Why give sportspeople a pass on the issues of the day?

The tributes to Roth are still flowing in, though his approach to male-female relationships is one that’s bound to be reviewed intensively, if I can be as delicate as possible.
Like a lot of American writers he was interested in baseball and wrote a book about the sport - The Great American Novel, not one of his best. His view of the game informed his attitude to writing as well, given his famous aside about writing: “It’s just like baseball - you fail two-thirds of the time,” a line I like to trot out when I get the scorers wrong in a 3-19 to 2-25 hurling game.