Sports and sports

A recent posting said: "In Chile, the TV news was devoted almost entirely to "the wedding of the year": a sports star was married in a flashy church ceremony, while enraptured crowds stood behind the railings of the church courtyard. A rather pathetic figure, he almost broke down in apologies, apparently for some sports fault he had committed, but it was all so melodramatic and confused that I could only guess that he was a soccer star. Was he asking for forgiveness in church? Let us hope God is a soccer fan."

Chilean soccer star Carlos López comments:
"The sports star you mentioned is some first class idiot, who refused to carry the Chilean flag at the Olympics. He was lucky Chile has a weak government, Pinochet would have stripped him of his nationality. He is Marcelo Rios, rated NUMBER ONE in tennis today. Give me a soccer player like Pele, Di Stefano or Stanley Mathews over any one hundred professional tennis players! "

My comment: The story was illustrated with a ball flying around. Apparently it was a tennis ball. There is a hierarchy of sports, and soccer is indeed a gracious, clean game which promotes team work, so sorely needed in the world today. Individual sports promote the nasty search for personal glory, often through aggression. and doping. WAISers' reactions surprise me.Scholarly John Wonder justifies sports for their role in evolution. It is true that outrunning a lion or escaping by jumping over a hedge was a valuable ability in primitive times, but it has no evolutionary value today. Gentle Dwight Peterson justifies boxing as a means of getting brawlers of the streets. In view of the permanent some boxers suffer, it would be better to have them take up soccer. Boxing, as the "noble art of self defense", had social merit once, but now we have the cops, god bless them, and our own guns, god forgive us.

Meanest of sports are those which inflict pain on animals. Despite the triumph of soccer, there are many Spanish and Mexican bullfight fans. I have nice friends in Mexico who train fighting roosters. Bear-bating, although illegal, is still popular in Pakistan, where land owners train vicious dogs to bewilder and attack the bear. The Western world had outgrown that. It is probable that American football, a nasty aggressive sport, will disappear and be replaced by soccer, to the great satisfaction of Carlos López.

Ronald Hilton - 1/08/01