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Posted on 09/04/2014 10:08:28 AM PDT by the scotsman
"Are you ready for some football?"
'It's the shouted rhetorical question that has started Monday night National Football League (NFL) broadcasts for decades.
For the millions of Americans who make the NFL by far the most popular US professional sport, the answer has long been yes. And it will be again on Thursday night, as NFL season kicks off with a matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the defending Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks.
Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Fans need to recognise that the game isn't going to change until we force the issue by walking away” End Quote Steve Almond
Author
Every Sunday (and Monday, and some Saturdays and Thursdays) for the next five months, millions of Americans - and plenty of Brits, thanks to three regular-season games in London - will feast on a bacchanalia of gridiron pageantry.
Best-selling author Steve Almond, however, won't be watching.
The self-professed long-time American football fan writes in the Los Angeles Times that he feels guilty about watching a sport whose participants risk traumatic brain injury. More than that, however, he says he objects to "the cynical commercialisation of the sport, its cultish celebration of violence and the more subtle ways in which football warps our societal attitudes about race, gender and sexual orientation."
He says that he, like other spectators, are enabling the corruption of a game he used to love.
"Fans need to recognise that the game isn't going to change until we force the issue by walking away," he writes.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
“...cultish celebration of violence...”
It’s called diversity Richard Head!!!
I celebrate the violence in football — Loved playing, love watching it, and love teaching it to my son. We are a football family.
Someone need a wwwwwaaaaaaammmmmbbbbbbbuuuuuuullllllaaaannnnccee.
“They unveiled a ray lewis statue in Baltimore today.”
—
You have GOT to be kidding.
Is Baltimore so lacking in role models that they honor this guy?
What a disgrace.
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I just can’t dedicate the 4+ hours needed to watch a US football game. The constant commercial breaks are a nuisance. I also agree with other posters - too much PC BS now in football as well
I’ll spend game time on YouTube looking up old CART and Formula One races...
“300lb behemoths doing fruity celebratory dances and chest slapping after mundane plays”
yup, it’s disgusting. Down 3 TDs late in the 4th, losing team’s LB makes a tackle for a one yard loss and gets up dancing as if he saved the game.
It’s why I have gravitated over to hockey. Guys get beat up if they act like prima donnas.
I spent a some hours on recent rainy Saturday watching youtube clips of Nigel Mansell racing against Senna, Prost, Piquet, Berger, etc.
My god that was some incredible racing.
Has any retired pitcher or catcher ever expressed regrets about going with baseball instead of football?
It doesn’t have to be actual concussions, or is that wrong? Just the brain being jarred over and over during the course of a football career. Some folks are fine with that and don’t seem to have any problems, others seem to have real problems.
Freegards
Come back at me bro when you address other, more cultish, experiences, such as abortion worship, or the slavish devotion to all things Progressive which includes supporting, without any basis, the cult of Obama to the great detriment of this country.
I doubt it. Baseball players do tend to get longer careers with guaranteed contracts. And it’s a short list of players who really and truly had the option to be both. Certainly football has higher wear and tear, but all sports beat you up pretty bad. Look at Tiger Woods, do you really think he’s going to be walking unaided in his 60s?
betcha the author applauds gay marriage where the participants risk spreading HIV and other gay related STD’s....
There’s a reason no one moonwalks down to first after drawing a walk. No one wants to get stuck with 90+ anywhere. It’s bad enough when it happens by accident, no reason to ensure it happens.
FReegards
Oh.
My.
God.
I’m laughing so hard here I can barely breathe.
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that’s awesome FlJoePa.
Weren’t those books great as a kid? Back when there was still some mystery about your favorite player. You didn’t know every damn thing about ‘em like you do today.
And I remember Bobby too. My best friend was a Cubs fan and Bobby went to the Cubs right when I moved to Chicago.
Not that anyone cares, but last week my 7 year old son went to a girls B Day party. The theme was “Mustaches”. Wife draws a typical Italian Pizza Maker curly stache.
Get that off him. Draw him this - got on google and pulled up Thurman Munson. Showed her the thick handle bar style.
Boy loved it and even some of the older parents got a kick out of it. He wore the Munson (or Dick Tidrow) ‘stache the next day too.
When a player makes a perfectly good hit, the dammed refs will throw a flag for it!!!! WTF!
The 2nd is the cause of the first. They don't want to tackle, because there's a good chance you will get a flag thrown
I met Bobby in the dugout at Wrigley one summer. My Dad used to play in the bigs and Joey Amalfitano got me down to meet him. To this day, that was the greatest vacation I’ve ever had.
good point. But don’t give MLB any ideas. They already hired a guy as Director of Gay something or other.
And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least in the not too distant future if some players start some dancing/showboating crap after a hit and some old school pitcher nails the clown next time at bat. Pitcher is then suspended for infringing on the clowns “CULTURAL DISPLAY” and all the MSM piles on too.
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