Columnist Dean Juipe: Sports succeed at bringing people closer

Dean Juipe

Friday, April 6, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Consider the juxtaposition of these two events:

China, ostensibly enraged, detains 24 Americans who were captured when their surveillance plane ran aground, yet, almost simultaneously, it releases a basketball player from its national squad so that he can make a living with the Dallas Mavericks, as was the case Thursday with Wang Zhizhi.

A second Chinese player, 7-foot-6 Yao Ming, is earmarked for the NBA and might well be the first pick in this year's collegiate draft.

On the political front, the United States and China seem like opposites and antagonists ready to renew a Cold War that neither of its peoples want.

But on the sports front, good relations abound and a spirit of harmony would appear to exist between these very same countries.

For this and multiple reasons that date at least from Jesse Owens breaking or tying nine Olympic records in the 1936 "Nazi" Games in Berlin, it can be said the world might really be a mess if it weren't for the influence of sports.

It's one of the few places where people of varying backgrounds and beliefs can merge in congeniality and comradeship. It's where men and women of diverse upbringings can and do set aside their seemingly inherent differences.

Politicians, who routinely drive a wedge between countries as much as anything, could take a lesson from their sporting counterparts. The U.S., for instance, should have jumped in last spring and parlayed the Baltimore Orioles playing a baseball game in Cuba into bringing an end to the ridiculous embargo that separates the countries, although it failed to capitalize on that precious moment.

As was obvious even at the time, the Orioles' game in Havana was designed to bridge the gap between two countries that have far more in common than not. Yet the politicos -- especially on the American end -- were unable to bring themselves to compromise and a golden opportunity was vanquished.

But sports people all but embrace their foreign counterparts, and not just in Olympic settings.

Fully one-quarter of the players in Major League Baseball this year were born outside the United States, which indicates a willingness to put talent and ability above point of origin.

Basketball and hockey, despite being driven largely by U.S. money, are increasingly international in terms of participation at the highest levels. The Masters golf tournament that's going on this weekend opened with 32 of its 93 players coming from overseas.

Saturday at the MGM in Las Vegas, an Englishman with Yemen roots will fight a Mexican and 12,000 people (and countless thousands at home, via pay-per-view) will shell out varying amounts of money to get a good look. The nationalities of Naseem Hamed and Marco Antonio Barrera are all but secondary.

Of course sports aren't always so blissful and it would be naive to think so. European countries, for instance, are prone to soccer riots when rival national teams are involved in heated matches.

But, on the whole, there's a cooperation in sports that does not exist elsewhere in this fragmented world. It's a small favor which must be appreciated.