The epiphanal moment for me: when the hometown Ravens won the all-Harbaugh Super Bowl and…I just didn’t care.
Mock if you must but my disdain for US sports fandom is shaped somewhat by politics. Domestic leagues have arranged for protected cartels to maximize their wealth-building, limiting participation to 30 or so permanently in each sport and denying meaningful involvement to huge portions of the country. Worse, they’ve convinced us that this arrangement is in our best interests, too.
I have always liked many sports. The sports one likes tend to be influenced by one’s country, parental background and personal skill within that sport. The teams one liked when eight or ten are, more of than not, the teams one likes now. I was very good at a couple sports, good at some, mediocre at many.
Watching sports is different from playing them, but not dramatically so. Maybe everyone wishes they were better at sports or could have been a great athlete if it wasn’t for whatever. Some sports writer claimed every American “is a jock manque” (I coulda been a contender…). I don’t buy it. But I have always enjoyed playing sports more than watching them, and have kept in decent shape. Watching sports helps one belong in many office or social cultures. Playing sports together is how many men (especially, but far from exclusively) bond.
Sports are one of the best things which is of little importance. You can take it too far - know every present and historical statistic. When they publish salaries, at first they seem ridiculous. They are less so in terms of business and scarcity. But they still are somewhat ridiculous, as is the worship for any game where people chase, throw, kick or hit a ball or something kind of like one. But it is easy to forgive, even admire, these human distractions. We need lighter moments. Runs are better than guns.
No, I’m a sports fan but that’s a great argument for not being a sports fan.
I really enjoy watching players compete.
I’ve never seen anyone set a police car on fire over Jar Jar Binks, though.
It took me a while to find out just how I wanted to respond to this, and now I think I’ve got it.
I’m not a competitor. I think that our country places way too much importance on competition. I think turning essential life skills like exercise or getting educated into cutthroat, blood-drenched competitions are a big reason so many kids are completely messed up growing up. That said, I understand that a lot of people are born competitors, and if they decide to pour their hears and souls into fighting over a little piece of inflated leather on a patch of grass, and a large number of onlookers are passionately into it, well, I’m not about to stand in their way. A love is a love; you don’t rip on mine, I won’t rip on yours. Fair enough.
That said, I think everyone needs to realize that an institutionalized, highly regulated, highly lucrative game is still a game, and is not worthy of all this outrage. It strikes me as a colossal waste of energy. Yeah, the Houston Astros cheated. Beyond a shadow of doubt. No, I wasn’t outraged that the commissioner didn’t do a damn thing. I expected it. Since when does the commissioner of MLB take a bold stance on anything? And if he doesn’t give a damn, why should I? Or this huge flap over steroids… y’know, where nobody did a damn thing for years and then the guy with the attitude breaks the home run records and all of a sudden everything’s tainted and there need to be changes? Y’know, for the integrity or whatever? What about integrity? It’s a game. Rules change, standards change, styles change. I never stood this mania for slathering “asterisks” onto everything. There’s never been a “level playing field”. Does everyone play in the exact same weather and has equally competent coaches and equally wealthy/damn-giving owners and equal strength of schedule? Never.
An unjust game is a game. A corrupt game is still a game. You can take it or leave it. No point in outrage.
I’ll just note that this isn’t something a country does. This is something all humans do. It’s in our nature as a species. We’ve survived and evolved due to competition. It’s something of a dark side but it’s also essential. Life itself is a competition.
Remember that the original Olympic Games are believed to have started around 776 BC. So major sporting competitions (big organized ones) are at least 2,800 years old.
We need this sort of thing as a species. But not every member of the species does, necessarily, so it’s understandable that some opt out. I went for years not paying attention to sports myself. (I was into them as a small child through teen years, and stopped caring as an adult for about 15 years before getting into them again.) So I also never begrudge anyone who’s not draw to sports, my closest friends aren’t either.
Indeed.
I think it’s widely accepted that sports are to some considerable extent “socially acceptable warfare”: a way of meeting an important human need while keeping the risk of injury/death low compared to the real thing.
If so, Messi deserves his millions - he (or at least the sport at which he excels) may be saving more lives than large numbers of doctors.
Indeed. I love watching two nations who have historical or political grievances go against each other on a sports field. The 2004 AFC Asian Cup final in Beijing (China vs. Japan) was epic for this reason. Same for the German-Dutch World Cup final in the 1970s.
I just think of it as entertainment, and considering the number of people who want to watch and pay for the privilege one way or another (tickets or by watching ads during the games), it’s not at all surprising that the amount of money involved is staggering. I say good for the players for getting a piece of that pie, rather than begrudge them getting millions for playing a game.
As for the Dallas center, Mark Stepnoski was always a sharp guy- smaller than most, and used his intelligence to out think and outmaneuver larger defensive linemen. I’m not surprised he might have waxed philosophical about the absurdity of his job.
But again, it’s entertainment. Movie stars get paid a lot of money, why shouldn’t athletes?
Also remember that for any sport it’s only the top players making that kind of money. For each person getting rich there are so many more putting their whole lives and future physical condition on the line with very little to show for it.
Exactly. Same with someone who paints a picture or writes a novel or sings a song. Providing entertainment is a valuable service and they deserve compensation for what they do.
G.K. Chesterton put this rather more pithily: “I mean that the general public is less interested in the equality of man than in the inequality of horses.”
(Paraphrasing, because I can’t find the exact quote.)
On the other hand, if we let all those fans into the labs of cancer researchers, they’d create an unholy mess.
Establishing world peace, creating economic equality and finding a cure for cancer are hard things to accomplish. Even the top minds of our time need a break, which sports provides.*
*although I hope Anthony Fauci doesn’t try to throw out any more first pitches at MLB games.