The trouble with "spectacular games"

Was at a bar last night watching the Bulls game with my neighbor pals, and though I haven't watched a whole Bulls game since Michael Jordan retired before the turn of this century, I was caught up in the group excitement and found myself cheering and agonizing along with everybody else.

I was also reminded of something I ran across yesterday in my regular ramble through the cobwebs for Vital Speeches:

It is the rare exception, now, when we see a boy that is handy with tools and capable of taking care of himself under all circumstances.

The personal interest in athletics has been largely superseded by an interest in spectacular games, which, unfortunately, tend to divide the nation into two groups—the few overworked champions in the arena, and the great crowd, content to do nothing but sit on the benches and look on, while indulging their tastes for tobacco and alcohol.

Published in the 1910 Boy Scout Handbook, that double shot of reality came seven decades before the advent of ESPN! At the root of how much social evil are these "spectacular games," which so many people spend so much their time watching and so little of their time doing? 

Childhood obesity (and grown-up flab-assity), general physical helplessness, an acceptance of vicarious living, an altogether insane emotional and financial overinvestment in professional sports (both collegiate and post-collegiate).

We won! says the Chicago Bears fan after the big game.

No, the Bears won. You drank four beers and ate a hot dog. Yay!

Call it what it is.

Leisure time. Time for rest.

Rest from what?

Your life's work.

Which is?

Comments

[Rueben]

Okay, so it wasn't as much exercise as if I'd been playing. But after watching the Canucks play to double overtime to get to the Stanley Cup finals last night, I did not feel like I had taken a rest. The tension almost did me in.

I think you have a point though, David, albeit in a complex issue. But if it gives you any small amount of hope, before we sat down to watch the hockey game my three-year-old and I were playing soccer in the backyard. And he was far more into that than watching the Sedin twins on the screen.