Tim Roth, Gary Oldman
Although I’ve been steering clear of “deflategate,” regarding it as much ado about nothing, I perked up when a commentator alluded to a couple of characters in Hamlet. Can you guess which ones?
Deflategate, in case you haven’t been paying attention (and if you haven’t, what’s wrong with you?!), involved the New England Patriots deflating the balls used by their offense in the NFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. In part because of the infraction, in part because the Patriots have a history of cheating, and in part because they appear to have stonewalled the investigation, the sentence was severe: Tom Brady was suspended four games and the Patriots lost draft picks and were fined. Some people find the sentence unnecessarily harsh while others regard it as eminently fair. I have no idea who is right.
Here’s what caught my attention, however: the Patriots suspended indefinitely James McNally and John Jastremski, the two underlings who deflated the balls. Chris Matthews of MSNBC compared the two to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
R&G, of course, are the clueless characters in Hamlet who unwittingly bear a deadly letter from Claudius to the king of England. Claudius’s letter instructs the king to execute Hamlet, but Hamlet discovers the letter and rewrites it, substituting R&G’s names for his own. He makes it back to Denmark safely (via pirate!) while R&G are executed in England. The announcement that “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead” later became, of course, the title of Tom Stoppard’s piece of fan fiction. Or should we call it fan drama?
While Hamlet’s former friends are technically exploiting their past ties with the prince to spy on him, their punishment seems out of proportion to their action. After all, they are just following the strong suggestions of the man in charge, and they know nothing of the contents of the letter they are delivering. Similarly, McNally and Jastremski didn’t deflate the footballs on their own initiative. They knew exactly how Brady likes his footballs, Brady being a control freak. No one doubts that the quarterback was aware of their shenanigans. Yet they are the ones who are losing their jobs.
Hamlet lives to fight another day, defeating first Laertes and then Claudius, and so will Brady. R&G and the Patriots’ locker room attendants, by contrast, are relegated practically to a joke. While being metaphorically hanged by the Patriots is undoubtedly traumatic for Jastremski and McNally, who other than their friends and relatives will recall their names two months from now?
So it always is with the little man. As far as sports is concerned, we share Shakespeare’s class vision, lamenting the tragedies of great leaders while regarding everyone else as trivial and expendable.
