Quite a few people I know, men as well as women, just don't see the point of professional sports. Why should I care, they say, about some guy who's getting paid a bozillion times more than me to run around a playing field and follow some rules? What's the big deal? What's the point? And I think that's an absolutely valid and fair position to take. Some care, some don't. That's life.
For me, sports has been one of the great levelers, or to put it in more pessimistic terms, one of our society's lowest common denominators. It's like the weather. It's something to talk about, something that for the most part is less polarizing than say, religion or politics. In my mind, it's also a less dangerous topic than religion or politics, in that you just don't need to pay THAT much attention in order to have a valid conversation about it. I say "in my mind", knowing full well that millions of people a day have completely uninformed and uneducated discussions about religion and politics. But I believe these kinds of conversation only lead to propagation of error and more confusion and divisiveness and intolerance in those arenas. With sports conversations, hopefully the worst thing that can happen is you teach someone else to hate the Yankees. And that's ok, in my opinion.
Sitting in a ballpark, and looking down a row of seats, you see young and old, men and women, chubby and skinny, all races, all religions, all occupations, all political, sexual, or philosophical persuasions. All together to enjoy a (hopefully) good ball game. It's really quite comforting in a largely uncomfortable world.
Being an only child, sports was something I could bond with my dad about, since I didn't want to learn how to play golf, I could watch the Cubbies and the Bears with him and learn things from hm and cheer or commiserate with him. And we still do that to this day. We don't necessarily understand or share each other's inner thoughts and dreams, but we can always have a good time watching a game. I suppose you could call it superficial, but sharing something like that with my dad, however "fluffy" it might be, still has a lot of value to me.
Sports also (for the most part) carries less ambiguity than religion or politics. Sure, there's calls you can debate and plays you second-guess, but for the most part, the rules are the rules and you want your team to win fair and square. In sports, as in politics, people hate a cheater.
Which is why I am absolutely baffled at fans voting Barry Bonds to a starting spot in the All-Star Game. I seriously cannot comprehend actively supporting a player who is a known cheater. Bonds can deny using performance-enhancing drugs until he's blue in his great big steroid-puffed face. It's my opinion based on what I've read and seen that the man is a blight on the face of baseball today.
Barry Bonds before and after um, NOT taking performance-enhancing drugs.
For God's sake, his HEAD is deformed now it's so huge
I've read opinions that it goes back to the league allowing the World Series to be cancelled in 1994, and the one thing that really brought burned fans back to the stands is the freakish output of home runs by players like Mark ("What the... is he CRYING? There's no CRYING in baseball!") McGwire and Sammy Sosa and now Barry Bonds. Well, yes, I think this is true. But I also think that with the fan base that the sport has in this country and throughout the world, fans would have come back to see their teams play and win. Crushing a ball out of the park is great and amusing and fun and all, but take it from a Cubs fan who's accustomed to the bitter taste of defeat, I would have traded all Sosa's home runs for winning seasons and playoff berths. Unless the other team just doesn't show up, you can't win on home runs alone.
So, my (perhaps naive) opinion of sports as a leveler, as something that could connect and unite people who might not otherwise find themselves united, occasionally takes a hit in times like this. Because in sports, as in politics, as in LIFE for that matter, I find it hard to understand how my fellow man can back a cheater. I just have to keep reminding myself that it takes all kinds. Even the kinds that will love Barry Bonds.
Editor's Note: Please do not take this post as sour grapes over Bonds beating out Soriano in the balloting. The Cubs could be the entire NL All-Star roster and I would still consider Bonds a boil on the butt of baseball.
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