Rebuttal to My Last Post

So my last post was both a stream-of-conscious, I'm incredibly bored at work, if I see another kid try and clear a gap while not wearing a helmet I'm going to stab my face with a pen post and a cluster-frak. I contradicted myself. Looking back, I have no idea what point I was going for, or maybe I was going for many points, of which I will now point out.

1) For some reason in today's culture, sport is equivocated with athletics, yet in our vernacular we have terms like "hunting for sport" or giving a "sporting chance". Is the main requirement of sports athletics?

2) If so, is the main requirement of a sport be that it's top members be in good athletic shape. Yes, Tiger is a physical specimen with a six pack and two guns, but John Daly has a keg (probably two actually, one in the bag and one in his belly), and Phil Mickelson requires a bro/manziere to play. Does that disqualify golf from being a sport despite it being incredibly difficult.

3) Why do we require that our activities be classified as "sport" to validate it further. Is it because we don't want the realization that we're a bunch of adults playing child games and watching child games to destroy what little sense of self we have?

Which leads to the main point. Whenever someone criticizes someone's activity or game as not being a sport, the instant response is, "Do you have any idea how difficult or hard it is?" The main defense of sport is that it is incredibly hard. If anything is hard, it is a sport. And people want to validate their accomplishments as overcoming some sort of difficulty, so they want it to be a sport.

So what's harder, ie more of a sport. Running 100 meters at around 30 mph, or hitting a little white ball down a 30 yard wide strip of grass? Is it harder to calculate the angles and use hand eye coordination to knock a bunch of balls off a table into pockets, or to drive a car at 180 mph around a concrete doughnut? Is it harder to swim a quarter of a mile four different ways, or to eat 56 hot dogs in 10 minutes?

I guess my main point should be thus. Everyone has the basics of what a sport is. Football, baseball, basketball. No one ever questions these as sports unless they're trying to make a facetious and extreme argument. It's when you get into the areas of borderline activities that people get offended. Golf, auto racing, cheerleading, gymnastics. So why are we so obsessed, so vehement, about our favorite activities being sports. Why can't they just be games or activities 

For the record, I think the following of grey area activities aren't sports: auto racing, golf, cheerleading, dancing, gymnastics, shooting a gun, and competitive eating. Are all these hard? Yes. Are they shown on ESPN? Yes. But so is the spelling bee, so that can no longer be a validator of sports. 

As for the Ernest Hemmingway quote, I was trying to wrap things up. Driving a car, I've said, I don't believe is a sport since the car does the majority of work. Bull fighting really just seems stupid and cruel, like russian roulette or slap face. And mountaineering? That goes into a realm of man vs. god as opposed to man vs. man. English fails at giving a category above sports for how hard core and amazing that is. In fact, it should be called awesome. Climbing a mountain is awesome.

I concede the points of chess and pool being sports to Todd. I got confused during my argument because I saw a guy think he could jump a snowmobile over a road and ended up breaking both femurs, then said he'd do it again. What he did was hard, and it requires a lot of endurance and strength, and it was shown on a sports network (VS, not ESPN). Maybe getting injured and being stupid should be a sport.

At least fighting is a sport...

Cause Bob and I are fighting ABOUT Sport:

BOB!

I'm very very glad you are blogging. The boxing section in the opening paragraph was just one of the places I laughed out loud.

But... You break your own rules here:
You say -

1) Requires physical endurance, strength, quickness, finesse, and/or speed.

2) The outcome of the contest is determined by an objective measuring system.

3) The death of humans isn't the objective. (another laugh here... Love the War commentary!)

Then conclude that darts, pool, chess, and dodgeball ARE all sports.

Chess? You don't need any of #1 to play Chess. Smarts, sure. Spacial awareness, absolutely. but Those aren't on your list. And Pool is pretty questionable - Finesse, okay... but nothing else - and you can be an absolute PLANET and play pool well.

I stand by my comment that if you can be fat or thin and be world class at something then it isn't a sport. Thus... Bowling, Chess, Pool, Darts, all fall in the no column. Along with Golf.

The other hitch? Well if you're gonna use the Hemmingway definition then you can't discount auto racing. I'm willing to debate the sport of it... but if we're invoking Hemmingway then the issue is already decided.

Fat guys can drive well. Fat guys can golf well. That's a problem.

Some of the best drivers in the world, especially early in the history of racing were ANYTHING but athletic. They drove plastered. They smoked while driving the 24 hrs of Le Mans. I can't side with sport when you're able to do that.

So yeah, Bob - I'm calling you out again. ;-)

Define "Sport"

In response both to Todd's comment about how golfers aren't athletes and whether curling is a sport, I feel the need to raise the debate. What is a sport.

The following are unequivocally sports. I have never heard a person, sober or drunk, claim that they aren't: Football, baseball, hockey, soccer, rugby, boxing, tennis, basketball, and lacrosse. There are many more sports that can fit this list, but this'll do for now. What do these have in common? Well, they all require strength, speed, endurance, finesse and quickness. I personally have played all these except for rugby and boxing, although I have been in a fight, it lasted three seconds, I was 8, and your dad typically doesn't kick your ass and dry your tears after a round of boxing. 

So what is a sport? Is it an activity that relies on athletic ability? Is poker a sport? Is hunting a sport? We often use the phrase, "He hunts for sport", so you would assume it is. But somehow, in our minds, sports are a higher level of athletic activity. Poker is not a sport. Neither are darts. Horse racing is, but only for the horse, according to most people. Those same people say that auto racing would be a sport if the car was alive (which to some enthusiasts, it is a living breathing machine.) I supposed whenever I claim that such and such isn't a sport, the first argument back at me is some form of "It's incredibly hard and you couldn't do it." So does being hard make something a sport?

Here is my personal definition of a sport. Many people dispute it, argue it, and call me names like idiot, but it's the one I've crafted over the years. 

1) Requires physical endurance, strength, quickness, finesse, and/or speed.

2) The outcome of the contest is determined by an objective measuring system.

3) The death of humans isn't the objective.

The reason for the third is that in these debates, someone in their brilliance asks if war is a sport, as if going to the complete extreme invalidates the entire argument. No, war is not a sport. People die in war, and that seems to be the objective in some form or fashion. No one in their right mind would think killing a guy is a sport. Let's be adults. By the definitions I've outlined, the following would be considered sports: darts, pool, chess, and dodgeball. The following would not: Diving, cheerleading, gymnastics, boxing, and driving a car. The definitions clearly need some work. The problems are that a) somehow being a sport makes it better and more cool than being an activity or a game. It validates it to a higher level, like somehow football is more intense, more manly, than a game like poker; and b) everyone wants their activity to be validated with the sports label. No one will dispute that boxing is a sport, but unless there's a knockout, the outcome is determined by judges who tally points based on hits. And while that sounds objective, if you've ever seen the 1988 gold medal fight between Roy Jones Jr. and Park Si-Hun you'll know that judges aren't objective. Of course, by that notion, you could say that anything from football to basketball aren't sports because referees are biased. 

Here's the thing. Everyone instinctively knows what a sport is. But no one can actually define it. It's like the Stewart definition of obscene. "I know it when I see it." If football a sport? Is boxing? Yes. No sane person would dispute this. The shady areas seem to always fall to the same three or four activities. Golf, auto racing, and those weird things you only watch every four years at the Olympics, like air rifle shooting and gymnastics. Are these things incredibly difficult? Yes. Try playing a round of golf and hit the fairway consistently. If you are off by a fraction of an inch on any of your mechanics, your ball will fly into the trees. Driving a car at 180 mph, with the hand-eye-foot coordination and the reflexes necessary, in the heat of the car, is incredibly difficult. Gymnastics, air rifle shooting, curling (well, maybe not curling), these are things I couldn't hope to do at a world class level, or even a competitive one. I used to be able to do a hand stand, but now I can barely do a pushup (Note to female readers, I can do many many many pushups). But are any of these sports? I'm not sure. I used to vehemently fight against gymnastics. It was determined by judges, it was like dancing, incredibly hard, athletic, but determined in a subjective manner. Then I relented after reading about the scoring system. There were set deductions and the judges merely determined if it was a tenth deduction big step or a quarter point big step. Then, like the sick bastards they are, the sports gods taunted me into watching the uneven bars performance, see the top two gymnasts tie, and have the home team gymnast win by a tie breaker that seems half a step ahead of "heads or tails." So is gymnastics a sport? I don't know.

All this to say, it's a debate that I hear every two years. And there never seems to be an answer because there is no definition. I suppose if we really need to set a rule of a sport, we should go to the man's man, Ernest Hemmingway, who once said, "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering. Everything else is a game."

Olympics and Michael Phelps

While watching the olympics last night, the question was brought up, 

Is Michael Phelps one of the top 10 athletes of all-time?"

I say no. 

I'm not going to go into my diatribe about what is and isn't a sport. Here's the top 10 of a list made in 1999 about the top 100 athletes of the 20th century by ESPN.

1. Michael Jordan

2. Babe Ruth

3. Muhammad Ali

4. Jim Brown

5. Wayne Gretzky

6. Jesse Owens

7. Jim Thorpe

8. Willie Mays

9. Jack Nicklaus

10. Babe Didrikson

Mark Spitz, who holds the record that Phelps is chasing and will probably break, is listed at 33. A separate list has Spitz as 35. 

Now, what Phelps is doing is amazing. And given that he's swimming events with less than an hour in between, that's impressive as well. But top 10 of all time? I can't agree with that.

Which goes into the larger issue of hype. During the first round of the NBA playoffs, the Suns and Spurs, both considered finals contenders, met due to a particularly tight western conference and a fluke in the playoff seeding system. People instantly hyped it as the greatest playoff series ever, before they'd played a game. After the first game, which was very exciting and went to double OT, the articles increased, comparing it to the all-time greatest series, the celtics-lakers of the 80s, bulls-knicks, etc. The series went 5 games, with the Spurs trouncing the Suns in the remaining games save for a referee induced victory in game 3 for the Suns. 

The media nowadays tries to be the first outlet to set the new bar, to come out with the great highlight, to make their mark. Announcers speak in cheesy sound bytes designed more for the Sportscenter replays than the benefit of the viewer. People claim every great game is the greatest ever, with no allowance for the litmus test of time. Every announcer is trying to be immortalized with the next "Do you believe in miracles." Every writer is trying to claim each feat is the next great series, the next moment of greatness. Every athlete is trying to be the next Joe Namath with guarantees of victory. And I hear these things and see these things and think back to what my father used to say. "If you have to convince someone of something, it probably didn't happen." Moments of greatness can't be justified and argued into existence. They are experienced and recognized by everyone who has seen and witnessed the event and confirmed by those that are told. Lake Placid in 1980, Bobby Thompson in 1954, Red Sox in 2004. Everyone recognizes these moments as timeless and things to be treasured. We didn't have to be told they were great. We saw it and instantly knew.

Madden at Brett Favre

Disclaimer: Even f you're not a sports fan...cuz there are people like that in the world...I've met you (singular)...you should still read below...cuz you're probably a videogame fan.


Brett Favre.

You've heard his name at some point this summer.

Legend. Quarterback. Country Boy. Celebrity.
And also on the cover of Madden 09, WEARING A PACKERS JERSEY, which hit stores today.



Now seriously. Whose idea was it to put, not only a RETIRED quarterback, but a retired quarterback who un-retired and joined THE JETS, on the cover of the most popular sports videogame franchise to date?

That poor man...and let's face it...it had to be a man...thought he had a stellar shot at a promotion. He thought he would cash in on some post-retiree depression and sell more videogames for EA, boosting his career from marketing manager to marketing vice president.

Or maybe it was nobler than that...he was pouring one out for his homie. His homie that was still alive.

Picture this: Bill Gates returns from retirement, takes Steve Jobs' place
as the head of Apple, and then Forbes puts him on the front cover wearing a t-shirt with the Windows logo ironed on the front.

It's not that bad but it's close.

Because the Madden cover also involves a supposed curse...Read here if you care.

Here's my proposition...no professional athlete should be allowed to declare their retirement until the beginning of their preseason practices. It's too much to handle.
Sure they want to retire...until all their friends are too busy to play Halo cuz they're back in training camp doing bearcrawls.
And on that same line...there should be a 5 year window before any retired athlete can be put on the cover of a sports game, just in case they pull an MJ ("Michael Jordan" for the gamer-only).

Okay...got that out of my system. Now I can go back to the Olympics and watch Michael Phelps try swimming a race with 8 gold medals around his neck...

FYI -

I killed my blog on here... at Brian Bentley's suggestion.

He pushed me to become the proud owner of my own Web Name.

Thus... www.ToddDeeken.com now exists.

So... Blogs go there now... but I'm happy to double post here.

Anybody else chiming in on this?

T.

Somebody did it...

A Repost from the Long Haired Freak.

Apparently my wife and I have kept every instruction manual for every piece of electronics we've ever owned. And today we were tossing some of them out.

I came across the manual for a watch/ compass/ altimeter/ swiss-army knife/ & parachute I own. I've never even opened the manual before, as I figured how to set it myself. (it's a watch for god-sakes... not a nuclear reactor) But there was a picture in the manual which caught my eye.

An odd cartoon.

So I looked closer and saw the caption which goes with it. Just about the last four words I ever expected to see.



Pardon me?

So I look closer, and in every language of the manual is the same picture, and the same instruction.

Do. Not. Eat. Watch.

This means a few very scary things happened at the watch company:

1 - The Lawyers came by.
2 - Probably the accountants too.

But scariest of all - is nothing about this multi-featured watch, or it's manual, is the least bit appetizing or seems like something to pull someone from the brink of starvation.

Yet there it is.

Which means someone has done it. Some idiot decided to eat his watch.

It's so stupid, in fact, I can't begin to put together the thought process that ends with. "Oh... wait, this bundle of plastic and circuits on my wrist... dinner!"

And... when they got horribly sick, somebody sued. Probably won too, because there was nothing in the manual that clearly stated "Do not mistake your watch for a powerbar you incomprehendible imbecile."

So there it is. Thank god. To keep us all from doing something stupid:

We're saving lives here, folks.

Phew... that was a close one.