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by Pete Bodo
Howdy, everyone. I'm feeling a little bit like the third wheel here, especially after reading Andrew Burton's post (and knowing what he has planned), so I'll keep my comments fairly brief. I hope you all saw Andrew's Breakfast With TW video. Now that's a great show of team/Twibe spirit.
I hope Andrew keeps them coming, but keep in mind that his video-providing options are severely restricted when it comes to tournament content. There are rights issues involved, especially when it comes to material that has been paid for by the host network.
You may be tapped out on the subject, but I posted some thoughts at ESPN on the Agassi-Sampras dust-up at the Hit for Haiti charity event on Friday night. One comment made recently by Cosi caught my eye. In a simple one-liner, she/he suggested that Andre may be more like his father Mike than he'd like to think, and that's something I've felt for a while, and an idea with which many people who know Andre might agree.
I even suggested it to Andre the last time we spoke. In that case, it had nothing to do with Andre's suppressed but very real appetite for playing a little rough. It also seemed clear to me after reading Andre's book, Open, that while Andre rebelled against the degree to which Mike Agassi and Nick Bollettieri "controlled" his life, Andre seems to have the same controller gene.
Just think of the way Andre played the game. At his best, he was the string-pulling puppet master. And the biggest problem he had in his rivalry with Pete Sampras was that he couldn't make Pete dance to his tune. Pete just had too much game, too much power, and a lethal ability to take away Andre's offense and make him play defense. And Andre wasn't great at making the transition from defense to offense.
Or think of those gems of wisdom he delivered in all those late-career press conferences. Didn't Andre's remarkably complex and detailed analysis of match-play suggest an at times startling desire to control? The key to control is understanding; you want to control your dog, or your child, or a colleague at the office? Find out what makes him/her/it tick and what strings you can pull to achieve the desired effect. It's that simple.
The irony, to me, is that Andre seemed to yearn for control all his life right from the get-go, although for an astonishingly long period he simply didn't know what he wanted. He took it out on himself, sure, but also on those who tried to give him the direction they thought he needed. Once Andre figured out what he wanted, his expertise as a controlling agent became obvious and formidable.
I think that what Andre did to Pete the other night was, to put it simply, wrong. He knew where Pete's weak spot was; he had established it himself in his book, with that minor tipping anecdote that took on a life of its own. And he went right back to it, despite the grief it had already caused. Pete was bewildered by the hype generated by that story. He told me that the incident - it seems crazy even to call it that - occurred a long time ago, when they were both young. What did Pete know about tipping, valets, and all the rest of it? Just as important - how much did it really matter?
What Andre did on Friday night was an attempt, conscious or not, to keep tarring Pete with the same sparse brush. To define Pete by that absurdly inconsequential episode. I say all that knowing that Pete is, in fact, tight-fisted - although in my considerable dealings with him (I co-wrote his book, A Champion's Mind, but I've always had a good relationship with Andre as well) I never had any money-related conflicts. Others, here and there, did clash with Pete over money and share that idea the Pete is cheap.
So what?
I'm more of a spender and tipper, but others in my own family are not. I'm not morally superior to them, because throwing money around, even for charitable causes, isn't necessarily noble, even when it does the world some good. There's nothing new about the idea of buying respect, admiration or power. The real question to ask any of them - or anyone else - who's made the journey from, say, rapacious capitalist to Hollywood-endorsed philanthropist or politician is: "What did it really cost you?" Followed by, "And just how much does your giving match your taking?"
In a way, though, the most disappointing - and clear - thing about the Hit incident was the betrayal it represented. This gets tricky, because it ventures into territory that some people will dismiss out of hand, old-fashioned stuff, notions of manly conduct and the codes by which men (as well as women, in different contexts) live. One passe notion is that if you have a problem with someone, you settle it privately, face-to-face. Another is that you don't leave your comrade behind on the battlefield, or in any other lurch. Another is that you don't meddle with the way someone else conducts his life, unless you have a danged good reason.
To my mind, Andre and Pete were partners - uneasy ones, to be sure, but partners, just like I believe Roger and Rafa are partners (and those two exemplary ones would be more inclined to see it this way). Their experiences and goals in life were comparable; each knew what the other went through on a day-to-day basis. They changed in the same locker room, played on some of the same Davis Cup teams. Sure, each had carved out a distinct identity, and they were rivals. But in their lives, rivalry is something that ought to bring them closer, not push them further apart. I believe that Pete instinctively understood this; I'm not sure Andre did, or does.
Rivals ought to appreciate each other even more simply because of the unique nature of their relationship - the comparable strengths that clashed but also fit together to make them enemies. Once, the enmity of even mortal opponents was merely a inconvenient rider to the respect they felt for each other, and even the most bitter and lethal of rivals understood that. It made them appreciate each other. Isn't that part of the Roger vs. Rafa narrative? You'll remember that line from the movie Full Metal Jacket (I paraphrase), "There ain't nobody worth killin' any more."
The incident Friday night might be different if Pete and Andre were bosom buddies, and these little revelations were a clever game of one-upmanship - towel-snapping in the locker room of two like minds. Pete isn't great at towel-snapping; he's a little too tightly wound. And Andre isn't great at it because he's too insecure. Andre's conduct ultimately seemed. . . unmanly. . .bitchy. . . What business is it of his how much Pete tips, even if Andre did grow up in a family in which big tips (for his father) were manna?
It's a sad day indeed when, if you ask Andre Agassi what he thinks of Pete Sampras, the best he can do is resort to a pious denunciation of Pete on the grounds that he once gave a lousy tip to a valet. But that's what it's come to, and as fond as I am of Andre, he's to blame for it. And for my money he's the one who's painted into a corner by all this, not Pete.