In a previous column I expressed the opinion that what we\ncall \u201csports\u201d can be divided into three categories: perfect sports, imperfect\nsports, and spectacle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suggested that football is a perfect sport and that there\nare few potential rules changes that would improve the game. It is a game of violence, but there are rules\nto the violence that are strictly enforced. \nIt is the best of all sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Baseball, too, is a perfect sport. The phoniest thing about baseball is the way\nthey argue. How many people do you know\nwho argue by screaming at each other with their faces just inches apart,\nthrowing spittle all over each other\u2019s faces? \nIt\u2019s disgusting, but no more disgusting than the tobacco chewing, spitting,\nand crotch-scratching that many players engage in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve also suggested that another major problem with baseball\nis the strike zone. The rule book says\nthat the strike zone is from the inside edge of home plate to the outside edge,\nand from the knees to the letters on the player\u2019s uniform. So why do the team owners allow each umpire\nto have his own version of the strike zone? \nThis problem could easily be solved by installing lasers to call balls\nand strikes. The discretionary strike\nzone is almost enough to make baseball an imperfect sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Track and field, softball, swimming and diving, gymnastics,\nand golf, are all perfect sports. \nTennis, too, is a perfect sport, except for its silly scoring\nsystem. If you have no score, you have\n\u201clove.\u201d When you score one point you\nhave \u201c15.\u201d If you score again you have\n\u201c30.\u201d And if you score a third time you\nsuddenly have \u201c40.\u201d Why not \u201c45?\u201d If at some point both players have the same\nscore \u2013 whether 15-15, 30-30, or 40-40 \u2013 it\u2019s called \u201cdeuce,\u201d which means\n\u201ctwo.\u201d It\u2019s probably a screwy system\nbecause, like everything else the British invent, it makes no sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basketball is the best example of an imperfect sport. Not only is it an intensely boring game to\nwatch, if you tune in to the last thirty seconds of a game you\u2019ll see all the\ndrama and excitement you\u2019ll see in an entire game. So why not have thirty second basketball\ngames? Given the number of\nmomentum-killing timeouts that coaches call in the closing seconds of a game,\nthey could stretch thirty seconds into thirty minutes of commercial messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the biggest rap on the game of basketball is the scoring\nfor foul shots. If a player grabs the\nball and races down the court for an easy two-point lay-up, chances are some\n300 lb. brute will land on his back and crash him to the floor. When that happens, the player who is \u201cmugged\u201d\ngets to stand about fifteen feet from the basket and shoot two\nfree-throws. If he\u2019s skillful enough to\nmake both he\u2019s awarded two points, the same number of points he would have made\nhad he not been smashed to the floor. So,\nwhere\u2019s the penalty for the offender? \nThe game of basketball could be improved 1,000 percent by simply making\nfoul shots worth two points each and allowing no timeouts in the last five\nminutes of a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But none of these, perfect sports or imperfect sports, has\nthe long and proud tradition of the \u201cspectacle.\u201d We don\u2019t know what games prehistoric man\ninvented to amuse himself. We do know\nthat, in the early Christian era, the townsfolk enjoyed some real knee-slappers\nas they watched the Christians dashing around the arena, trying their damnedest\nto be the last one eaten by the lions. \nThat was spectacle.
\n
\nThe Spanish found a way to get even with the animal world by arming a whole\nbunch of guys with spears and swords and turning them all loose on a single\nbull. That\u2019s spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in the modern era we have professional ice hockey and\nits first cousin, professional wrestling. \nProfessional ice hockey could, and should, compete with football as one\nof the greatest of all \u201cperfect\u201d sports. \nIt should be a game of beauty and grace, a game of speed, skill, and\nathletic ability, but it\u2019s played as if it were a common street fight. It appeals to the most visceral side of human\nnature and attracts fans, most of whom would pay to see a terrorist attack, an\nautopsy, or a fatal car crash. It is not\nsport, it is spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was a\nboy growing up in a St. Louis suburb, all the kids my age were sports fanatics We were all members of the St. Louis Browns\nKnothole Club (before the Browns became the Orioles in 1954), or we were members of the Cardinals\nKnothole Club\u2026 sometimes both. We were\nsuch avid fans that many of us could name the entire starting lineups of most\nmajor league teams. But times have\nchanged and most of us are now interested in just one team, in one or two\nsports, and since the advent of free agency, it would be a rare fan who could\nname the starting lineups for most competing teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professional baseball\ntook a serious blow to its popularity as the \u201cnational pastime\u201d with the major\nleague baseball strike of April 1-13, 1972. \nBaseball fans missed out on eighty-two games during that 12-day walkout\nand major league baseball has still not fully recovered the respect of their pre-strike\nfan base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was\nfollowed by the National Football League players strike of 1987. That 24-day strike was called after Week\n2. The Week 3 games were cancelled,\nreducing the 1987-88 season\nto just 15 games, and games 4, 5, and 6 were played with \u201creplacement\u201d players\u2026\nmostly guys who had played college football but weren\u2019t quite good enough to\nmake it in the NFL. Football fans across\nthe country were enraged, forcing the NFL to reach a settlement in time for\ngame 7. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 8, 2004, in a National Hockey League game between\nthe Colorado Avalanche and the Vancouver Canucks, a Vancouver player \u201csucker-punched\u201d\nColorado\u2019s Steve Moore, driving his head into the ice and fracturing three\nvertebrae in his neck. Moore ultimately\nrecovered from his injuries, but that attack only added to professional hockey\u2019s\nless-than-sportsmanlike reputation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the 1987\nNFL strike, professional football has recovered its popularity to a greater degree\nthan has professional baseball. But\nthen, during the third game of the 2016 NFL preseason, Colin Kaepernick of the\nSan Francisco 49ers brought his radical left-wing political views to the\nplaying field. A man who began life in\n1987 as an adoptee, who signed a $114 million contract in 2014, and who\nreportedly had a net worth of $20 million, let it be known that he would not\nstand for the playing of our national anthem prior to games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His lack of patriotism has spread to other teams and other sports\nand now, in the summer of 2019, we are forced to endure the childish behavior\nof Megan Rapinoe of the Women\u2019s U.S. World Cup soccer team, who has also\nbrought her radical left-wing politics to the playing field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, while Rapinoe may deserve our enmity for refusing to\nstand during the playing of our national anthem, and for childishly thumbing\nher nose at an invitation from our president to be his guest at the White\nHouse, she deserves some measure of credit for raising the issue of the pay\nstructure for female athletes vs. male athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of us can agree that there is significant wage\ndiscrimination between male and female athletes. Yet, is there anyone who does not fully\nappreciate the athletic ability of female softball players, tennis players,\nswimmers, divers, golfers, gymnasts, volleyball players, and track & field\ncompetitors? However, when Forbes\nMagazine<\/em> published a list of the world\u2019s highest paid athletes in 2018,\nthere was not a single female athlete listed in the top 100. In 2019, Serena Williams made the 63rd<\/sup>\nspot on the Forbes<\/em> list with an estimated income of $29 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while we can all agree that it would be a rare female\nwho could compete with male athletes in games such as baseball, basketball, and\nfootball because of the obvious physical differences between males and females,\nthere are sports, such as soccer, in which the physical differences becomes all\nbut irrelevant. Unlike football, the\ngame we call soccer does not have a playbook with dozens of set plays\u2026 plays\nthat all players must memorize and execute. \nRather, soccer is a game of kicking and passing with each kicking and\npassing decision made in a millisecond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who enjoy the game of soccer, it would be\ndifficult to describe what contrast they might see in a match played by males\nvs. a match played by females. As fans\nof American football are known to say, watching a soccer match is much like\nwatching grass grow or watching paint dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although competitive women\u2019s sports date back to the ancient\nOlympic Games when the Heraean Games, dedicated to the Greek goddess Hera, were\nheld concurrently with the men\u2019s competition, women\u2019s competitive sports were\nall but non-existent until the mid-20th<\/sup> century. Until that time competitive sport was\nconsidered to be a \u201cmanly\u201d pursuit, not an activity conducive to the feminine\ngender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But women\u2019s competitive sports have made great strides in\nthe past half century, exemplified by the extraordinary accomplishments of the\nU.S. Women\u2019s World Cup team. Their\ntriumphs on the playing field will live on in the hearts and minds of American\nsports fans, and the differences in financial remuneration between male and\nfemale soccer players will be debated and eventually resolved. But what will not be so quickly forgotten is\nthe poor sportsmanship and the lack of patriotism demonstrated by one player\nwith radical left-wing political views. What\nshould have been another historic milestone in competitive sports, turned out\nto be just another black eye for professional sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul R. Hollrah is a\nretired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S.\nElectoral College. He currently lives\nand writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma\u2019s Green Country.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a previous column I expressed the opinion that what we call \u201csports\u201d can be divided into three categories: perfect sports, imperfect sports, and spectacle. I suggested that football is a perfect sport and that there are few potential rules … Continue reading