Giving 'Em Fitz: Trash talking, a longtime sports tradition

After Tuesday night's State of the Union address, the first American president with a fadeaway jumper was accused of trash-talking.

Those critics might be on to something. Unable to put away rival Republicans, President Obama appears lately to have resorted to a sports standby, getting into his opponents' faces and heads.

After Republicans mockingly applauded his reference to a final campaign, the president's "I won twice" zinger was a retort any sports fan could appreciate. All that was missing was a "sucka!" to punctuate it and maybe a victorious shuffle.

The most publicly ardent sports fan ever to occupy the Oval Office, Obama understands trash talk's purpose and power. Used well, it can motivate its speaker and distract and intimidate its target.

"The main objective," said Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp, once a hyper-loquacious defensive lineman, "is taking somebody's mind away from the task at hand."

More and more, this verbal jousting has become the game-day language of sports. A pass-catcher bounces up and barks at a cornerback. A basketball player jaws at his defender after a powerful dunk. An exchange of words, it seems, follows every close encounter.

Even those players who are diplomatic during the lead-ups to events are prone to get into the faces of opponents once they share the same arena.

Thanks to Richard Sherman and his vocal Seattle teammates, trash-taking will again be a media focus at Super Bowl XLIX. Sherman's high-voltage outburst after last year's NFC championship game stands as one of the genre's highlights.

But it's hardly a new phenomenon. Trash talking's history likely dates back to the dawn of competition.

Didn't David taunt Goliath, boldly chiding the giant with promises that he would "strike you down and cut off your head"? Even before that, Epeius, a soldier-turned-boxer who has a bit part in The Iliad, issued a similar warning to anyone foolish enough to challenge him.

Not until the liberating 1960s, however, did trash talk gain wide acceptance. Its Johnny Appleseed was Muhammad Ali, who made boastful intimidation an art form, in the process unleashing many of the same divisive forces resurrected by Obama's historic presidency.

Until then, given the antiseptic nature of early sportswriting, such comments seldom were reported.

By all accounts, though, the insulting banter emanating from baseball benches could be harsh and cruelly personal. The most famous instance occurred during the 1932 World Series between the Yankees and Cubs.

Because he was big and crude and raised in an orphanage, and because frustrated opponents had exhausted all other options, Babe Ruth was a popular target for trash-talkers.

Statistics show the catcalls had little effect on the Bambino, who also was quite accomplished at dishing them out.

Most baseball historians now believe that when Ruth pointed his bat toward center field in the fifth inning of Game 3 of that '32 World Series, he wasn't calling his shot. He was instead warning Chicago pitcher Charlie Root that he was about to knock the next pitch down his throat.

In part because these exchanges are seen but rarely heard, most athletes believe there are few boundaries. Only wives and family are off limits, said Sapp, apparently forgetting about the prevalence of "mothers" in this pugnacious patois.

A line clearly was crossed in 1947 when, amid the very real violence that had marked race relations, some of the taunts and threats directed at Jackie Robinson acquired a more ominous tone.

Everything changed when Ali, then Cassius Clay, burst upon - and ultimately transformed - the sports world.

America in the early 1960s assumed the young heavyweight would emulate black champions such as Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson. They, like virtually all leading sports figure, avoided controversy as determinedly as they dodged left hooks.

As far as the public knew then, athletes spoke with an apple-pie wholesomeness, praising their vanquished foes, crediting their own good fortune to a combination of luck and hard work.

Not Ali.

Gifted and self-aware, he spewed poetry that accurately forecast the round and nature of victories. He boldly stated he was "the greatest," "the fastest," "the prettiest." He mocked opponents at weigh-ins and in the ring.

What made it so memorable and ultimately impactful was that he backed up his words. By the time they fought Ali, his foes usually were so flummoxed that their slim chance had become no chance.

The single moment that elevated trash talk into a social force took place on May 25, 1965, in the unlikely locale of Lewiston, Maine.

That night, depending on your point of view, Ali either dropped Sonny Liston in the first round of their heavyweight-title rematch or Liston took a dive.

Defiantly, almost angrily, Ali, who rarely retreated from anything, did not go to a neutral corner. The young champion stood over his fallen rival, yelling and gesturing for him to rise and fight on.

When it became clear Liston wasn't getting up, Ali danced joyfully around the ring, arms extended over his head.

"Before Liston rose from the canvas," Shaun Powell wrote in his book, Souled Out?, "the fight was over and a phenomenon was born."

Days later, when Neil Leifer's iconic photo of Ali hovering over Liston appeared on Sports Illustrated's cover, the world changed.

Ali ignited a spark in an African American community that, thanks to the civil-rights movement, was at last making cultural and political progress. Soon other black boxers and football and basketball players were proudly imitating Ali's verbal and physical swagger.

Suddenly, the case could be made that such behavior wasn't unsportsmanlike. Instead, many saw it as raw, emotional, powerful, and praiseworthy.

President Obama, who often expresses admiration for Ali, is undoubtedly aware of that moment in Lewiston, Ali's second win over Liston in 15 months.

No one is certain of Ali's exact words as he loomed over his vanquished foe. But Obama can be forgiven if he wants to believe they were, "I won twice."