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A Flying Leap Over Jaws: The future of sports?

I honestly thought that movie “Closer” was going to be about Gagne. And after 10 years of watching Bev 9er, what I remember most is that Dylan McKay’s dad used “Eddie Waitkus” as his witness protection program alias. Along the same lines, the most recent episode of Arrested Development also thematically translated into a sports-related concern.

This latest synaptic misfire stemmed from the scene when Henry Winkler literally jumped over a shark, taking one small hop for mankind, one giant leap for entertainment parody. My first thought? That riding Winkler piggyback during the allegorical shark jumping is the 2004 sports season. And I don’t mean that the level of athletic talent has hit a brick wall. That’s only one of the two ways sports can jump the shark, e.g.:

1.)    Steve Carlton Style: to peak, do something ridiculous, and then tailspin into Bolivia. Word Origin: From 1965-1986, Carlton won over 300 games, with six 20-win seasons. And then he did a tour de clubhouses, playing on 4 different teams in the span of a little over a year, finishing with an 11-12 record.

And the other…

2.)    O.C. Style: 1. of or relating to a short period of time saturated with an overwhelming blitz of Page 6-worthy idiocy and/or outlandish feats, 2. a Murderer’s Row of “You’ll Always Remember Where You Were When You Saw…” antics, 3. the 2004 Year in Review

The way I see it, 2004 was a watershed year for spelling out exactly how much the face of professional sports has changed over history. Change the MLB Fox theme song to “California” and throw Mischa Barton in a Pacers jersey, and we’re watching Thursday night must-see T.V. So where does that leave the baffled fan? Is it possible for Modern Sports and Idealistic Sports to coexist? Or has the game as we know it, in fact, jumped the shark?

I’d be lying if I said I was a fan of the “jump the shark” expression. For the laymen, “jump the shark” is a phrase coined to describe the sharp decline of the show Happy Days that followed an episode where Fonzie flew over a shark tank in water skis. Ok, so Happy Days’ peak was when a character flew over a pool of fish? Compared to what “jump the shark” means now, it appears Happy Days got cheated. The expression’s meaning has inflated more than Sprewell’s market value. If you want to jump the shark now, you’re going to have to do a lot better than water ski stunts. Unless you cram death, homosexuality, pregnancy, rape, mental instability, and drug addiction into one season, then you haven’t even cleared the fin. But 2004? Perfect landing on other side of shark tank. Gave new meaning to the phrase “spectator sports.” And an investigation into the possibility that 2004 Sports corked its water skis is currently underway.  

See, the changes are more than just rising hot dog prices at Wrigley and computer-generated first down lines. We live in an era where homeruns are pegged with asteriks, and women strip down on broadcasted NFL games. A headline reading “The Shot Heard Round the World” doesn’t mean a pennant-winning homerun anymore. It means someone interrupted Artest’s mid-brawl nap. Before I start sounding like an 83-year-old with a trick knee, reminiscing about the days when baseball was played with rocks and sticks, realize nothing can shake my love of the game. But it’s like having a birthday that falls on Christmas: even though you can enjoy both sides of the same day, the simple pleasures of a birthday are eclipsed by the glitz and glamour of Christmas.  

On the one hand, I’m in the middle of a sports writer’s wet dream–between the steroids uproar, March Madness, and impending baseball season, I have the mosquito-at-a-nudist-beach syndrome: so much great stuff to sink my teeth into, but I just don’t know where to begin. And how do I divide my time between everything? You know it’s a good day when the biggest problem you face is whether to read about Spring Training or Final Four predictions.

On the other hand, I’m afraid sports just surpassed Carl Lewis’s long jump record. Where do we go from here? Just to take you back, consider the absurdities that occurred in the last year:

NFL: Janet Jackson sets the stage for the “Twilight Zone meets SportsCenter” marathon, (and ironically, the NFL may have been overall the most tame); Desperate Housewife meets Desperate TV Ratings; Ricky Williams retires to live in a tent for $7 a day

NHL: It died.

NBA: Sprewell’s brush with poverty; Kobe renounces role as Poster Boy for Wholesome Athletes; plastic cup becomes world’s most expensive game souvenir, one buck shy of a cool billion on ebay; the Christies reconcile sports with MTV reality shows (coming soon…)

MLB: Canseco assumes role of Steroids Nation Spokesman; “Juiced” proves ghostwriters are without shame and grossly underpaid; Bonds continues to be a caricature of a superhuman beast; Red Sox fans realize it was something else that was missing from their lives all this time; and most recently–Mariano Rivera allegedly joins the NHL status. (Seriously, how does a rumor like that get started? I’m imagining these tired, sunburned reporters grabbing a beer at Spring Training:)

“Giambi admit to steroids yet?”

“Nah.”

“Jeter nail Jessica Simpson yet?”

“Nope.”

“What about A-Rod? There’s got to be something there. Wait, what time did he wake up today?”

“Nada. But I heard Mo’s elbow is sore.”

“And by sore elbow…you mean dead?”

Every new nugget of sports info trumps the one before it. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chargers signed Avril Lavigne as their new starting defensive end. What kind of future is the world of sports looking at? Half the reason I love sports is because it’s supposed to be free of all this drama that recent college grads like myself are already flypaper for.

But the upside is that if sports have indeed jumped the shark, maybe we can look forward to some degree of normalcy in subsequent years. How can anything possibly outdo 2004?  There’s really just nowhere else to go. For the next 10 years anyway. According to Back to the Future II, the Cubs sweep Miami in the 2015 World Series.

Yeah, so Miami’s a non-existent team. At the way things are going, I still really wouldn’t be surprised.

One more thing: according to my brackets, I have Utah cutting down the nets in St. Louis. This would seem strange/moronic to me if I hadn’t just watched West Virginia score 111 points to beat Wake in double OT.

By YankTank

Kris Pollina lives and works in New York City as an advertising copywriter. She lives and dies by NY sports and is the first to admit she can be wildly irrational in defense of her teams. She spends too much time thinking of fantasy team names, too little time reading injury reports. She doesn't understand people who keep score at baseball games. She has more interest in the Kreb Cycle than she does in the NBA, tennis, golf, or anything that is limited to running around a track. She doesn't mind the NFL overtime rules, thinks hockey is wildly underrated, and hates the expression "step up to the plate." Most importantaly, she doesn't believe in wearing baseball hats with football logos on them. Football players wear helmets.

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