There's a first time for everything...
I never imagined, when I started this blog a little over a year ago, that I would ever sit down specifically to write about professional sports. But, as they say, there is a first time for everything.
What happened to Barry Bonds tonight was, in a word, disgusting, and symbolic of why I have relatively little interest whatsoever in professional sports, especially football, boxing and hockey, but lately, alas, baseball as well. From my perspective, it has always been about power, domination and "killing the other guy," whether it be on a baseball diamond, an ice skating rink, or a football field. From my perspective, it has been a LONG time since the game has been about the game.
Playing in Houston this evening against the Houston Astros, going for homer #714 to tie Babe Ruth's record, Barry Bonds was deliberately aimed at by pitcher Russ Springer - not, once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but on FIVE consecutive pitches - after Springer had been warned by plate umpire Joe West to cease and desist. Finally, after the fifth pitch hit Bonds square on the back as he turned to avoid being hit, West threw Springer and manager Jerry Garner out of the game. As Springer was leaving the field, Houston Astros fans in the stands stood to cheer Springer with a standing ovation. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. I've been trying to come up with a word seeimingly of more depth than "disgusting," but, really, I can't; in this case, "disgusting" completely nails it.
Whatever anyone thinks of Bonds - whether he used performance-enhancing drugs, and if so should he be allowed to tie, and beat, the Babe's record - is irrelevant. This type of behavior is absolutely reprehensible, and again, at the risk of redundancy, is a clear illustration to me as to why I have very little interest - and, now, even less respect - for the field of professional sports.
THIS is why, whenever given the choice throughout my entire life of whether to watch a professional sports competition or listen to a good 3 and 1/2 minute-long pop song, I have always opted for the pop song. Why the pop song? Well, for starters, not one of the Cowsills, for example, to the best of my knowledge, ever deliberately hit anyone else with a baseball. All they did was make good, fun music with sweet harmonies and catchy hooks.
The moral of the story? Isn't it clear? Pop music - good. Professional sports - bad.*
Thanks for listening, have a great day, and e-mail me with your pop song MP3 requests.
KA
*(Except, perhaps, bowling or college wrestling, but that's another story, for another time...)
1 comment:
Hello my cousin,
This was a pitcher who had a history with a batter. Did he take it to the nth degree? Probably. But in baseball parlance, to defeat Bonds he needed to pitch him over the inside part of the plate. Bonds wears body armor on his right arm so he can take the inside part of the plate away from the pitcher. In the old days a Sandy Koufax or a Bob Gibson would pitch inside all the time, body armor and hit batter be damned. So maybe Springer was buying the inside part of the plate for the next Astro pitcher who goes up there, and maybe he was still carrying forth an old grudge. It was probably a bit of both, only slightly out of line, and not the norm in sports.
music?
What about Jay-Z’s posse member who pepper sprayed R. Kelly right before Kelly was supposed to perform, and Jay-Z laughed? http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1529414/20060425/story.jhtml
What of the rap wars, where it starts with calling out each other in each others’ songs, sometimes escalating further in words, on occasion ending in gunplay where often it’s not the rapper but someone in their posse that gets shot, killed.
What of Elton John embracing Eminem at the Grammy’s? might that be a tad worse to an entire community—pick one women or gays, though I’m sure there were more protesting that, and many other nights--than one pitcher throwing at one catcher?
Or go a bit further back to some of Axl Rose’s misogynistic and homophobic lyrics for Guns ’n Roses.
You wrote:
“From my perspective, it has always been about domination and ‘killing the other guy,’ whether it be on a baseball diamond or a football field. From my perspective, it has been a LONG time since the game has been about the game.”
It hasn’t been about domination but instead victory and competition; very different. Doesn’t this take place in music to the nth degree? Artists being pushed all the way up the record label ladder to meet certain sales figures and if they don’t being let go when their contract is up and, in the interim, getting no promotion budget or tour support for their subsequent releases.
Or artists saying things about each other, posturing to gain some sort of edge in their game, like Mariah Carey’s response to Christina Aguilera in US Weekly.
I understand you having “never shown any interest whatsoever in professional sports,” for the same reason that I have never shown any interest whatsoever in opera. Perhaps it’s because you just don’t like them and that you don’t think that any exposure to greater knowledge about them would impact your feelings. But don’t think music’s any purer than sports. Hell, they’re both a bit evil.
xo
dak
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