From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: The Sporting Life

� The Myth of Liberal Media, Not | Main | Shasta Notebook, Take Three �

The Sporting Life

June 22, 2004

I still admit to puzzlement, returning from a power walk - or out and about for some other reason - when I pass someone's home, and on a nice sunny day they're parked inside with the ballgame on the tube. I want to shout thru the window, "THIS is your idea of living?"

Especially in Seattle these days, where our poor excuse for a major league baseball team has been stinking up the joint (and no I haven't checked the sports pages recently, but if the bums have won a few, it'll make no difference in the end). Spare me the Pistons Cinderella story, while we're at it. When the NBA season doesn't wind down until a few weeks before SUMMER, I'm beyond caring.

Joe Queenan wonders about sports fans too, in his book, "True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans."

For Yankees or Lakers fans the pay-off is historically clear, says Queenan, and...

"can at least partially compensate for a rotten job, a horrible marriage, a receding hairline, a tiny brain."
"But," Queenan continues, "what about the pitiful souls who root passionately for accursed poltroons like the Red Sox, the Cubs, the White Sox, and Phillies? Why would anyone organize his emotional life around mountebanks like the Cleveland Cavaliers, the San Diego Padres and the Phoenix Suns...?...Does it signify a need to believe in fairy tales...Or is it simply proof that men would rather watch ANY sporting event than interact with their wives and children?"

Joe, you sexist cad! You left out the contemporaneous psychoanalysis of female sports addicts!

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 22, 2004 09:30 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/394

Comments:

Why would anyone organize one's life around a tv set, anyway? A friend in Arlington had the great misfortune to find her TV didn't work yesterday morning so immediately ordered a new one. They couldn't deliver it until today, so she wrote "Life, for me, for over the next 24 hours, will be hell with no TV. TV is my only friend here where I live."
How sad is THAT?

Posted by: Lorna at June 22, 2004 12:58 PM

As a lifelong Atlanta Falcons fan, I can explain this phenomenon. We're all friggin' gluttons for punishment.

Posted by: Acidman at June 22, 2004 04:57 PM

The electricity went out in my neighborhood the other night... I lit a candle and read a book. The next day at work, seemingly everyone was complaining about having nothing to do.

And professional sports? Haven't paid any attention to them since the baseball strike... not much before that either. I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. I can find a lot better things for my memory than sports statistics and player names. Americans value pro athletes too much I think. But, to each his own. I may think someone is nuts for spending a sunny day inside attached to the TV, they may think I'm nuts for jumping out of an airplane. At least I am living, not living vicariously. (although you don't have to jump out of a plane for that, a walk in the park is more "living" than watching "friends" reruns and trying to emulate their lives.)

Hey! That's it! I want to be a thirty year old that has done nothing with my life, and spend all my time sitting around with others just like me... either in a coffee shop, or an apartment.

Posted by: rross at June 23, 2004 12:02 PM

Post a comment