Un-chair-itable

I can tell you what I'm seeing this morning, in the wake of Naomi Osaka's coming-out moment. It has nothing to do with the gracious, stunningly talented 20-year-old Japanese tennis player, and so you're forgiven for thinking the Blob has slipped a cog.

("Wouldn't be the first time," you're saying).

Anyway, Osaka overwhelmed Serena Williams 6-2, 6-4 in the U.S. Open women's singles final yesterday. It was impressive. It perhaps heralded the turning of a page in women's tennis. And yet all I could see was John McEnroe.

Standing with his hands on hips.

All that '70s hair springing Medusa-like from his headband.

Screaming at the chair umpire.

"(You're the) pits of the world!" McEnroe is shouting.

I don't recall the chair umpire docking him a game for that. Although admittedly it has been close to 40 years.

I do recall that when a seething Serena Williams told chair umpire Carlos Ramos he was a "thief" for docking her a point for a couple of infractions, one legit and the other absurd, Ramos did dock her a game. And thereby injected himself into Naomi Osaka's moment in a manner that should preclude him ever sitting in the chair again for a Grand Slam final.

Look. There's no question Serena let her emotions get the best of her in that moment. There's no question she should have been docked for smashing her racquet in frustration at one point. There is, however, completely a question that it should have been her second infraction, given that the first -- that she was receiving coaching because her coach made a gesture she never even saw -- was ridiculous, because it happens all the time in every single match.

But to dock her a game for talking back? Especially when male players don't get penalized in the same way for doing the same thing?

That's the argument Serena made post-match, and it's pretty hard to argue with it. That there was more than a breath of sexism in what Ramos did seems undeniable. Ditto that he allowed his emotions to get in the way just as surely as Serena did.

In any event, by doing so he committed the sin of sins for a sports official: He made it about him. His ruling incited the crowd, which was already pro-Serena. It spoiled Osaka's moment at the end, as boos reigned down on her head and she wept. Some of this might have happened without Ramos doing what he did. But when he failed to do what a good chair is supposed to do -- defuse situations, not exacerbate them -- he certainly intensified it.

And all because a woman talked back to him.

And the woman in question?

When last seen, she was putting an arm around Osaka's shoulders as she wept. Then she addressed the crowd and, essentially, told them to knock it off with the booing.

In other words, she was doing what Carlos Ramos didn't do: Defuse the situation.

His job, in other words.