Hey, kids, remember all those lessons about sportsmanship and playing the games the right way and not embarrassing your opponent? Forget it! All of it!

It’s game on.

In the words of Gordon Gekko (kids, he’s a character from the first “Wall Street” movie in the 1980s): “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.”

And, no, we’re not talking about being greedy when it comes to winning games. You should want to win every time you step onto the field or court or ice. If you lose, regardless of your opponent’s talent level, you should be disappointed. And, if your team went winless and you didn’t get a trophy from the league, that’s OK. That’s the way life works. It’s not an “everyone gets a trophy” kind of world.

No, this is about doing whatever it takes to get that win, even when it means bending the rules or overlooking your teammates.

Take cyclist Alberto Contador. The Spanish rider, who will win this year’s Tour de France, was sitting in second place earlier this week, just a few seconds behind Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck with less than a week remaining in road cycling’s grand event. During a grueling mountain stage on Monday, with Schleck and Contador basically pacing each other, Schleck’s chain fell off his bike.

Contador, who was about 10 feet behind Schleck at that time, used the opportunity to surge up the mountain. He ended up taking the overall lead in the Tour de France with that move.

Like it or not, in professional cycling — particularly at the Tour de France — when one of the leaders has a mechanical issue, gets taken down by a fan or has something else happen outside of his physical control, the main group, which usually includes his rivals, waits. They don’t attack. Granted, it’s not a written rule; it’s an understood agreement at the Tour de France.

Contador said immediately after the race that he was already attacking and didn’t notice Schleck’s predicament. He then apologized the next morning for his move. Didn’t matter. The deed had already been done.

(Although, to see this out of Contador, who’s an outstanding talent, shouldn’t be a shock. After all, just a couple of days earlier, he passed teammate Alexander Vinokourov, when “Vinny” was close to getting a stage win. Contador won the stage and actually had another rider tagging along. Again, passing your teammate like he did that late in a stage isn’t smiled upon.)

That wasn’t the only egregious act of the week. As it has done for me several times during recent years, my son’s baseball team gave me yet another example of this wonderful sportsmanship — or lack thereof — to which you kids need to adhere.

My son plays at 3&2, which is the main youth baseball league in the Kansas City area. Last week, as a No. 2 seed, my son’s team advanced in their league tournament. During the semifinals, they faced a team that was a much lower seed and had lost seven or eight games during the season.

As it turned out, my son’s team lost that game by three runs.

That fact alone is fine. It was a good teaching lesson. (See above about how losing teaches disappointment, yada yada.)

Evidently, though, the coach of the other team needed either a reading lesson or a moral lesson. Come to find out later that day, that opposing team pulled three players and a coach from a traveling tournament team to play in the tournament. He wasn’t even playing with his normal roster. He had ringers! And we’re talking about a second-grade team!

Kids, again, in “normal” society, something like that is seen as taboo. In our screw sportsmanship world, it’s perfectly fine.

By the way, I saw something similar last season. I wrote about it at that time. In case you missed it, though, here’s the basic set up: In the third inning of a game, my son’s team was down something like 17-0. Offensively, they were hitting it right at the defense. On the defense, well, let’s just say they looked as if they were trying to play with gloves on both hands.

Adding to the mess, the other team’s coach sent the runners as far as they could go any time my son’s team overthrew the ball or dropped the ball or otherwise just weren’t ready to make a play. Well within the rules of the league, but not well within the rules of sportsmanship.

See, in baseball there’s a concept called “station to station,” meaning that if you’re pounding the other team, you generally just go one base at a time. You’re not trying to embarrass them, after all. You’ll even see big-league teams adhere to the idea. This team wasn’t. Which, in and of itself, is fine. But after my son’s coach pointed out the concept to the opposing coach, that coach blurted out a sarcastic line loud enough that it was heard in the stands: “Hey, I’m sorry your kids can’t catch.”

By the way, since it’s summer break and your math skills might not be sharp, that was a year ago. When my son was on a first-grade team. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen many first graders who have proficient defensive skills.

It just further proves this new theory. Forget sportsmanship! Forget not embarrassing your opponent! Forget the unwritten rules of your sport! Go for it! Greed is good! Oh, and as your teammates begin to shun you because they think you’re a conceited scalawag, don’t worry about it. After all, they probably don’t know anything about being classless.


To contact Matt, visit MattFulks.com. or SportsRadioKC.com. Or, as creepy as it sounds, you can follow him on the Twitter at twitter.com/mattfulks