America’s new pastime

Anyone that knows me knows that I love the game of baseball. There isn’t another sport that will ever come and take away the love and passion I have for the game that this great country was built on. But even though I’m a huge baseball fan, I realize the shift in American culture and the overwhelming fact that football has supplanted itself as America’s sport.

There are many reasons for this, none of which makes football a great sport per say, but they are reasons for why many Americans these days love to watch it and be associated with it. The first thought that comes to my mind for why people love this sport so much is the same issue that comes to my mind when I think about the problems of our society today in general, and that is laziness.

Now this isn’t meant to bash the sport of football because I love to plop down on the couch or in the recliner and watch a full day of football myself, this is just the assessment I see and hear from fans around the country.

Football is a simple game. It’s easy for anyone to pick up or teach to a girlfriend you’re trying to impress or explain to your kid. The biggest decision on offense is whether to run or pass. The biggest decision on defense is whether to blitz or play zone. That makes it sound more simple than it actually is, but still, it’s not rocket science.

The most glorified position in all of sports is the quarterback position. They get paid ridiculous amounts of money to play catch and hand the ball off to running backs who just run fast and hard. Now some do it better than others so there is skill involved there. But 95 percent of America can throw a football. I would guess that not 50 percent of America can throw a curveball. And I would guess that 95 percent of Americans can catch a football, but I would guess that less than 30 percent of Americans can hit a curveball.

To compare the amount of skill it takes to play baseball compared to football isn’t even fair because I think even the most die-hard football fan would admit there is more skill involved in baseball. There is even more skill involved in hockey, and you could make cases for other sports too. That’s what frustrates me the most about America’s lack of recognition for something truly skillful and why I believe the sport is just so popular because it’s easy.

Fans don’t have the patience to sit around and wait for something exciting to happen in baseball or hockey. They want it now. But with commercials and replay football, to me, has become as slow if not slower than any other sport.  

Now that’s only part of why football has become America’s game. There is a whole other side to it and it also has nothing to do with the fact that football is a great sport. And the main reason football is more popular than baseball today is the build-up of the game. I think if you polled people and they honestly answered whether they loved the tailgating or the actual game more, there would be a pretty fair amount of people that said they loved the tailgating more than the actual game.

I’ve been to several tailgates in college where we spent all day tailgating and then when the game came on we may watch the beginning and the end of it, but in between people were more worried about what we were going to eat or do after the game. There were very few games we actually sat down and watched every play with intensity.

Football is played one day a week and people just sit at their desks all week in anticipation of this one game. They read every article that analyzes every aspect of the game. People check the injury reports daily to see who’s going to be starting and who will have to sit out. So the anticipation for the game becomes even more exciting than the actual games themselves.

Another reason football has become so popular in America is because of fantasy football. I’m not going to lie, I maybe sat down and watched one or two games all season (Mostly just stopping by to see if one of my players scored). But I was checking my phone constantly on Sundays to find out how my fantasy football team was doing. If I had sat down and actually watched some football I probably would have made the playoffs, but that’s another story.

I know several people and have several friends who could care less about the outcome of a game, they just care if Shonn Greene actually had more than five fantasy points for once. Fantasy sports have been great for all sports because it brings in interest from fans that normally wouldn’t care about the sport or players. And with football it’s even better because you have a whole week to get ready and set your lineups, instead of having to pay attention every day.

Like I said, I’m not trying to bash America or people that love football. It’s a great game. I love to watch it and I love everything that’s mentioned above about football. I participate in all of those activities on a weekly basis during the fall and winter months. I just don’t like the fact that Americans have become so lazy that they don’t appreciate the skill it takes to play baseball, hockey or even soccer.

The NFL and college football has done a great job promoting the sport of football and making it the wonderful sport that is today. They’ve capitalized on the opportunity to make football America’s sport. MLB traditionalist just haven’t kept up with the times to make the sport better for today’s society, and in all honesty I hope they don’t because I love it the way it is.

I know there are those few people out there that live and die with every play. But for me, and the majority of people that I see and hang around, it’s more about the fellowship with friends and the time spent together before, during and even after the game that makes it such a great sport.

You can follow Jake on Twitter at: @j8a1k0e 

An iconic figure an icon no more

There are certain things/players in sports that we associate with certain things/teams and that’s just the way it is. No one thinks of Shaq as a Phoenix Sun, no one thinks of Jordan as a Washington Wizard, no thinks of Frank Thomas as a Toronto Blue Jay, no thinks of Brett Favre as a New York Jet and until today (Dec. 8, 2011) no one thought of Albert Pujols as anything other than a St. Louis Cardinal.

This has become the problem with sports today and baseball in general. Team loyalty means nothing to today’s star athletes, only dollar signs and publicity matter. Do you think LeBron James would have left Miami to go to Cleveland if the tables had been turned? No, because LeBron wanted to be in the hot spot where all the action is going down so he could spend his millions of dollars where everyone could see him. To make things even worse, he left his hometown for stardome and for that he will forever be classified as the biggest sellout of all time.

Pujols is a different kind of story. While St. Louis is in the middle of the map and not exactly a big market compared to New York, Boston or Los Angeles, although their baseball team is one of the most storied teams in history, he meant everything to that city. He had his family in that city, charity programs and anything a person can ask for. He was loved by everyone in that city like he was their best friend. He was labeled as this nice charitable guy who would never do such a thing as turn down $200 million to leave them for an extra $50 million.

As a normal working person who will never make 1/300 of that in his lifetime it’s hard to understand how an athlete can fret so much over millions of dollars. Maybe it would be different if I were in their shoes, but honestly, what can one person do with $250 million. On top of the $100 million or so he’s already made. I understand it’s a business thing and the Angels are just trying to get the greatest player of our generation, but why would Pujols not give the city/team he grew up with a discount?

It’s because loyalty means nothing to athletes today. Even Derek Jeter, who is one of the most respected baseball players of all time, threatened to leave the Yankees if they didn’t pay him what he thinks he “deserves.” The same could be said with Mariano Rivera of the Yankees. Both players got overpaid because of what they meant to their franchise. But do you think that if Boston would have stepped in and offered say $10 million more that they would have jumped ship? I believe they would have in a heartbeat.

The problem with this, and in baseball in particular, is that fans aren’t able to get attached to a team because the identity of the team changes from year-to-year so much these days. I’ve always been afraid to go out and buy a jersey because I don’t know if the name on the back of that jersey will match the team name on the front of it the next year. Major League Baseball is beginning to be no different than minor league baseball where teams look different each year and you don’t know who your starting nine are going to be.

Being a Braves fan I’ve had the luxury to have a lot of loyal players on my team, which is one reason I love them and I think a lot of fans love to cheer for them because they know Chipper Jones is going to be at third base every year. For years you knew Glavine, Smoltz and Maddux were going to be at the front of the rotation. When players signed with a team back in the day (I’m 23 and am going based on what I hear and read) they signed with a team because it meant something to them. They had pride in that team that invested so much money in them, they played for and wanted to play even harder to make that city proud and to win for their fans.

Now instead of paying homage to the people who pay these ridiculous salaries, players are leaving whenever they can to go out and get a couple extra million, or in Pujols’ case an extra $50 million. There is no sense of pride or loyalty to a team. Athletes don’t care what the fans think or how a decision is going to affect their image. MOST, not all, have become shellfish and arrogant. They forget what makes sports so awesome and enjoyable. And it’s having pride for the name/city on the front of the jersey.

How difficult would it have been for Pujols to take a 10 year deal, which is ridiculous in the first place, for $200 million, which is ridiculous in the second place, to play for a team and city that needs him, where he’s already won two championships and for a city that would resurrect a statue next to Stan the Man for him? From someone who used to love Pujols and watched him play to see his greatness, it’s sickening to think that he won’t be in a Cardinal uniform anymore because he needed an extra $50 million to pay the bills.

Not every player is Albert Pujols or LeBron James, and there are many cases where players take discounts to stay at home or go home (C.J. Wilson), but this scenario has come up in sports a lot the past few years and it’s just painful to watch these already highly paid athletes fight for a couple more million dollars to play a sport. Where is the loyalty and the pride that once made baseball America’s sport? I guess it was left behind when the true, and now only, iconic figure in St. Louis retired (Stan Musial).

Here is a good article by St. Louis Post-Dispatch Cardinals’ beat writer Derrick Goold on free agency in baseball and how kids view iconic figures.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_d0f7a264-7cae-11e0-a03d-001a4bcf6878.html

Why the SEC is so dominate in college sports

Over the last couple of decades, and more so in college football the last six years, it has become evident that the SEC is in a league of their own in sports. Most people believe this to be true just about football, but actually the SEC dominates just about every sport it participates in.

Many people outside of the SEC are in an uproar over the fact that LSU and Alabama could potentially meet AGAIN in the BCS Championship game. This wouldn’t be the only time two teams from the same conference would have wound up being pit against each other in a championship game. It’s already happened once this year, and again it was the SEC who had two teams meet in the championship round in college baseball.

South Carolina and Florida met after going through a tournament, which is how championships should be won, and came out on top to give the SEC their second straight crown in college baseball, the last one won by South Carolina as well. In fact, Vanderbilt was eliminated by Florida in that tournament giving the SEC three teams in the final four of the College World Series. I think it’s safe to say that if college football had a tournament in place to determine their champion it would more than likely be Alabama and LSU playing at the end of it, so why shouldn’t they play for it in the BCS championship if they’re the two best teams in the country?

There are numerous points that could be made in numerous other sports, but the point of this article was to show why the SEC is so dominate, and when I think about why that is, I don’t think it’s because they have the best talent, money or academics. It’s because it’s all the people in the South have. There aren’t many professional teams down South for fans to draw to, and the few that there are they don’t get much fan support until they win the Super Bowl (Saints) or World Series (Braves). Not even the Marlins who have won two World Series since 1997 can get any fan support. Or the Rays who have won the AL East over Boston and New York twice over the past four years can get some love.

In contrast, people in Los Angeles don’t care that USC isn’t dominating college football anymore because they can go watch the Dodgers, Lakers, Kings, Angels, Giants, Padres, etc. People up North don’t care that Syracuse or UCONN isn’t winning national titles because they have the Patriots, Red Sox, Yankees, Knicks, Islanders, Bruins, etc. It’s not as important to them and that’s something people in the South just won’t understand.

People in the South are passionate about the state they live in or the state they grew up in. It gives them pride in something that people up North don’t have. Fans in the South expect championships. They expect dominance, and if that doesn’t happen they expect firings and change until it does happen.

More specifically you can feel the passion in Alabama where the closest action you can get to professional sports is the Birmingham Barons. Many people make fun of the fact that most Alabama fans didn’t even graduate from the University of Alabama or at least go there. That’s because being an Alabama fan means absolutely nothing about the academics or the university, it’s about having pride in the state you grew up in. To most Alabama fans it’s just like cheering for the Cardinals because you grew up in St. Louis or cheering for the Bears because you were born in Illinois. It gives them recognition/significance on a national level.  

The fans in the SEC push their schools to become better and the universities welcome it because the sports bring in so much money for that particular university. Without the fans the SEC is just another ACC, a bunch of low level teams that always underachieve, unless you’re Virginia Tech.

It’s their passion that makes players want to sign for an Auburn, Georgia, Florida or even Kentucky. A player knows that if he can dominate on a low level SEC team like Kentucky he’s still going to get that exposure because just about every SEC game is now broadcast on national television.

It just seems like ever since LSU won the title in 2003, it’s created so much jealousy around other teams in the SEC that it’s just pushed every fan base that much harder and in return pushing their school that much harder to win a championship. The SEC has won seven of the 13 BCS National Championship games, and I think just about everybody in the nation knows Auburn should have won it in 2004, which would have given the SEC seven of the past eight championships. There is a reason the SEC is so dominate, and I believe it’s the drive of each fan base that pushes the universities to compete against each other making the SEC so much better than any other conference.

The impact of sports on our lives

Whether you’re a die-hard sports fan who lives and breathes on every pitch, down, pass, shot, etc. or a casual observer that watches because their boyfriend/girlfriend does, sports has an impact on all of our lives.

To some it can be the reason they wake up every morning, which is usually followed by Sportscenter or surfing the internet to see what you missed from last night. It surrounds every moment of every day. You wait to hear the injury status of your starting running back or who’s going to pitch tonight. What goalie will be in net or is LeBron going to choke again.

It’s in the news, it’s over the airwaves. Even the most casual of fans knows what’s going on from a day-to-day basis in the world of sports. Just walking by a television in a bar, at a hotel or in your living room will usually tell you what today’s top story was in sports.

When faced with an awkward situation with someone you don’t know, all you have to do is mention something about sports and you’ve already gained a common interest with the other person. There aren’t many days that have gone by that I haven’t engaged in a sports conservation with someone. Whether it is soccer, football, hockey, baseball, basketball or the Olympics, almost every person in this world knows a little bit about each of them.

Sports gives us that since of pride that drives us to choose from the day we are born what teams we are going to cheer for. Everyone wants to believe their team/city/college is the best, and because of that reason we wear our teams’ colors every day, spend money to watch people play a sport and spend relentless hours researching meaningless stats.

If you’re one of the lucky fans, you’ve had that great moment with your team when they’ve won the championship or won an exciting game. That moment when the world stops and you don’t care about anything but your team. Those goosebumps crawl up your arm and down your back as that final out is made that just gave your team a world championship. Or when that field goal went through to solidify a great season as the best football team in the country. In one of the more uninteresting sports for three quarters, basketball can almost always provide a thrilling ending with a game winning shot or even with a miss. It’s moments like these that define who we are as sports fans and what we stand for as a person.

People can try to avoid sports and say they don’t care, but it’s unavoidable! Deep down inside every fan has a little passion for the outcome of a game. They might not wear their emotions on their sleeves like some fans, but it still affects them. Even if you have no interest in sports, it has an interest in you. Sports is involved in politics, gambling, weather, scandals, exercise, clothes, etc. Sports is the dominant force in this world and you can either embrace it or learn to deal with it.

To some it can be a means to an end. For others, background noise during dinner. But to some, it’s the driving force that keeps them feeling alive, gives them hope and makes them feel meaningful in this world.