Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sports, "Hunt's Grunts"

Blimey! It’s a Fiesta!

Yes, two holidays are upon us this week...

By Hunt Archbold

Ahoy, me buckos … y coma esta? Yes, two holidays are upon us this week, and they’ll most likely pass with about as much fanfare as last week’s conclusion to the Atlanta Dream’s 3-31 inaugural campaign, the worst in WNBA history. Sept. 19 brings us International Talk Like a Pirate Day, three days after Mexico’s Independence Day. So if you imbibe, consider a swig of rum with a tequila chaser this week and celebrate all things pirate and Mexican.

Certainly, fans of East Carolina’s Pirates have had much to yo-ho-ho about this football season, as a pair of season-opening upsets over nationally ranked teams made those swashbucklers from Greenville, N.C. the toast of the college world. But up the Eastern Seaboard on the diamond in Pittsburgh, not all is so jolly. Yes, Atlanta’s hometown nine have had one long and dismal season—but oh, to be a Pirate fan. Sixteen years removed from being one strike away from the World Series (before Francisco Cabrera and the Braves snatched it away), the Bucs have done nothing but lose, lose, lose. The Pirates have languished through 16 straight losing seasons, and if they notch another one in 2009, they’ll have set the longest losing streak by any team ever of the country’s four major professional sports leagues.

There are pirates in Mexico, too—the kind who operate in the highly lucrative world of video game software piracy. Video game sales and popularity continue to skyrocket, and Mexico City is considered one of the globe’s epicenters of black-market software piracy. According to reports, of all of the video games sold in Mexico, around 75 percent are pirated copies, and the losses due to this illegal trade reach more than $273 million per year. Raids on duplication facilities and storage locations are becoming more commonplace, but piracy remains a serious problem. 

Over in the world of golf, Tiger Woods isn’t having any serious problems. But while he sits on the sidelines, nursing injuries and making babies, the most dominant active golfer on the planet is Mexican Lorena Ochoa. Not only is the 26-year-old Guadalajara native sweet, petite and tough to beat; she’ll garner her third straight LPGA Player of the Year award at season’s end. There’s even talk of Ochoa competing against Woods and the fellas in a future PGA event.
Yet up until the middle of last year, Ochoa didn’t even have a club sponsorship deal. Such a case would be unfathomable for any PGA player. Heck, there are local club pros across the country with their own club deals. And while a player such as Michelle Wie (LPGA victories: zero) is awash in endorsement deals and American ponytail-wearing blondes such as Morgan Pressel and Natalie Gulbis (combined LPGA wins: four) rake in big sponsorship money, it would appear that Ochoa is the wrong nationality for certain U.S. companies.

There was a time last year, long before $140 a barrel oil prices and certainly before the word “lipstick” became such a politically ridiculous lightening rod, that immigration reform was an intense and divisive issue in this country and the current election. It’s hard not to conclude that Ochoa’s snub from U.S. sponsors in 2007 (she’s currently sponsored by several international companies, including Rolex and Aeromexico) had something to do with her nationality.

It’s estimated that a half-million people cross the border illegally each year. Some Americans are of the opinion that these immigrants are peaceful, mostly Mexicans, seeking low-wage jobs in the quest to make a better life for themselves, much as Europeans have done for generations. Others point to these illegal entries into the U.S. and take note of the gangs, drugs, tagging, robberies, rape and murder that follow. Why, they wonder, is the U.S. required to house, shelter, feed, educate and medicate these impoverished visitors?

Altogether, it’s a former hot-button issue that now seems too controversial for either presidential candidate to handle, what with the election less than 50 days away. But whoever wins in November, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed properly and quickly. Because there are criminals—pirates, if you will—crossing the border every day with plans to take from us things we hold dear. But there are also athletes like Ochoa facing unnecessary obstacles as they struggle for their rightful spot on the world stage. 

Happy times … ye scurvy dogs! SP