Lifestyles Left and Right
Horsehide Hangover
Could it be that America seems innocent only from a distance?
When you’re out of the country as I was for the past two weeks, no matter how wonderful your destination or how glorious the sites you visit, some homesickness tends to creep in. In my case, although daily blessed to be treading the sacred ground in the Holy Land, I found myself pining for American sports news.
Now, when I was overseas in October of last year, I was appalled but unsurprised by the European coverage of our stock market crash, as reported by the global liberals at CNN International and the BBC. The countless stories on the failure of capitalism and tales of galloping greed that filled the TV screen in my Roman hotel room made me nostalgic for the domestic versions of same, where at least I’d have some World Series news to soften the blows. After all, in America, sports are our escape from an often ugly reality.
So it was that even on pilgrimage in Jerusalem, I found myself scanning the Israeli newspapers for baseball scores in the evenings, when the distant sound of gunfire was sometimes heard. I figured that news of the New York Yankees would be the cure for the tensions that envelop that holy place; except that I forgot that sometimes when we are away from home we tend to over-sentimentalize whatever it is we miss, often creating a rosier picture than is actually the case.
And so on returning home where happily I found that my beloved Yanks had embarked on a winning streak, it didn’t take long for reality to hit me between the eyes like a screaming line drive: the American sports scene is immersed in the worst aspects of our culture. Still, I settled in to watch the Yankees play the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies on the Fox game of the week. So happy was I to be back in the embrace of our national pastime, I foolishly neglected to employ my trusty mute button and was thus confronted by a long promo for an atrocity called The Hangover.
As I wrote last year, I have given up wondering when sports — which used to be a way to encourage young men away from more dissolute pursuits — has now embraced all that is debased in our modern culture; the objectification of women as sex toys, vulgar language, egotism, and violence. All of this was on display during The Hangover promo and another one for a flick aptly titled, Drag Me to Hell; both of which would have never appeared in prime time a few short years ago, but now invade our homes on a Saturday afternoon.
Sadly, the trash emitted from Hollywood has now found its way onto the playing field; so much so that I sometimes feel that baseball itself has become some kind of perverted cross-promotion. There is so much violence and egomania in sports today, that you get the idea that it’s not enough to simply defeat one’s opponent; you must humiliate and “own” him. In watching nearly all of Michael Phelps’s Olympic victories, I don’t recall any expressions of elation or happiness, just a series of violent shouts and angry gesticulations.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the joy and sportsmanship went out of sport, but a good starting place would be with Muhammad Ali and his worshippers in the American press, who viewed his ascension as kind of a payback to his supposed white oppressors. But it is no longer restricted to race. Although he has the best example of how a great and gracious ballplayer should act in Mariano Rivera, it seems that Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain cannot record three outs without furious displays of fist-pumping arrogance, simply for doing his job. Similarly, the chest-thumping antics and “look-at-me” poses adopted by home-run hitters are great examples of humility and team-play for the kiddies, no?
Yet all of this is tied to noxiously saccharine promotions — MLB produces PSAs to teach kids the value of perseverance and teamwork — that purport to further the message that our sports telecasts are aimed at and produced for ‘the children’; a horrible and chilling thought. And this is only baseball, the more genteel American game; the goings-on in the NFL and the NBA are even worse.
With all that’s going on in our country today, it may seem like a desire for the return to purity in baseball is a trivial thing, but those familiar with the relationship between the game and our national ethos know better. MLB can do more to clean up the game than pointless drug-screening, and they certainly control the process of awarding broadcast rights to the networks. Let’s do our kids a favor and keep the filth, violence, and egotism where they belong: in Hollywood.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (36) | Leave a comment
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2Anglico| 5.27.09 @ 8:45AM
Well said. I used to stay up till 11:30 to watch the west coast NBA game on CBS, Lakers versus whoever, but have not watched NBA in years. As you say, a guy makes a dunk in the first quarter and acts like he made a 30 foot winner at the buzzer. A football player makes a tackle behind the line (because the offensive lineman missed his block) and beats his chest like he made a TD saver with 1 second left. Look at me look at me! I love football but am on the verge of dumping it too.
Norman Conquest| 5.27.09 @ 9:39AM
Excellent column! I stopped watching football a few years back and gave up on baseball last year. The absurdity of watching over-paid, steroid-addled pituitary cases cavorting around the field in pursuit of an objective that is ultimately pointless seems a colossal waste of time. I don't miss any of it in the least.
Hadrian Swall| 5.27.09 @ 10:04AM
Wonderful piece! Another former sports fan here who now finds ALL professional sports to be completely unwatchable. Here's an idea: Play the game, celebrate your victory at the game's conclusion, be good sportsmen and maybe I will reconsider my position.
I'll not be holding my breath...
Il Gecko| 5.27.09 @ 10:14AM
I gave up on professional sports a while ago. The sports world is now about entertainment and making money, not anything else. I try very hard to keep my kids away from that world. I have tried to get my sons into alternate sports like soccer and swimming. Sadly, the soccer programs now resemble little league, where mothers little darlings must always be in the limelight and coaches decisions and referee call are always subjects of harrassment. I once witnessed a mother harangue a coach for pulling her child out of a game when he was obviously getting close to heat exhaustion, crazy. I now have my sons swimming at the "Y" and so far, that has been very positive. I also am getting them started backpacking and camping.
Bill Luckhurst| 5.27.09 @ 10:34AM
There were no halcyon days of gracious good sportsmanship, except in golf or polo, maybe. The sacred game of baseball had guys like Cobb, Williams, Sal the Barber, Gibson, and Marichal. Play hard, win.
David Govett| 5.27.09 @ 11:18AM
The games haven't changed--the players have. I fondly remember athletes like Mickey Mantle and Ernie Banks. They showed that the parents of even working-class Americans tried to make sure their kids had class. Not sure many of today's athletes even have parents. They seem bestial.
Eric Damon| 5.27.09 @ 12:16PM
Like Bill Luckhurst said, sports has no real golden era of sportsmanship. The games haven't changed, nor have the attitudes of the player. The thing that has changed is that we have ESPN broadcasting 24/7 and the games have simply adopted the showbiz attitude that comes with being an entertainment enterprise. No one wants to do a promo with Mr. Humble; the endorsement cash goes to the person that people remember, who stand out from the crowd. Personality sells, not humble-pie. Look at the NFL for example; Marvin Harrison spent 12 years with the Colts and has been almost universally recognized as one of the best wideouts to play the game, yet he has not had one national endorsement that I can remember. On the other hand you have Chad Ocho-Cinco, who is a good reciever to be sure, but who has made himself a marketers dream by being outrageous as a character on the field.
I don't doubt that Cobb, Gibson, Marichal, and the rest had some genuine humility in them, but we don't know that they weren't the same preening bastards that we see today; they just lived at a time when very friendly writers were the ones covering them, and there was only a box score and a newspaper story to tell you what happened at the games.
Seek| 5.27.09 @ 12:48PM
Drag me to hell -- and I define hell as an afternoon with Lisa Fabrizio. Hating a selected film or two (especially if not seen) does not a scholar make.
Northern Rebel| 5.27.09 @ 1:35PM
Yankee fan? (gag)
Northern Rebel| 5.27.09 @ 1:43PM
But seriously:
Watch some old films of players running out a home run, compared to today's hitters.
If Manny "the cancer" Ramirez posed after a home run in the 60's national league, Gibson, or Drysdale would have drilled him, then kicked his ass when he charged the mound, if he dared.
Jim Brown would flatten three or four defenders, on his way to the end zone, then flip the ball to the ref, and say,
"I'll be back in about 5 minutes."
baluc/ka| 5.27.09 @ 2:16PM
Funny how the author professes the vulgarity of today's baseball to the athlete's behavior, yet none are ascribed to the Yankees or to Fox Sports for contributing to it.
Ferd| 5.27.09 @ 2:18PM
Seek - please tell us what you find that's positive in the trailers from either of those movies. She's making an obvious point that if the trailers are that bad at 35 seconds, imagine what the remaining 89 1/2 minutes are like. And this may not be "scholarly" enough for your gilded tastes, but the marketing folks for those two films pick out specific scenes for the trailers in order to entice people to see if there are more scenes just like the ones they saw in the trailer. That's marketing.
One other question for you, Seek. If it took you all afternoon to read this and you knew it was hell, why did you do it? Was someone forcing you to stay away from the browser's back button?
And to piggyback on Eric Damon, there are quite a few good sportsmen in the pro leagues. But because they are good sportsmen, they don't pull the antics of a Joba Chamberlain or Chad Ocho-Cinco. The media simply worships and excuses the bad actors in sports in order to keep viewers, so they get the recognition.
Ferd| 5.27.09 @ 2:28PM
Agreed, Baluc/ka. ESPN, Fox Sports, MSG, SNY, etc., etc. are a lot of the problem. And the teams are the other half. If they stopped putting up with the nonsense from the players their behavior would improve. I've been a Dodger fan since I was small but if I was Ned Colletti I would kick Manny out. MLB used to do stuff like that for so-called "major offenses". Anyone remember Pete Rose?
I think they need to pay those guys all the same amounts, and give them bonuses when they make it through championship games. Then maybe they would all play like they meant it again.
Old Texican| 5.27.09 @ 4:37PM
I would much rather watch a youth-league game...in any sport.
Grant| 5.27.09 @ 11:26PM
Don't expect baseball news elsewhere. They don't report the results from British girls' rounders games, either.
Oldster| 5.28.09 @ 12:02AM
Eric,
You misunderstood Bill Luckhurst's reference to Cobb, Williams, Gibson, et al, perhaps because you didn't see them play. Mr. Luckhurst was not offering them as examples of a bygone era filled with humble heroes. Rather, he was citing them as men who were renowned for being tough, in some cases even mean or dirty players , who loved to beat the other guys, and who absolutely hated to lose.
Realist| 5.28.09 @ 10:11AM
Sport has always been a money grabbing and corrupt business. Baseball has been amongst the worst. Check out the controversy surrounding the 1919 World Series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal.
As for saying the Mohamed Ali represented the start of the rot, utter hogwash. The man went to prison for something he believed in. That shows a moral standing that has been sadly lacking in most sportsmen of the present and past.
wasp| 5.28.09 @ 2:54PM
Notwithstanding the fact that Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle were drunkards at a time when media coverage didn't allow for such "news", how does one compare athletes of yore, who worked in the off-season as insurance salesmen, to contemporary multi-millionaire athletes who make more money than their coaches? You don't. You simply recognize that professional sports are businesses like any other who are travelling through their arcs. If more and more people get fed up with what they see, they will eventually go away just like Pontiac and the American Newspaper Industry. It's a product; you don't have to buy it but, last I checked, the sports industry is doing quite well. I too am done with basketball and baseball but just can't help but spend Sundays watching my beloved Giants who had the sense to unload Shockey and Burress. Take heart: I think Eli Manning is an upstanding guy who is a good role model. That said, play sports more often than you watch.
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