SPORTS: A Rumination

Sports are not a major obsession for me. Some of my friends and family are avid fans but I have avoided that particular virus. Cheering wildly for a group of millionaire athletes who have no particular loyalty to the city they represent, other than the inflated paycheck they get seems a little silly. I’d rather cheer for the owners. At least they have an investment in the enterprise.

There was a time when I followed a baseball or hockey team to some degree. But now my interest is usually only sustained during the final round of playoffs. And I never developed any interest in basketball. Football is pretty much an excuse to drink beer and eat wings, and that also only occurs during the playoffs. Of course not having regular access to TV limits my involvement in the sporting world. That seems to be how people get hooked into fanaticism. I’m old enough to remember when baseball games were on TV on weekends only, as were most sports programs. Boxing did show up on Friday nights sometimes. Weekday ball games were something I tuned in the transistor radio for with the little earplug thing stuck in my head. Nowadays if you’ve got premium cable or satellite you can watch sports all day every day. Professional, college and amateur sports are always available.

Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, tennis, golf, car racing, bowling and hockey are regular fixtures on the tube. In addition you can find track and field, lumberjack competitions, beach volleyball, inside volleyball, table tennis, boxing, wrestling, fighting where guys try to maim each other and darts. I know I’ve missed something. Oh yeah, horse racing, skiing, rodeo and dog sled racing show up every now and then. Of course the Olympics, summer and winter, come along every few years. That’s a lot of sports going out over the airwaves. A serious fan needs to devote a great deal of time to the pursuit of his pleasure. It can involve complex scheduling and lots of highly complicated recording technology. Sleep deprivation ensues. Marriages are broken. It’s not easy for the true fan to get through his days and nights.

Attending professional sporting events is a high dollar proposition. My fixed income won’t allow for the purchase of tickets. I see folks who drop a couple hundred bucks on an afternoon at an Eagles game in Philadelphia. That money would only cover tickets for two and parking a mile from the stadium. Baseball isn’t quite as high but it isn’t cheap. And the NBA tickets are a joke. So although attendance is usually pretty strong in most markets the TV is the cheapest way to watch the pros. I have a cousin who likes his hometown hockey team so much that he got a job as a security guy at the arena. Either he really likes the team or he’s just too cheap to part with his cash. Or both.

When I look at the social networking internet sites I notice quite a bit of friendly banter about various sports teams and events. Some people are avid Yankee or Red Sox fans. Others favor the Dodgers or more obscure teams like the Nationals or the pitiful Orioles. But loyalty knows no bounds. A team can be solidly entrenched in the cellar, forty games out of the running and loyal fans will still be following their team. Of course the $40.00 tickets won’t be selling so hot towards the end of the season, unless the Yankees come to town for a game.

I always thought that enthusiasm for sports was a particularly American personality quirk. But when I went to England a few years back I learned otherwise. The British are just as whacked as we are. They follow football (soccer over here), rugby, golf, tennis and cricket. Some Brits even follow American football and baseball. Then when I met a young man from Ghana I found out that sports are a major deal in his country. Soccer is the big obsession but they also pay attention to boxing and several American sports. Then a Canadian guy told me that sports were huge up there in the great white north. They even follow a really weird ice game called Curling. As far as I can tell it involves sliding heavy rocks down the ice while other guys sweep with brooms in a vigorous manner ahead of the rocks. It’s strange I know but it is Canada.

So I guess my absence from the world of fandom and my minor objections to the costs, both financial and spiritual, aren’t going to diminish the importance of sport in the country. My only hope is that folks pay as much attention to what happens in politics as they do to the Little League World Series. Then we’d have the best of both worlds; an electorate that knows the stats of the president, senators and congressmen and an entertained bunch of fans.

Have a fine day.