The weather forecast for Saturday in San Francisco is 60 degrees, in Boston 53 and partly cloudy. The NHL and NBA are grinding toward their seasons' end and the playoffs, with baseball (unless you hail from Pittsburgh or Kansas City) full of spring possibilities. In Japan, a disaster beyond comprehension has death tolls anticipated to reach the thousands. The United States, barely able to pay its bills at home, heaven help us, might put fighter planes in the skies over Libya.
Events large and small, important and not so will go on Saturday morning. Life will go on, happily for some, in the wake of tragedy for others. In sports, the ball will keep bouncing.
For weeks, in discussing the original March 3 expiration of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, we've used words like deadline (stretched as it was to this week) and Armageddon, but they are not the right words. The business of the National Football League is currently at an impasse, but the game of football is very much alive. The sport itself literally hasn't gone anywhere. If you love football, go into the garage or a sporting goods store and buy one. Take the ball and throw it with your kids. Play Madden. Get really muddy by playing pick up ball with your friends. Be Tom Brady.
The business of the game is shut down, but fans have lost nothing while gaining something very important: You've learned that those who own the teams, the commissioner who runs the league and, to a far lesser extent, the players who run the routes, sack the quarterbacks and score the touchdowns have so little perspective that they believe their inability to divide $9 billion is, in the real world, important. We all know better.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?id=6208732
No comments:
Post a Comment