriguez’s connection to a Canadian doctor under investigation for smuggling Human Growth Hormone into the United States. Lupica attempts to convince readers, in a left-handed manner, that A-Rod is a conscious violator of Major League Baseball’s ban on such substances, and his failure to confess to federal investigators would have dire future consequences. Pity the poor Yankee fan reading it online and wishing to voice a direct objection, since Mike Lupica’s column is one of the few I know of that does not contain an area to add comments.

If this were only about the desire to cut off the flood of fan hysteria regularly directed at an opinionated sports writer, it would certainly not warrant mention. However, besides being an award-winning sports columnist and a celebrated author of youth fiction, Mr. Lupica has of late directed his attention to the area of local and national politics. The Daily News conceded him additional space toward the front of the paper from which to shoot, while continuing to deny online readers the freedom to fire back. This constitutes an unfair advantage in the standard rules of engagement as applies to new journalism and I’m willing to guarantee that this arrangement to mute all contrary opinion came at the writer’s request. It seems rather tyrannical, doesn’t it? I’m confident that Oscar Madison wouldn’t stoop so low.

So, I ask myself, what is the root cause behind this attempt to stonewall opposing views? Were some overzealous fans issuing death threats disguised as comments, or opportunists using the comment box to hawk cures for defective erections? Were fellow journalists foisting prank messages on a fourth-estate colleague as a form of electronic t-p-ing? All of the above, probably, but every writer faces some level of that when posting online. There has to be something else behind the confinement of all of Mike Lupica’s writing to a reply-proof bunker.

My theory is that he feels victimized from a lifetime of being short in stature. A man of intelligence and influence, to be sure, but those very traits, combined with the close proximity of his head to the floor, breed a rare form of psychosis found only in the neighborhood where dust bunnies romp and the creak of floorboards is most deafening. He’s disappointed that the often promised “growth spurt” passed him by and took Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy with it, leaving him just tall enough to be ignored by circus promoters.

Any reference to a Napoleon Complex would be inaccurate, as the French Dictator rose to 5’6” in English Measure, virtually lurking over our cub reporter. In fact, most of history’s notable tyrants were of average height or greater: Henry VIII towered at over six feet, Adolph Hitler stood above average at 5’8-1/2” and Joseph Stalin a vertical equal of Bonaparte’s. No, if we use historical figures as a comparable yardstick for great infamy, then Mike Lupica falls short. Oops … sorry.

Thus, greatness through tyranny is denied through the smallness of the man. Not only in that he buys his suits off the boys rack and his shoes from Buster Brown, but more so because he is not big enough to accept the risk that the rest of us do in writing in a public forum; the risk of being shown up and slapped around. A true tyrant, a magnificent one, would welcome the challenge and the opportunity to slap back even harder. He proves to be only a minor journalistic despot, a Pinochet with a notepad, a Baby Doc with a Speak-and-Spell thesaurus. We must admit, however, that Buster Brown makes a sturdy shoe and Lupica’s suits do fit well. He’d make a very nice-looking sixth grader in the class picture, the kind that everyone gets punished for teasing.