JAW, DROPPED: This Grantland anthology of the year's best moments in sports, thank goodness, captures the three that for me will linger for a long time. Two positive ones -- the ecstasy of the Women's World Cup quarterfinal match against Brazil and the remarkable night which ended baseball's regular season, but also the one negative: the Los Angeles Lakers' classless exit from the NBA playoffs, a disgusting failure of leadership and character which too soon has been forgotten.
Of course, it'd be better to be able to enjoy sports in a world in which you didn't have to wonder which institutions were covering up the rapes of children, and which exciting collisions were leading to lifelong brain trauma. But sports have never existed in a vacuum; this is just the latest iteration of the horrors which cannot be isolated from sports anymore so than they can be isolated from life itself.
Let me add this Posnanski piece. I do a little work in the Hazleton community, and I can tell you that in the circles I'm aware of, Joe Maddon is held in extremely high regard. He's someone I'll always pull for. (To a point, of course - amirite, 2008 WFCs?)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Adam. I think that we all get it that the Lakers acted badly, but was it seriously THE WORST INJUSTICE IN TEH HISTORY OF SPORTS!!! I don't know what's going on there for you, but in a year where we've seen Suh stomp a guy, Harrison and any a few other NFL guys continously trying to decapitate people, Penn State, Syracuse, FIFA and a host of others incidents, your continued use of it as and example of "what's wrong in sports" has generally confused me.
ReplyDeleteIt was not the Most Disgusting Act ever, but in terms of something preventable, yeah, it was really classless and bad. And it's something bad within sports itself, as opposed to the worse stuff off the playing field.
ReplyDeleteComplaining about classlessness in the NBA is like complaining that your stock broker is obsessed with money. The owners in the NBA are classless, and the players are classless, and even the referees are classless, and all of them should be sealed up in a burlap sack with a few bobcats and tossed in the river.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the NBA has not existed for several years now.