Thursday, September 14, 2006
(8:55 AM) | Brad:
A Random Sports Post
A confession: Unlike the proprietor of this fine blog, and perhaps some of you, I am a huge sports fan.This has never been quite as true as this year. Perhaps it was the relative freedom of mind afforded me after finishing & defending my thesis, not to mention the interminably long, and ultimately fruitless, waits between sending out CVs and journal articles. Or, perhaps there was the realization, upon returning to the States two years ago, that there is really not much on tv that I like to watch. Let me amend that. There's not much on tv I want to watch when it is originally aired. I find that I can't even stand watching a thirty-minute network sitcom, or even the Daily Show, w/out first recording it on my cable-provided DVR. It's not just that this way I can skip the commercials, which is of course nice but a little banal; it is, rather, the divine power I have in creating my own personal television network, albeit with a few of K.'s shows like "The First 48" (actually not a bad show at all), "Lost" and "Prison Break" (both of which require far too much attention & devotion on my part, thus forcing me to abdicate some of my power, and thus neither of which I'm too keen on), and "The Dog Whisperer" (Cesar Milan is a fucking quack!).
But I never use the DVR for sports. Except for the cool function that allows me to rewind & slow-mo live games. Again, it's all about the power, along with my weird co-dependent need to force my wife to come downstairs and "watch this kickass play" that she cares very little about. She's good-natured enough, though, to tell me to "fuck off" with a smile.
The reason I don't record sports is because watching a non-live game is lamer than watching a debate about contemporary media culture between Howie Mandell & Ryan Seacrest (but not as lame as Jean Baudrillard writing about contemporary media culture). It doesn't matter if you don't know the result -- is there anything more annoying than having a friend who refuses to discuss a game, and even threatens your life if you dare mention the score, because he or she has yet to watch it? Nor does it matter if your sport of choice is on another continent, and thus many hours removed from you & your waking- or leisure-life -- e.g., European soccer (or, when I was in Europe, baseball, basketball, & football). Now, one might do it out of necessity, but never by choice or preference. Watching a recorded game is like watching somebody's home video of a kickass party. It might include all the hijinks, ranging from projectile vomiting to inappropriately crude jokes to exhibitionism, but what is missing is the moment. Just as projectile vomitting, inappropriately crude jokes, and exhibitionism are not particularly exciting when recounted to you after the fact, but positively delightful in person, sporting events are only meant to be watched as they happen. Otherwise, you miss the frantic phone calls to buddies just before or just after a missed fieldgoal; the even more frantic phone call to the same buddy after two free throws have put your team ahead by two but, dammit, it is all for naught because two seconds later, after the timeout, some schmuck hits a three-pointer at the buzzer. You miss the collective bellows & screams of an entire apartment complex or building. You miss the "You're wife's making you mow the lawn during the game" conversation w/ your neighbor. Etc.
In missing the game live, in my opinion, you miss the game. Because ultimately, it's not about the result. Well, okay, it's partly about the result -- esp. if your team is playing. But regardless of the result, it is about the moment, which is always in excess of the final result. We're all existentialists at the bottom of the 9th, two runners on, down by two, and a 3-2 count on David Ortiz. One needn't be a fan of the Red Sox or the Yankees, either -- one simply must be a part of the moment, as it happens. All that is necessary for that is to be a sports fan.
