WHY SPORTS MATTER TODAY

It’s Not The Dog Days Even If You’re Feeling Doggy.

via allstarrsports.com

The day after the MLB All-Star game has been called the worst day in sports.

Sports talk radio proved it by discussing soccer and tennis with renewed vigor. Even golf got a shot in the arm. The Tour de France even seemed intriguing.

If sports crazed America can get behind soccer, tennis, golf, and bicycling, what’s next? Maybe we’re not as lethal as we seem when we pay attention to sports that don’t require an ambulance on call.

Soccer, known as futbol around the world, is lethal enough. No one’s saying it’s not, but instead of an ambulance for players who drop like they’ve been shot, writhe on the grass before getting helped off, then come back in, they need a faith healer.

Faith is also what keeps soccer from exploding in the U.S. If we can’t trust hurt players, if we can’t believe they’re hurt, how can we believe in soccer?

When American football players leave a game with injuries we’re treated to dangling feet, arms bent backwards, and faces leaking all sorts of fluid. To compound the effect they need to be strapped into stretchers to keep them from going back in. Sports matters that much to them.

The worst injury in soccer comes from fans.

Golf won’t hurt anyone as long as you pay attention to the players and what they’re swinging for. Get a ball bounced off your head and you’re going down, but how many times does that happen to players?

The worst pain in golf is watching Tiger Woods circle the drain.

“I feel good. My swing is good. I like my chances,” he says.

Then he misses the cut and goes home early. The only thing worse is Charles Barkley’s swing. If they both quit golf the rest of us could take a breath of relief. It’s hard watching elite athletes implode. They won’t quit because sports matter to them, any sport.

The news in tennis comes from Serena Williams’ win at Wimbledon. Not so much the win but the comments about Serena as a person. She’s too big, too strong, it’s not fair. I compare her to Shaq in his prime. He dominated other teams to the point where they tried to find their own Shaq.

Houston got Yao Ming. Portland got Greg Oden. Other teams super sized too, only to discover the greatness of Shaq. Here was a guy in LA making rap albums, movies, expanding his brand, and winning championships. He could have stopped there but didn’t. Instead, he went on to play with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. Why?

Because sports matters more to him.

These are the day to get to the true meaning of sports. The NBA Summer League is finished. NFL training camps start next month. Hockey isn’t as busy after their Stanley Cup finals. MLB will pick up steam closer to the Fall Classic, or World Series.

Why do sports matter so much in America? This nation was build by second sons, as in first born British men, maybe Euros in general, collect all the inherited swag.

Prince William is the man who will be King of England. Prince Harry? He’s out of the running. That’s how it is down the line. The second sons were sent off to make something of themselves in lands far away, at least far enough away to avoid ‘accidents’ to the first born.

A nation of second born sons looked to the Olde Country with disdain and proved to all that they were worthy members of society, even if they had to build their own society.

Second born sons proved they were good enough when the Revolutionary War ended in their favor. The American flag came out red, white, and blue, with stars and stripes. It could have been a bed sheet with the words, “You Thought You’re Better Than Me? You’re Not.”

America wasn’t a nation of the first order until, like a heavyweight title fight in the old days where you couldn’t win on points and had to knock the Champ out, the US beat an old world power. The Spanish-American War before the turn of the 19th Century played that role.

Spain, a former world power, was in decline, but America still gave them a beat down. And that’s how the colonies found their seat with the big boys of global politics. America went after Pancho Villa in 1916, the Hun in 1917, and the Hitler-Hirohito combination in 1941.

Still, the super power has an inferiority complex. We’re too loud, too rough, too uncouth, which are the three basic elements of being a good sports fan.

Sports prove to us that we’re good enough in many ways. They give us the opportunity to challenge the world in the most American way possible with six special words:

“You think you’re better than me?”

After that, it’s go time.