... but, like Howard Cosell, I do not believe I am a stupid man.
(And, also like Howard Cosell, many people believe I am!!!)
But, after doing a Wall of Text post regarding the 2021 Dodgers being bludgeoned into submission by The Powers That Be and quite a number of teams in Major League Baseball, the thought occurred to me to revisit Howard Cosell's wisdom (as Brian Tuohy put it, and I'm getting the quote from his page on the subject) of six major sports postulates Cosell put into his book I Never Played The Game in 1985 as postulates of what Cosell referred to as "Sports Syndrome".
1) "The game is sacrosanct -- a physical and almost religious ritual of beauty and art."
I will have no dispute of the possibility of this being true in 1985. As Cosell later points out, it is the growing tentacles of influence of places like the major networks and media partners driving him and his words of wisdom from the sport (and eventually from sports entirely!).
In 2021, especially post-9/11, this has completely changed.
My First Axiom of Sports Syndrome:
1) In sports, the construct is sacrosanct -- sports are a pseudo-religious ritual of hype, dedication, and fan devotion. However, fans have no right that any physical effort made on the field is legitimate or honored.
From the Steroid Era of Major League Baseball to Mayer and beyond, sports have become a situation in which The Powers That Be, on the field (officials) and off the field (not only commissioners, but political, economic and social realities and biases, etc.), determine who wins and loses.
And when you start having constructs like the NFL actually PLAY INTO this garbage, it becomes clear the game is not even relevant anymore, except as a means to an end, rather than an end.
And what is it supposed to do? Especially in the age of the 24-hour sports network, you are supposed to live and die with your team (or, at the very least, the one TPTB in the league or media WANTS YOU to live and die with, at the very least) -- which see the 12th Man-motivated Seattle near-dynasty a number of years back in the NFL
And then there's the level of cheating in a number of sports (including, now, two championship-altering deliberate injuries in the four major sports) getting so high that nothing in sports can be taken at face value anymore. This is one of the reasons, for example, one cannot just "Shut up and Enjoy the Show."
An American sporting event is no different, on a legal or fundamental level, than Debbie Gibson's national "Funny Girl" tour in 1996 -- you have no right to anything but a seat and to see what transpires. The two constructs, especially with the rigging of sports, are completely equivalent.
So the game no longer matters -- it's the construct behind it which now stands sacrosanct.
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2) "Only those who have played the game can understand and communicate it's beauty."
I get exactly where Cosell is going in this regard (Hell, he had Frank Gifford and Don Meredith in that dysfunctional booth!), and, to a greater extent, it is not untrue today.
The problem comes down to when you start seeing Rules Experts and Overseeing League Entities in the booth or in the studio to complement these people, leading to my Second Postulate of Sports Syndrome:
2) Only those who have the power the League gives them can understand the League and communicate it's actions, both on and off the field.
NFL's interference with their media partners knows few bounds. But that's just one example of this.
Every once in a while, you will see a metaphorical "tap on the shoulder" that someone affiliated with the NFL gives to an announcer to make a point the league needs made.
It is no secret that it used to be common practice for a disclaimer to be put up that the announcers have the pre-approval of the League to broadcast the competition.
There's a reason for that -- see my First Postulate.
It doesn't matter if it's Troy Aikman, Joe Buck, or whoever. It no longer is necessary to play to know -- but you have to have The Official Blessing to give the pictures and accounts.
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3) "All athletes are heroes, to the point some are cast as surrogate parents in the American home."
I'm verklempt about this. I've made no public secret that Ms. Gibson and her message were the only reasons I didn't turn into the monster many felt I was going to be in my teens and twenties. So I get why Cosell would want to condemn me, on at least that front.
The problem is, what we have done today, is worse...
3) Athletes are now constructs of the social and political environments around them -- to be vilified or honored, given one's political, economic, or spiritual beliefs.
You may need go no further than the whole Colin Kaepernick/#NFLBoycott fiasco of about the last five years.
This can extend to the retching toward Simone Biles at the last Olympics and the like. Athletes are no longer heroes, except to those for whom their conduct or belief systems mesh.
If that is not the case, you get the exact opposite effect. Again, Cosell is not wrong in what he said, nor in the concept he is attempting to communicate.
But, make no secret: A growing number of people would like to be rid of "certain athletes" -- more, certain races or genders or other type demographics of athletes... To these, those athletes are, by no measure, heroes.
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4) "Winning isn't everything... it's the only thing!"
(which Cosell notes correctly Lombardi never said)
It is a very nice thought that athletes can and should give their best effort to winning every competition they play in.
However, anyone who believes every athlete does so anymore is rank fooling themselves. In fact, for one reason or another (some variety in the number and identity of relevant teams, outright match-fixing or point-shaving, a league narrative to ensure a result, etc. and so forth), this is no longer the case...
4) Since an athlete in a league sport is an employee of the league first and the team second, and since it is legal for a sports league to rig it's own events (Mayer), "the only thing" is the construct the league is wishing to create, to which even the athletes and coaches must bend.
If this were not the case, and winning would be the only thing, we'd probably have at least a half-dozen high-profile cases a year in even American sports (not even taking into account the rampant match-fixing, etc. in international soccer!) where an involved player should be ordered, under the accusation of the crime of Sports Bribery, to answer for whatever "clueless act" he committed.
One of the dirtiest little secrets very few people will tell you is that the leagues are a cooperative of all of the franchises -- they all are, in theory, supposed to work TOGETHER while maintaining the fantasy they sell (as then MLB COO Robert Dupuy told a conference in 2012) that they compete.
This, often, does extend to the product on the field -- and, can even, in flagrant cases, lead to manipulations on a grand scale like the one you saw completed on Saturday night in Cobb County.
An athlete's first duty is to his league, not to his team. The collusion in Major League Baseball and the blackballing in the National Football League (not just Kaepernick... For better or worse, where is Vontaze Burfict?) should give evidence well to that fact.
I'll even add a postulate to that, with respect to winning and the old canard of "May the best team win..." -- just going to port this over from the other post:
4A) You do not win championships on the field. You win them off the field -- and not by instruments endemic to the sport or sport in general. Except in rarest of cases, large-scale victory is determined, and often pre-determined well in advance, by those in power in sports. (Be they the league itself, it's media partners, it's sponsors, political/propaganda realities, etc.)
- The best team is, in fact, politically connected to be rigged the champions (which see at least a couple of the Tom Brady years)...
- The gap between the best team and everyone else is so large, very little can be done to stop it (see college football, many recent years, though not all -- the rigging is often, there, more a function of keeping teams out than putting teams in)...
- One or more outside forces exist to render the season "irrelevant" or put an "asterisk" next to it for no fault of the team involved (which see 2020 MLB)...
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