It has now been two years since I watched a sports event. I was a Miami Dolphin fan since the days of Marino, Csonka, and Mercury Morris. With several friends, each Sunday was planned around the game, and like typical hard-core fans, we lived or died with each game and season.
Being more of a baseball fan, every evening when the children were in bed, I watched either a live or recorded Marlins baseball game. Basketball was never high on my list as I always thought you could see the whole game in the final five minutes. When the final five minutes starting lasting half an hour, I gave that up too.
In college sports I was a Florida fan. I don’t mean University of Florida though I attended briefly. Whether it was Gators, Hurricanes, or Seminoles, I cheered for the team with the best chance for a national championship. Generally speaking, I was something of a typical brain-numbed American sports fan.
The recent anti-Americanism displayed by professional athletes was of itself not what convinced me to quit on sports, but it was the final catalyst for some serious self-reflection: “Why am I watching something that has me so disgusted? Why am I supporting a bunch of thankless prima donnas who do not appreciate how they have been blessed to live and work in America? Why am I giving my money to players who will make more in a couple of years than I will in my lifetime? Why exactly am I cheering for entertainers who use a sports profile to force their politics on me? And why indeed, should I stand with athletes who detest both me and my country?
Kneeling for the National Anthem was the final nail, but the drift away from sports really started when serious political correctness began elbowing its’ way into every facet of American life. From my memory it first entered sports when women were allowed into the men’s locker rooms. It seemed outrageous at the time, but appears mild compared to the Orwellian wokeness that is now taking over the country.
I also became more aware of the nature of sports talk shows. Former athletes, unable to give up the spotlight, put on their finest suits and engaged in very serious discussions about sports as if the fate of the nation, or at least of professional sports, hung on their technical analysis of the West Coast Offense. Left-wing political correctness slowly slipped into everything they said and did, and each one tried to outdo the other’s virtue signaling. In time, not a single commentator dared defy the god of woke.
Meanwhile, athletes became unwitting pawns in the politization of sports. Failing to realize that their political views were solicited only because of their status as athletes and not because they were intellectual trend setters, more and more athletes joined Hollywood stars in spouting out their inane political thoughts. Wealthy team owners, liberal media outlets, and a chorus of left-wing nerds who had been hassled by high school jocks, extended credibility and encouraged them to continue voicing their simplistic views.
Now we find Major League Baseball moving the all-star game from Georgia to Colorado because it passed a voting bill requiring proof of identity in order to vote. Colorado also requires ‘proof of identity’. The difference is of course, that Colorado mails a ballot to everyone, and proof of identity is merely a signature. With millions of Coloradans voting by mail – reportedly 94% – it must have really been fun verifying all those signatures.
In truth, this is just another of those happenings where it is useless to argue sensibly. While ultimately all issues are about power and money, liberals always couch their defense in moral posturing. With full media support behind them, common sense conservative arguments never have a chance, and leftists are never forced to defend their actions.
It is therefore, a waste of time to try and get direct answers. Why, for example are they leaving the Atlanta baseball team in Georgia? When no one in Georgia is being denied the right to vote, how exactly does it equate to ‘Jim Crow’. Major league baseball does business with Communist China. With all of their well-known human rights abuses, why are they acceptable but Georgia is not? Should the Masters Golf Tournament also be switched to another state?
Questions like these will never receive answers, because they would not fit the political narrative and liberals are endlessly clever about switching channels on outraged conservatives. So, if you are one of the tens of millions who can’t live without sports, hang on until women are integrated into all men’s professional sports, and then things will really get interesting. (Think not? Check out the Marine Corp.)
P.S. Amazingly enough I don’t miss sports a bit. I didn’t even know Tom Brady was in another Super Bowl until the day before the game, and somehow the World Series was happening before I knew there was going to be one.
