Return of the Avenging Journalist

The question is simple yet seemingly unanswerable. Why, in this hallowed age of High Definition, can’t people see through all the tired, pixilated, hypocritical garbage?Why is an athlete judged by the amount of money he makes instead of his overall talent? How is it appropriate in the twenty first century to place a dollar value on the worth of a human being? A disturbing trend has peaked recently, rising rapidly with the accumulated salaries, wherein fans, casting themselves as the majority and their heroes as the minority, entitle themselves to act in childish, boorish, pathetic ways; their only justification being a price paid for admission. Can the game exist without fans? Of course it could and would not, but does that give one the right to incessantly test a dirty conscience, their every narrow-minded instinct revealed through the prism of a sporting event?

–    Why are Baseball fans allowed to suddenly and contently emerge as Super Bigots when the concept of Omar Minaya’s Met roster construction arrives in question? Suggesting that Minaya’s contextual image of the Mets revolves around “Latin Ringers” is despicable, a reeking low tide, exposing negative racial sentiment still bordering around the edges of American Life, only freely exposed when discussing the lenient issues of Baseball.

To those who this winter called WFAN in New York complaining about the inherent unfairness of being an American Met, I offer this: Stop. Please cease and desist using the National Pastime as a dumping ground for your sociological defects.

–    Why is it ok for Boston Red Sox fans to cloak themselves in T-Shirts trumping this simple, disgusting sentence: “Jeter has AIDS.” How can the hatred of one man’s superficial celebrity overwhelm his encompassing goodness as a person? Hate intertwined with respect can at least pave the way toward understanding. Hate, standing alone as the sole provider as knowledge, only proliferates the market for slogans such as this. So sad.

The shirt not only breeds immediate classlessness in those who wear it, it also makes light of AIDS in general, dehumanizing it’s very real destruction, twisting it’s meaning into a ploy, a useless insult.  

 –  Is a sporting event a welcome cause for anarchy? Does the sanity of this society exist on such a thin line that a championship celebration merely serves as vain prerequisite to a riot?

 – For a society that produces writers who fawn over our game’s safe sanctity [Including me], why is it so glaringly obvious that these events can also bring forth the worst within us? How could a boxing match, between Gerry Cooney and Larry Holmes, take possession of a nation’s soul so easily? See America, on the familiar brink of racial meltdown, due entirely to a Title Bout.

  A winner and loser are definable, the scoreboard a pure speaker of infinite truth, our emotions lie, beckon and call, violent waves in cascading water, searching for a shore to explode into.  Are we in such a sad collective state that a game’s realism can only be established through our own baggage?

A beer cup is flung. An inevitable melee discovers a legitimate point of origin. The Pistons-Pacers brawl should have forced us to face our demons. Instead, we collectively created an easy way out, shattering the mirror before its reflection could materialize, piling on a favored scapegoat, Ron Artest.

The other shoe awaits opportunity.

Perhaps, one spotless day, the indefinable, wonderful strand of nothingness holding our games together will tire of this abuse and vanish, leaving us alone.

Nothing more to judge, right or wrong.

……..

And, as a fun bonus, something that doesn’t deserve it’s own column but should be mentioned:

Dear Fellow Yankee Fans,

And, as a fun bonus, something that doesn’t deserve it’s own column but should be mentioned:

Dear Fellow Yankee Fans,
The jeering of A-Rod is a rather pathetic display of equal parts ignorance and jealousy. Guess what: With an average third baseman last season, this team wins 83 games. Tops. They are nowhere without A-Rod. Nowhere. He was the most important piece of the puzzle. He stunk in the Post-Season, but any real fan knows that Game 3 was the pivotal battle of that series, and Randy Johnson couldn’t hold the line. The Mick had his awful World Series Performances. Give this guy a break. The level of venom spewed in his direction is insane.
Here’s Alex, this great player who possesses nary a smudge on his resume both personally and professionally, and these fans simply seek to lower him a notch. They joy in defacing this media monument of A-Rod, but this is a real person, very real in fact, whose emotions are being twisted out of whack. If you want to see the Yanks win, why are you booing this guy? You’re not helping. If you want to be a bitter, jealous troll instead of rooting for your team to win, don’t show up. Don’t take out your damn problems on A-Rod.
And I’m so tired of this Clutch nonsense. How to explain that double off Joe Nathan in Game 2 of the 2004 Division Series?
This team can’t win without Alex. They can’t.
I feel better now.