But there is so little aliteration in pro sports these days.
Later in Mac’s career for appearances and some senior events its actually written to his contracts/agreements with the sponsors or people hold the event that he throw tantrums and be very vocal during match play… it IS entertaining and he is good.
I dont remember who the commercial was for but there was one recently with a bunch of kids playing tennis and the instructor kept giving them different pro players to “do” and the last was the MacEnroe meltdown, funny stuff.
he was legendary for his antics.
Didn’t he call a French linesman something in a phrase where the words all started with “F”?
He had that reputation, and Connors was pretty dreadful too, but when MacEnroe came along he completely redefined the standard. He was a jerk’s jerk. Morally a cheat, too, if he prospered by it by disrupting his opponent’s concentration.
There is a lot of jokes about him. But he had a personality. And his main rivals like Borg and Lendl were boring nerds. The people here calling Macca an asshole are the nerds.
The other point to be made is that when he made a complaint about line calls he was almost always right. He apparently had amazing sight.The umpires were a joke in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the changes to umpiring and things like ‘cyclops’ were developed because Macca and others showed up the umpires’ faults.
No cite - I remember reading about a guy who had made a study of Macca’s complaints about line calls. By studying the tv replays he estimated that the umpires were wrong about 75% of the time. Macca was wrong less than 1% of the time. The other 24% of the points were impossible to determine at the time with the technology available. I remember this story getting a lot of publicity and the World Tennis authority getting huffy about it. Few years later comes ‘cyclops’.
Borg boring and nerdy? Ha! I was 11 years old when I first saw him play and he captivated me with his good looks, long hair and icy demeanor. He didn’t show a lot of emotion on the court, that’s true, but you could feel his intensity a mile away.
Johnny Mac was certainly a brat on the court, but overall his contribution to tennis far exceeds his bratty legacy. Age has mellowed him. He’s turned into an insightful and self-depracating commentator as well as an advocate for the sport that has given him so much.
Everything you are saying makes sense in terms of Mac raising the bar of jerkitude. However, I would be less inclined to frame it as moral - while I never did this myself in sports, I think it is entirely fair to try to “get into your opponent’s head” and get them out of your game. You can’t break rules, but you can talk smack as you’re running up the court, or get high-drama with a ref in the hopes that your opponent gets impatient, or take an extra long break - again, they are choices I never made, but when I see them happen, I understand what that person is trying to do. Look at Terrell Owens or Dennis Rodman - very effective at getting in their opponents’ heads…I don’t like either of them (as a Niner fan, I really don’t like TO), but respect their ability to help their teams…
nastase was once asked why he would use english to yell things at the line judges when he could use romanian. he said he wanted to be sure they understood what he said about them.
a connors-nastase match was a very, very, wild game of tennis. yes, they did throw tissys. they seemed to know when to knock it off and where the line was and step very carefully up to it.
mac just trampled up to the line and kicked it and tank drove over it.
it was fun to watch mac blow a gasket or 12 and borg just completely ignore him and throw off his chill.
out of the 4 guys, connors seems to have landed the best in retirement. could be the wife…