We All Take Sports Too Seriously
COLIN LINNEWEBER
Big City Bias Without The Boston Bullshit
Seemingly since I began utilizing my legs to walk, I have been an enormous sports fan.
But, this past Sunday afternoon I had an epiphany akin to the one that Lester Burnham experienced towards the end of “American Beauty.”
Sitting in a prominent Boston sports bar, I was disgusted when I looked to my right and saw a pink, Red Sox hat-donning, obese and hideously unattractive woman frothing from the mouth while she supported Manny Ramirez at the plate. Much to my chagrin, I then looked to my left and saw a low-rent, middle-aged man, likely from Revere, with two children by his side, wearing an “A-Rod swallows” tee-shirt cheering on “the Sawx.”
Seeing these two intense and repulsive New Englanders in all of their glory began to actually cause physical ailments within my body.
I was sweating like Patrick Ewing and my heart was beating like I was a hooker in a cathedral and for what? To passionately support a fleet of overpriced, often arrogant and surly, men throw a ball around?
Sports are simply games and they should not be taken more seriously than that.
Nevertheless, I do love the idea of competition and, in a less frenetic and more mature way, I will still attempt to entertain you with my take on the world of athletics.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Yeah, ’cause there are no Yankee fans like that. They’re all highly intelligent, incredibly gifted and extraordinarily good looking human beings who can rattle of the merits of our foreign policies, quote the gross national product of Malaysia and help their fellow neighbor, all while rattling off Jeter’s OPS and Rasner’s WHIP.
Get off your high pony, Colin, and do us a favor: stay the fuck out of Beantown if you don’t want to associate with the riff raff.
I agree that Sox fans take sports too seriously. They’re like Cubs fans. No one else gets that hung up over fake curse.
Thank you, Mitch….
A man of reason on the Juiced.
Ha! This might be the most ridiculous debate yet.
Here’s the thing about sports: It’s like that movie Fever Pitch, where Ben says how the Red Sox are like family, because no matter how bad they do or how great they do, they always show up. If it rains they make it up to you. That’s why teams like the Sox, and the Cubs, and the Yanks, and the Dodgers have such passionate fans. For years they’ve been a fixture in the community. Teams like those started out when baseball was in its infancy stages. It’s like watching the evolution of fandom with some of those teams. The Red Sox fans had beef with the Yankees all the way dating back to the 1920s because of Ruth and Murder’s row.
Cubs fans have passed on their passion for the team, from generation to generation, and fans become so attached to the team that they live and die with them each and every season.
Here’s the other thing about sports which has always intrigued me: they’re an escape. You can have the worst day, and then sit down and watch your team win, and all is well again. We watch sports because it gives us something to root for, something to be passionate about. It creates a common bond. For all the people who claim that Sox and Yanks fans fighting each other is the stupidest thing, there are fans of a team who drive to a restaurant and scream and shout together in unity, and have the best time in the world doing it!
Where else can you paint your body, and wave funny looking signs, and not get laughed at. Sports are a fraternity, and people take them very seriously.
Why do you think so many people were devastated when the Sonics left Seattle. 41 years! 41 years! That is practically half a century!