November 1, 2009
"When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war... because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans." [George C. Scott as Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, from Frank Schaffner's 1970 movie, Patton. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/ ex congeries 2009||1031:1310.]
(The Swamp) - To use a type of phrase created by that great destroyer of time and logic, Yogi Berra, "If Patton were alive today, he would be dead of frustration."
I'm beginning to hate professional sports.
Maybe it's because of the arrogance of the announcers. Maybe it's because of the predictability of the games. Maybe it's because of the trivializing of sport altogether. People who are just doing their jobs are called "Heroes," while real heroes lie face down in the sand of two forgotten wars. Maybe it's a combination of all those things. Whatever it is, it's getting to be too much.
One of the great sports movies, Chariots of Fire, has a scene in which the head of the school invites the top athlete in for dinner and a discussion. He hopes to persuade the athlete not to use a professional trainer, trying to impress on him the importance of maintaining the morality of the amateur. Instead, his bigotry gets in the way of his logic, and he weakly surrenders his argument, saying to his friend of the Jewish star who has justifiably left, indignantly, "There you have it, Hyw... a different God, a different mountain top." [Sir John Gielgud as the head of the college in Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire. (1981). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082158/ ec. 20091031||20:27.]
The problem is that the morality of the amateur IS superior to the morality of the modern professional. The joy and reward of winning the game is in the playing, regardless of the pay. All real Americans do love to win. But what we have now is a perversion.
In the beginning, it was not so. The professionals loved the game so much that they strove to create a way for them to play AND earn a living when college was over. The idea was to PLAY, first. This was true of professional baseballers. ALL sport used played by ladies and gentlemen. This was true through the 1950's.
There is no professional sport today, except, possibly golf and surfing in which the idea is to PLAY first, and THEN make a living.
There is a crudity in today's professional sports which was not there before 1960. It's not just television's fault, either. We still play to win - that hasn't changed. You can't blame the messenger. And it is certainly not the fault of a striving for equality of opportunity. If anything, the truly great African-Americans in sports are very much gentlemen.
If there is any one reason why sports has become the home of thugs and grifters is that it has become all about money. It is so pervasive that it has seeped its way into college sports. Kids are no longer just using sports as a way to get an education. It has become a doorway to a fortune, if only for a very, very few. It's not about how well or how valiantly or how honorably the play was, or that we won or lost, but only, only, ONLY about money - to the exclusion of morals and honor!
The funny beer commercials are about officials cheating so the crowd can drink another beer. And announcers have become seers, predicting the next game or the next play - usually inaccurately. It's as if the entire enterprise of sports has been lost to some dreadful god who demands the sacrifice of morals, honor, and fair play to fulfill his lust for cash.
Maybe that's the reason I only watch college sports and golf. That's enough professionalism for me.
- Dick Anderson
