The Joys of Sports

If you're a sports fan, you know this hasn't been the greatest couple of months.

Baseball fans watched with disdain and horror as their cherished sport was embroiled in an embarassing strike. Hockey fans may be in for the same two weeks from now.

Yet, as the rest of the nation moaned, I couldn't help but wonder: why does anyone care?

Couldn't we all just find some other form of entertainment? Isn't it just a bunch of games we're talking about?

I've since come to realize that we aren't just talking about games, or even individual sports. We're talking about (insert cheesy patriotic music here) something very essential to America.

Sports allow the fan to be a part of the action like no other form of entertainment.

Every time I go to the ballpark, I get to know the fans in my section, cheering the runs scored, booing the errors and sharing insights on the players between pitches.

How many times have you slapped the hand of the guy sitting next to you in the movies when Arnold Schwarzenegger kills the bad guy?

How many times did you share in a post-film analysis of the cinematography with someone?

Sports also allow you, the fan, to be yourself. No protocols. No watching your manners. No dress code. No withholding insults.

Starved professional fan that I was, I went to a CFL (that's the Canadian Football League, from the land where ice was born) game back in August.

With the 42,000 other fans there, I chanted the name of my team until I was hoarse.

I threw my peanut shells on the ground, not into the proper receptacle.

I mercilessly roared along with the rest of the stadium, trying to disrupt the opposing team's offense.

In short, sports represent controlled decadence, a time to let your hair down without criticism. I can handle that.

OK, I know, the baseball walkout makes the sport look bad. But if you look at some of the underlying issues, the importance of the sport to American civic culture is borne out.

Baseball owners have argued that without some form of revenue sharing, certain financially unstable franchises will be forced to abandon their fans and move elsewhere.

To any city that suffers this fate, it will be an incredible blow.

When the Baltimore Colts (of the NFL) left the city for Indianapolis ten years ago, one sportscaster cried on the air.

Why such agony?

Because people grew up with this team. They remember the first game they attended. They remember the big games, the great plays, the deified players.

The game is inexorably bound up with their youth in a way that no play or movie ever could be. It's the stories of the games they tell their grandchildren.

So clearly, when the owners worry about moving franchises, their angst is justified. The simple argument of "If you're not making money, move elsewhere" just doesn't hold water.

Finally, in this era of family values, the importance of sports is clear. Some of the best times I ever spent with my family were spent together at games, rooting our teams on.

Sports, then, are a part of the fabric of America (thank you Ken Burns). Any attempt to replace them with another form of entertainment is bound to be futile.