Mayan Basketabll
the winning captain and losing team was sometimes sacrificed
On some occasions post-game ceremonies featured the sacrifice of the captain and other players on the losing (some references say "winning")[citation needed] side. The association of the game with sacrifice and death was particularly marked on the Gulf coast. A loser's skull might be used as the core around which a new rubber ball would be made. (Conversely, guides at Chichen Itza assert that the prize for the winning team was to be deified by losing their heads, supposedly at the hands of the losing team.) Human sacrifice became a more common outcome of the ball game, particularly at the royal courts of powerful cities. Late Classic Maya nobles were warriors and ball players. A step on a hieroglyphic staircase at Yaxchilan, for example, shows King Bird Jaguar defeating a war captive in the ball game, and there is a written reference to a war captive on an altar in Tikal. War captives played ball against the war victors, with the outcome being predetermined. Following the game which was a ritual reenactment of the defeat of a city-state, the captives were commonly decapitated or their hearts were torn out for blood sacrifice. The walls of the principal ball court at Chichen Itza depict opposing teams, with the leader of the winning team holding the decapitated head of the opposing leader, who kneels with blood in the form of snakes spewing from his neck.
And I am supposed to respect a vanished culture that kills it's most the most productive leaders because they achieve greatness? And for that matter, it take a great deal of fitness to prepare and train for any sporting event; why would you elimnate one half of the physically fit men from your breeding pool? If I wanted to reward failure, I'd vote Democrat.