Back in my days as a sportswriter I had an executive editor of one newspaper who never understood the attraction of sports to the masses.
Why, he would ask in bemused fashion, do so many people care so much about something that means so little?
At the time I tended to agree with him more than a bit, having begun the process of losing my interest in covering sports because of what it had become through my decades of writing about it. That is one of the reasons why I ran out the door to early retirement at the ripe old age of 53.
Fast-forward to today and I’m with that former editor 100 percent as far as being stunned at the degree of fanaticism shown for sports. I actually feel sorry for people who live and die with the success or failure of the sports teams they follow.
I’ve taken to ignoring sports to a large degree and the process had been liberating. There is more time for other pursuits. There is less wasted emotion. There is less frustration.
One particularly unappetizing aspect of sports these days is the constant politicization of it and the social justice warrior messaging we must endure if we try to watch a game.
The Winter Olympics came and went without me seeing a single second of coverage. Judging by the ratings, I was in good company.
I used to love the NHL. This season, I have yet to watch an entire game; only short stretches of a handful of contests.
NASCAR? It’s on ignore, too, having become a virtue-signalling joke both on the track and in the broadcast booth.
I watch the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl, but little of the regular season.
Major League Baseball is in the midst of a labor problem that has taken a chunk out of spring training and threatens parts of the regular season.
Once upon a time, when an uncle who was a radio engineer would call to alert me to spring training broadcasts of Pirates game, I lived for the start of the baseball season. Now I wouldn’t miss it if the entire season was a no-go.
This week used to be a highlight of my sports viewing calendar with the chance to watch so many conference championship basketball tournaments. I’ve tried to watch some this week, including tonight.
But I just wasn’t into it. So much has changed, and not for the better.
Athletes, even pros back in the day, were a lot like the common folk, only they had uncommon athletic skills. They were yet to have those skills produce mega-million dollar contracts, so it was not unusual for pros to have offseason jobs.
College athletes were not in school just for a season or so until they could get drafted.
Even the high school athletes were a more unspoiled crowd playing for the love of the game, not the chance to show up on some recruiting web site or social media highlight reels.
The Big East championship game tonight, contested by Creighton and Villanova, was a basketball abortion.
The teams had combined to hit about three percent of their three-point shot attempts in the first half, but came out after intermission jacking up more three-point misses. This meant the game was tied at 21-21, three minutes into the second half!
After several more hurried, ill-advised, three-point clangers, the announce team (both black men lest this lament be labeled a racist diatribe) decried the ruination of basketball with the over-reliance on three-pointers.
That game had both teams scoring under 40 points with six minutes to play, so they must have continued firing with abandon, and missing.
I gave up, but before coming downstairs to write this, I checked on the Big 12 title game between Kansas and Texas Tech.
During that brief viewing, Texas Tech stripped the ball from Kansas in the defensive zone. But instead of grabbing the basketball, a Tech player tried to pick it up with a dribble, no doubt to rush down to the other end of the court and throw up a three-point try.
Alas, he bobbled it, Kansas secured the loose ball, and Tech had to foul to prevent a Kansas dunk attempt.
The analyst noted that players are taught since junior high not to try to dribble a loose ball. Guess this player slept through that advice.
If you are a basketball purist, the games are simply terrible in terms of fundamentals. Decision making stinks, too. Sure, often the scores are close, usually only because both teams can’t manage to do the right thing with any consistency.
It was nice to hear the announcers deviating from their propaganda scripts to note such poor play. Remember, these are teams contending for championships, not bumbling through losing seasons.
If this is the best, I don’t really want to see the worst.
I will dutifully fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket or two and try to watch some of those games. But I’m not optimistic about my staying power.
Should the games be poorly played, as most likely they will be, I’m sure I can find something else to do. Maybe you should, too.
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