I know sports make people happy. I'm not against sports, I just don't like watching them (but playing can be fun). In an email to me, Blue Green Power Plant pointed out that sports are at least fair and relatively peaceful compared to the news. BGPP is right.
My absence of appreciation for sports is that the reality they set up is so arbitrary and yet people take them so seriously. What is this connection with a group of people from (or sponsored by the economic interests pertaining to) a particular city that makes that city better than its antagonist? Does one city have better sanitation, parks, or police or fire response time than the other because of the sporting team's performance? Nay!
But speaking of things being arbitrary, indeed the same is true about everything. BGPP's comments motivate me to introspect further. I have discovered this: Sports throw me into existentialist angst. To manage this, my mind goes soft and I fixate on color schemes and physiques, the layout of the game venue and ideas like whether spandex still be the top choice in athletic fashion fabric as the 21st century develops. Will nanotechnology affect team gear significantly so that players can sweat and yet never get wet?
I like the human dynamics that sports can illustrate though - win, lose, try, fail, fight back, back off, strategy - but must I sit through four hours of color comentary and crashing helmets for this?
Maybe I need it spelled out for me without all the clamor: get to the point. Beneath all the rattle and roar and clash and spit and rah rah and war drums: What's this game really about?
Show me the human drama and make the game a metaphor. Give me mooring against the bleak expanse between being and nothingness.
Give me sports through a movie like, "The Longest Yard" or "Karate Kid" or that one about the teenagers in the bike race on the high school track that starred the kid from my math class in Jr. High who grew up to win an academy award last year. Oh what is the title of that movie or that actor's name... Maybe BGPP remembers.
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1 comment:
We at The Blue Green Power Plant appreciate the plug. Our website has just been turbo charged and now we can handle the extra traffic which will result from your mentioning us.
We agree that it would be better if professional players played for their own cities, That way Shaquille O'Neal would play for New Jersey and Manny Mota would have played for Santo Domingo.
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