And I’m questioning how much I should even care at this
point.
As you all probably know, sports, for me, have always been a
huge passion. I love following any teams that have roots with the Bay Area,
college or amateur. I like watching the Olympics for the big sports and the
small (umm, curling, hell yes!). I can respond to a lot of sports trivia, even
if it is just with an educated guess. Isaac and I spent the baseball playoffs g-chatting
with each other, too scared to compliment or ask for something positive to
happen to the Giants in fear of jinxing (or reverse jinxing?) anything good
from happening.
And when I was too young to care about the rest of the news,
I would spend my Sunday morning with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sporting
Green. I soaked up sports, and I still go out of my way to watch, read, and
consume sports (on new tabs for Google Chrome, three out of eight are related
to sports).
So, to give a brief recap, there are four huge
lies/falsities that have impacted me more than they probably should have over
the past year.
1) Melky Cabrera, a player for the
San Francisco Giants, is suspended for using testosterone, a banned substance
in Major League Baseball. I like the Giants, I like baseball, and I like when
players play well for the Giants. Melky played really, really, really well from
April to July. In July, he was busted for using testosterone. (The side story
that is actually pretty hilarious is that one of his “handlers” tried to
establish a website justifying the product in his home country… that was proven
to be quite false.) I wasn’t as disappointed as some other Giants fans, but to
egregiously break the drug policies in baseball and follow it by attempting to
cover it up was rather foolish. Still, he was suspended, served his time, and
was welcomed with open arms by a different baseball team.
2) Lance Armstrong just admitted
to Oprah to doping throughout all 7 of his Tour de France wins. When he was
suspended for life by USADA, I was shocked. I wanted to believe that he rode
clean (despite the fact that cycling is durrrrty), that he genuinely inspired
so many people (cancer patients and others), that he raised money to help
research cancer treatments… If anything, I wanted him to still have performed
everything clean because that was how my dad and I had idealized him as we
bonded over our admiration for a sport we didn’t know (mostly watching Tour de
France reruns in Julys) and how an American just utterly dominated everyone
else.
And then I read the affidavits. It
was clear he cheated (and wanted to be the best cheater out there), he
strong-armed other people into cheating, and would ruin other people’s lives
when they outed him for cheating. My dad responded by wanting to shred the
yellow bike jersey my brother and I had bought him and mailing it to Lance. At
first, I thought this was a bit dramatic. Now… I don’t think Lance honestly gives
a flying fuck if he hurt my dad’s feelings, but if it made my dad feel better
about it I could justify his actions.
3) Manti Te’o’s story is evidently
a hoax he fell for or perpetrated. Te’o lost his grandmother and his girlfriend
within 8 hours, and it’s become clear that it was just his grandmother had
died. I’m leaning towards his involvement in perpetuating the story based on a
deadspin.com report… but I initially read his story in Sports Illustrated in
September and was inspired by how he seemed to perform through so much
adversity. I figured that if I had to root for Notre Dame at some point in the
season (I’ve been conditioned to not like Notre Dame) that it would be easy to
point to this stand-up guy and admire his linebacking play. Now, he’s going to
graduate and go to the NFL and probably make a lot of money. I just won’t care about
what happens to him anymore.
4) This one is a bit of gossip
mongering, but it appears that Tiger Woods is looking to get back together with
his ex-wife, and is willing to put a ton of money into it for his pre-nup.
Tiger, out of these four sports figures, was the most compelling of the lot and
the individual that I admired the most, as he became a phenomenon as I was
taking up golf. He utterly dominated. He made the clutch shots and sank the big
putts. It was tremendous to watch someone so brilliantly skilled in something.
And, of course, his off-the-course life came crashing down around him (circa
2009?).
His crash (pun intended), for me,
removed any veil of innocence that sports had for me—that athletes were merely
competitors that pushed themselves to incredible reaches in the name of a sport
that they loved. But the succession of the last three individuals, whom I had
invested (an admittedly varying) amount of time, have caused me to question sports
and how closely I follow them.
Yes, it is all entertainment, and
I certainly need to refocus the lens that I view sports. But should I keep
caring, or is it too ingrained and I just need to accept that fact and keep on
rolling with it?
It’s a weird back-and-forth—sports
can bring people together (e.g., me and Isaac at Game 6, rooting hard for the
Giants while making small talk and friends of everyone that surrounded us) and
can provide inspiration. But it’s also reared it’s ugly head—not everybody
playing sports is a good person and they could be taking advantage of me, of
us, as casual fans. (And they could be
doing it since it is just so fucking lucrative, too.)
So what’s the best way to watch
sports? Is it worth it? Am I making a big deal out of some really rotten eggs?
