too much sports – Lee Duigon

Could we please do without this?

Sorry, but I just don’t like sports anymore. I used to, but they’ve driven me away.

Headline: NFL Runs Cringeworthy Ad of Black Female Player Humiliating Men (https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/nfl-runs-cringeworthy-super-bowl-ad-black-female/).

What do they expect to get out of this?

There are no women playing in the NFL. For obvious reasons! (If you deny them, you’re a nitwit.) But of course the NFL wants to be bigger and bigger, so they’ve started a marketing push (oy!) for flag football–“Make it a varsity sport in all 50 states.”

For those who don’t know: In flag football, instead of tackling the player with the ball, you just pull off one of her plastic “flags.” It’s intended to be safe.

(What did I ever see in football? Was it just George Blanda?)

So maybe we really could have two or more Super Bowls–one for the big beefy guys and the other for girls who’d like to be guys. And any other category you can think ot!

Billy Martin's last ejection (1988) and interview (1989) - YouTube

I grew up being taught all sorts of stuff about how sports build character, teach discipline and sacrifice, and courage, teamwork, blah-blah-blah. But I believed it, and I grew up playing all the different sports. And as an adult, I played men’s softball and basketball for decades.

Here are the lessons I learned by being personally involved in sports.

*Sports bring out the worst aspects of your character. Oh, boy, do they ever! Crybabies, fat-heads, cheaters, bullies, liars, quibblers–you’ll find them all in lush abundance wherever sports are played.

*Sports have a way of becoming much more important to you than they should be.

Now I’m talking about playing the sports, not just watching them. You’d need an entire conference of psychiatrists to cover that ground.

One winds up asking, every now and then, “Why play at all? Do I really need this in my life?” Well, one does require exercise; and for some of us, solitary exercise is just unendurably boring. And let’s admit it–socking a homer, sinking a game-winning basket: these are fun. We do need fun in our lives.

On the balance, though, I wish I’d found more constructive ways to spend the time I spent in playing sports. I am sure it didn’t make me a better person. Just ask my wife what she thought of that softball team I was on for so many years.

Walking is dull, but at least it won’t blossom into a fist-fight.