I present this before continuing.
A moment in history
I really think that major sports are being killed little by little by the media. Kinda like a slow poison that eats away at the one thing that keeps sports alive...
Your interest.
I'm not a hardcore fan of any major sport. If i lived in the U.S. I'd probably be a American football fan. England or Europe I'd be a Football fan. India or the Far east cricket, Japan Baseball. Here in Canada it's supposed to be hockey. But as much as I like the sports I can't spout numbers, or stats, or anything like that.
Going into a sports conversation for me is like tying one arm and a leg behind my back and hopping into a boxing ring. I liked Tie Domi, I like Sundin, I liked Felix. Why? Cause I thought they were cool. No I don't care about how many goals, or how often they win. I like them cause... I like them.
"I know half of nothing, about jack shit", is the term I believe.
I was reading that article and it rang a few bells in my head. I wonder how different really the sports stars of yesteryear are from the sports stars today. Did they have agents? Endorsement deals? multimillion dollar paychecks (or.. thousand dollar paychecks to account for inflation).
I feel for me and probably a percentage of people out there. Its kinda like the 911 entry I put in before. Sports are... over hyped. You can turn on ESPN or look it up on the net and see 40 articles on a 20 minute fight analyzing every detail. Nothing is left to the imagination anymore.
I just can't get excited anymore. I feel the buzz when I have gone to the occasional game in person. It seems different there. You form your own opinion, you are "experiencing" it through your own senses. Rather than down the lens of a camera, backed by a announcer spouting stats and percentages. It starts to get a bit.. filtered.. not real anymore.
Then... I don't own a TV.
Maybe this is just the perspective of a poor boy peering in through the shop windows at all the candies, and not knowing if they are tasty. Everyone else seems to find them tasty would I too, if I could afford them?
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As far as I can tell big-name athletes back in the days were just as loved, reviled, and showered with money as today. They also had sponsorship deals with companies that could do it back then, like Coca-Cola and cigarettes. As time has gone by old-timers got rose-tinted glasses and tried to forget:
1912: Coke sponsored Ty Cobb beating a cripple
1919: The Black Sox
1925: Babe Ruth naked chasing a hooker through a train
1972-1976: The Philadelphia Flyers Broad Street Bullies years
2003 (starring a 1969 Super Bowl winner)Joe Namath going drunken old creepy fucker on live TV trying to bang the reporter
That's more or less off the top of my head. I remember the incidents but looked up the dates. You have to dig a bit to find the yesteryear equivalent of this Steroids in Baseball crap, but it was all there back then as well. I think the networks didn't care that scandal gets more viewers, they wanted it to be about the game. I hope so anyways, I can respect that.
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