Bonding With the Enemy

It's one thing to be a good sport. It's another to be a bad teammate. And while there is no doubting that two of this town's biggest stars are good sports, and good guys, they exhibited some curious behavior this year that should not endear them to their teammates, their bosses, or the fans who pay their hefty salaries to watch them win.

One player who can seemingly do no wrong here is Tom Brady, the adorable, humble, super-competitive quarterback of the three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. Brady was perfectly within his rights earlier this season to complain when the front office let his favorite pass catcher, Deion Branch, sign with the Seattle Seahawks. But Brady stepped out of bounds when he politely gave the Seahawks’ quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, some inside information on Branch’s abilities. "I talked to [Branch’s] former quarterback," Hasselbeck told the Globe’s Ron Borges, "who gave me a scouting report, which is pretty good."

It sure was nice of Brady to help out the quarterback for last season’s Super Bowl runner-up. But if you’re a Patriots’ fan, and the Patriots and Seahawks end up meeting in this season’s Super Bowl, wouldn’t you prefer that Hasselbeck and Branch were still struggling to find a rhythm together as teammates? If they were in perfect synch on a game-winning touchdown, maybe it would be because of the tips Brady threw Hasselbeck, and wouldn’t that be a real kick for Patriots’ fans?

As revered as Brady is around here, only one athlete can top him in popularity: Sox slugger David Ortiz. And if there is a single player Sox fans hate as much as they love Big Papi, it’s Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, whose subpar 2006 season was endlessly analyzed and scrutinized. That’s what made this anecdote from Sports Illustrated’s superb baseball writer Tom Verducci all the more shocking: "There was one game against Boston in Yankee Stadium in June when Rodriguez looked so anguished by the rough treatment from New York fans that Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, while watching him from the on-deck circle, grew concerned. Ortiz caught Rodriguez’s attention and gave him an exaggerated exhale, the way you might when a physician asks you to take a deep breath. Rodriguez would later thank Ortiz. ‘It was painful to see his face,’ Ortiz said. ‘I had to tell him to just breathe and relax.’ "

No, Papi, you didn’t. Sox fans or Curt Schilling or Josh Beckett would just as soon see Rodriguez slump for the rest of his career and feel horribly burdened by the pressure to play in New York. If A-Rod is going to find his game again, it should not be because Ortiz was kind enough to help him relax. That’s what his wife, his shrink, and his army of coaches, teammates, and personal trainers are for.

Helping a Little Leaguer who’s struggling to throw strikes is admirable. Helping an opponent in the pros is not. Obviously, players today are friends. They share the same agents, same endorsements, same colleges, same tax brackets, and they go out to dinner when they visit for games. They might have even played for the same team at some point, thanks to free agency. That’s all fine. But their friendship mustn’t weaken their competitiveness. It’s called Sports, not Games, and it’s big business. Winning and losing do matter. The difference between the Patriots finishing second instead of first means millions of dollars to the team and the city, not to mention heartache to the loyal fans.

Do you think if Bill Gates discovered a design flaw in the iPod nano, he’d dial up Steve Jobs to explain how to fix it?

You never heard stories of Larry Bird showing Michael Jordan how to hone his jump shot before the playoffs. But you did hear about the NBA’s All-Star Game in 1986, when Bird taunted his competitors before the three-point shooting contest by asking who was playing for second.

That’s the attitude Brady should have had before he called Hasselbeck. As for Ortiz, would anyone really have minded if, instead of helping A-Rod breathe easier, he simply put his hand to his throat for the universally recognized symbol for "choke"?

Doug Most is the editor of the Globe Magazine. E-mail him at dmost@globe.com.