the Mendoza Line. A Quasi-Manifesto (of Sorts).

In all honesty, Professional Sports are completely useless. I have said before that when taken at face value, Professional Sports and Sports Stars should not be taken seriously (or viewed, really) by anyone. Examine the premise: Baseball players, Football Players, Basketball Players and David Beckham all get paid millions of dollars to play a kids game. The only other “profession” (term used very loosely) that I find to be more worthless and self serving is the modeling industry[1]. Alex Rodriguez makes more money for playing 162 games of baseball a year than probably the entire yearly salary of every educator in Cobb County, GA combined. Agreed, professional sports stars are of a very select kill type; not everyone can grow up to be a great third baseman. But, come on, it is not 28 millions dollars a year select. Seriously, fuck these people.

Having said that, however, I absolutely love professional sports.

The only time Professional Sports are worth any social value is when we examine them within the “big picture.” That is to say, when we examine these great sports events within a sociological context. And this happens all the time. In 1974, Hank Aaron knocking home-runs was without a doubt something more than some guy hitting baseballs, just like how this year Barry Bonds chasing Aaron’s home-run record definitely symbolizes something greater than sports fans affinity for the long ball. Dan Marino’s entire career is an allegory for the average workingman; Marino is the greatest football player ever to be known for what he didn’t do. He never won the big prize, but, I am sure his life is still turning out quite alright. We may never be the rockstars or Hollywood icons or astronauts we wished to be when we were kids, but, I suppose if we work hard enough, it will all turn out alright and our lives will be worth mentioning.

This years MLB postseason is cracking up to be something incredibly special. The National League Championship Series starts on Thursday, and I am fairly certain that at the beginning of the season (and possibly at the All Star break), NO ONE picked the Colorado Rockies or the Arizona Diamondbacks to be fighting for a spot in the World Series. These are two teams that embody the true underdog spirit. The Rockies were faced with one of the most monumental of uphill battles as the season came to a close: they had to win 14 of their last 15 games just to even have a shot at making the post-season. There is no better of an example of a true underdog putting their head down and barreling through the competition. A team that NO ONE gave any kind of chance, with a roster with absolutely no star power, is now on (arguably) the hottest streak in the history of baseball and poised on the verge of getting to play on the biggest stage of them all. I don’t think I need to explain the metaphorical nature of all of this.

Forget Britney Spears, if someone wants to learn a lesson in self-destruction and monumental collapses, look no further than the 2007 New York Mets. The team with the third or fourth highest paid roster in the MLB, chalked full of veteran talent, held a 7 game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies with 17 games left to play in the regular season! All they needed to do was to play 500 ball and they would have easily secured a playoff berth. Instead, the Mets imploded in on themselves. They got cocky; Manager Willie Randolph is now famously (and ironically) quoted s saying that “When we sip champagne later on, it’ll be a little sweeter.” They are now a team in shambles, with all the money spent on all the veteran talent quite literally going right down the drain.

These are not the only instances of great sociological stories in sports. The 2006 New York Giants making the Playoffs is a perfect example of a team getting something they completely did not deserve, while hardworking and generally talented and deserving teams like the Green Bay packers caught the raw end of the deal. However, The Giants subsequent first round loss to the Philadelphia Eagles serves as a pretty good example of a team getting exactly what they deserve (in the negative sense). Steve Nash and the Phoenix Sun’s constant rivalry with Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs is the classic David versus Goliath, Good versus evil scenario.

I think as a society, we are a group of people who look to different mediums to explain “the Big Picture.” We are constantly looking for outward visualizations of our inward consciousness. This is fact is not debatable, or else pop-music and movies and television would not exist. Anything that expresses any kind of genuine emotion is certainly more than entertainment. I just happen to think that Professional Sports may be the best way to outwardly express everything that is going on in the world. I know for a fact that when Hank Aaron began to chase down the Babe’s All-Time Homerun record he wasn’t on a mission of symbolizing triumph under turmoil (especially with racial tensions), but that doesn’t mean we can simply negate the significance of any and every great moment in Sports history. Figuring out what these moments in Professional Sports mean is not some kind of rocket science; it is merely social awareness.

This is why I do not trust anyone who says they hate sports. Or perhaps I just think about this stuff way too much.

Probably the latter.

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1) There is a fine line between “modeling” and the people you see in Target Catalogs.
Obviously, I am talking about Tyra Banks and etc here.