The Sporting Life

If you want to see how the liberal media in this country are not serving our interests, I suggest that you take a look at how they practically ignore sports reporting. There are sports news broadcasts on every television station several times each day, there are at least two 24 hour sports networks, countless magazines dedicated to sports in general or to a particular athletic endeavor, sports talk radio, and don’t forget about the sports section of your daily newspaper. When you consider this paltry coverage given to sports news in this country, it’s pretty clear that the panty-waist liberal media people hate athletics.

In that last paragraph I employed a very classy writing technique called ‘sarcasm’ which, although it was about as subtle as a sledge hammer hitting a hamster, was probably lost on knuckle-head dudes who are completely obsessed with sports. There probably aren’t any literary techniques that aren’t lost on guys whose idea of an intellectual discussion is sitting on the couch listening to a couple of mildly-retarded ex-jocks argue over an insignificant sporting event that happened two weeks ago. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the American male of the 21rst century.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it is perfectly acceptable to watch an entire 165 game season of baseball, the subsequent marathon of playoff games, and then the World Series (and you pray that it goes to seven games). And only evil-doer terrorists would miss even a single minute of coverage of the Tour de France. I think that pretty much goes without saying, but guys who watch any sports other than those two life-essential events are just being excessive. These guys might have a problem with sports. They may even be what psychologists call “sport-a-holics.” When you couple this extreme sports addiction with the inherent drinking that goes hand-in-hand with spectator sports, you have a recipe for disaster. Remember: Disaster is NASCAR spelled backwards.

I’m not talking about the drinking that is involved with watching baseball, because baseball isn’t really a sport; it’s our national pastime. Everyone in America knows that you are supposed to drink at least one $8 beer each inning until they stop serving beer at the end of the 7th inning. Then you are expected to degrade yourself by concocting some lame story--like how you had to use your last beer to cauterize the wound of someone hit by a foul ball--to try to get the vendor to sell you one more beer after last call. This is completely appropriate behavior because it is a part of baseball’s long and beer-drenched history. All that I am trying to say is that, between you and me, fans of sports other than baseball may have a bit of a drinking problem.

How can you tell if someone you love has a sports problem? OK, so ‘love’ may be kind of a strong word to describe your relationship with the complete slob lying on your couch in a filthy t-shirt watching Australian rules football at 2 a.m., but he is your husband. We will just assume that he has a problem. Can he be cured of his addiction? Not a chance. All that you can do is lessen the damage he is doing to himself. During an intense weekend of televised golf, be sure to roll him over several times to prevent bed sores, and remember to squeeze a bit of lemon juice on his chili nachos to ward off scurvy.

In all honesty, there is really nothing wrong with your husband’s sports addiction. There are far worse things that he could be doing than watching games on TV all weekend. So what if he invites some of his friends over and they build a fort out of couch cushions while they watch college football match-ups involving schools they have never even heard of until now. At least he’s not using drugs, and even if he is using drugs at least he’s doing it in the privacy of his own home.