Monday, March 5, 2007

Sports fans, and you’d best take good notes because I’m explaining a natural phenomenon here, are terrifying when they vehemently argue about the most ridiculous things. Take yesterday’s Duke-UNC game, for example, in which a broken nose is enough to ignite scholarly debate, weighed heavy with talk of intent and consequence and justice, when the real thesis goes something like this: Who really gives three shits and a sandwich about it? A lot of people, apparently, and heaven help you if you decide to visit, say, the ESPN forums. Bring hip waders and a gun–for yourself–and godspeed.

The problem, I think, is the innate need to gather and witness something spectacular has been deprived ever since the coliseums went down. The attention once spent on competitive limb and head hacking has been channeled into watching teams toss balls back and forth. Oh, there’s variation, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes the ball is shot over a net, sometimes into a net, sometimes at a person with a stick, sometimes from a person with a stick on a large plot of grass, other times down a frickin’ alley and straight into the gutter, and on certain occasions grown men attempt to run into each other while throwing a ball.

This is why an elbow to the nose is epic these days. It’s why you want to ask an ardent fan of a losing team, “Who died?” All that passion points to a grittier time when sports involved disembowelment, and a little blood feeds it, causes it to vibrate, makes this passion a tiny bit less vestigial. They should bring back gladiatorial combat, honestly, especially because dwarf gladiators never got their due. They “always lost because they were too short,” claims the article. I take serious issue with that.