I would say that over the last year I have become less and less attached to sports. Don't get me wrong I enjoy sports, but I have recently noticed that they are taking a lesser role in my life. I have refused tickets (even let them go to waste, which is sacrilegious where I come from), turned down the opportunity for Spring Training(this was a biggy), backed out of my fantasy leagues, said "no" to playing softball in a couple different leagues, and my time spent on the golf course has been drastically reduced in the last 2 years. I don't say this to pat myself on the back, but to acknowledge that I am changing...is the old self is really dying?
What made me really take stock of the changes in my life was an article I read this morning in Sports Illustrated. The SI writer was comparing different kinds of sports fans where he ultimately labeled soccer fans the truest most hardcore fans. He posted a story and praised a group of friends for taking their gunned down friend (in a coffin) to one last soccer match. In the article that the SI writer linked was another original article.
To be honest, I have to admit that I followed the trail of news because in the second article it stated that the pictures were disturbing. I wondered what kind of pictures could be disturbing if the two lead in articles were so light hearted and praise worthy. The picture the followed was very disturbing. I found a web site in Spanish were a mom in agony cried out holding her bloody lifeless son.
Who would look at this picture and read this story to write, "The spill-a-40oz-on-the-sidewalk-for-fallen-homeboy has been replaced, bitches"??? As I started to think about the writer of these words I found myself answering, a person who doesn't look at the loss of human life, but at the actions of a couple friends trying to give their friend one last hurrah. The writer who places sports above all else...creating an idol in something that is meant to be enjoyed. The only reason that this boy's death made the news is because his friends stepped out and did something radical. They took a coffin to a soccer match!!! It wasn't because this boy was gunned down for no reason, it wasn't because the authorities had still not found the killers, it was strictly because these friends had paid tribute to the sports god of soccer.
What have we made sports into? Is it a distraction to what is really going on in the world? Do we purposly avoid the death, poverty, pain, and hardship by keeping ourselves so busy with entertainment? As I am sitting here finishing this blog I just recieved a text asking if I wanted to go to opening day. Free tickets...right behind home plate...what does it mean to not let sports become your idol while engaging the pain of the world?
There was a day when friends would bring their sick friends on stretchers to the feet of a Rabbi or his followers. It was said this man and his followers could even raise the dead.
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