Morning Ed: Sports {2017.11.01.W}
[Sp1] The World Series is an odd time to start experimenting with new baseballs.
[Sp2] Should baseball be doing more to protect fans?
[Sp3] I may have linked to this one before, but a look at the dark fate of Donnie Moore, and how it wasn’t just The Pitch that sent him over.
[Sp4] Stephen Beale wants to get the politics out of football.
[Sp5] Brett McMurphy writes about the decision-making process in college football when it comes to whether or not to fire a coach. Georgia took some grief for firing Richt, but that really turned out to be the best thing for Georgia, Richt, and Miami.
[Sp6] How a frustrated would-be writer took down Ole Miss’s breakout football program.
[Sp7] Robert Greene II reviews a book on stadiums and American sports culture.
[Sp8] I’m slowly becoming convinced that soccer has indeed made it.
[Sp9] Here’s another story on slowing participation in youth football. If football is going to be displaced, I hope lacrosse shoves its way ahead in line so its not replaced by football.
[Sp2] maybe the author and his wife should just start wearing their own catchers masks to games.
[Sp3] definitely an interesting read but I wish they went a little more into detail about Moore’s personal demons. I get the sense that the author was trying to make a point about the lows that follow the dizzying highs of a career as a pro athlete but didn’t quite make the connection. Instead it came off as ‘well he was a drunk and a wife beater, of course he committed suicide.’
[Sp4] its a nice thought and the point is dead on, but without constant propaganda how else will our government convince people to be killed in Niger for no reason?
[Sp9] it sucks but it seems like, absent a miracle, football will eventually go the way of professional boxing.Report
In retrospect my comment on [sp2] was way too harsh. I’m sure the experience for his wife was horrible and traumatic and it sucks she had to go through that. Still it comes from the ‘something bad happened to me therefore the world should change’ genre that drives me nuts. It’s right up there with ‘won’t someone please think of the children’ pieces. He even admits he doesn’t really know the scope of the problem but Something Must Be Done!Report
Case in Point. Consumer Reports has a major article on panoramic sun roofs shattering. From the stats reported, 800+ examples of the windows breaking, 34 reports of injury-all minor cuts. Conclusion: WE MUST HAVE STRONGER REGULATION FROM THESE DEATH WINDOWS.
That’s, of course, always their recommendation.Report
It’s what you get when you start with a flawed premise i.e. perfect safety is possible without seriously compromising the thing in question. Maybe there is something cost effective that could make a big dent in foul ball/broken bat injuries to spectators (or panoramic sun roof injuries) that doesnt or only marginally alters the experience but that’s not the argument being made.Report
“but that’s not the argument being made.”
Of course not. Nor does it get you contributions and fund raising dollars.Report
It’s a bit harsh, but I skipped past the extended discussion of his wife’s injuries. He mentions baseball’s assumption of risk doctrine, which is really a general judicial doctrine. My recollection is ballparks still have a duty to to erect reasonable screening; no doubt the specifics vary state to state. But it is not as if there is no law here.Report
What it sounds like he’s asking for is netting covering the entire lower deck of the stadium.Report
That’s probably coming. A number of stadiums are extending the netting to the dugouts by next year.Report
[Sp4] Football is from Mars; what sport is from Venus?
The back half of this article is just bad history. Football didn’t start with the NFL or the Cold War. It started at Harvard University’s Soldiers Field, dedicated to six students who died in the Civil War. The dedication speech was certainly peppered with notions of martial virtue, love of country and manly fraternity. The sport was violent and presumably killed more students on Solders Field than it was dedicated to. Football is what it has always been, so I think the writer is living in a fantasy world if he thinks the sport was corrupted by the Cold War and the military industrial complex.Report
If solidarity is the enemy, then college football is the training ground for the ground troops.
Since when is football really about the game?Report
Tennis, obviously. (Though it’s also from Serena)Report
Here is a story about how dangerous football was around the turn of the 20th century and how Teddy Roosevelt saved it: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/teddy-roosevelt-saved-football-111146 Note that in 1905 19 players were killed during games, which would be the equivalent in terms of participation of 95 today (base on the college level). A quote describing football at the time “But calling turn-of-the-century-era football, which resembled a cross between a street fight and the trench warfare of World War I, a “rough sport” is quite an understatement.”
Of course there was no money involved directly way back when the NFL was actually not very rich, it did not get rich until TV came in with big bucks and bid for the rights. This was about the time the American Football League was formed (before they merged).
It is not clear in terms of the College game when money became a dominate feature likley at least after the time Gerald Ford played for Michigan.Report
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/donald-trump-chuck-schumer-nyc-attack/index.html
It’s important that we remember that in the wake of a gun-related tragedy, it is always too soon to discuss gun policy.
It’s also important that we remember that in the wake of an immigrant-initiated crime, it is never too soon to discuss immigration policy.Report
Kazzy,
Ah, americans. How provincial.
Gotta love the liberals — you can’t teach girls how to avoid rape, because that’s victim shaming, and you can’t teach immigrant boys how to not rape, because that’s destroying their culture.
(nevermind that ‘street kid culture’ is a post-WWII phenomenon).
[Please note word choice above. It is important.]Report
@kim You’re real close to both being egregiously off-topic and blaming an entire, extremely ill-defined, political set for something in an illogical way, which combined are not contributing to civil discourse in the comments.
I’m not doing anything about this at the moment, because I can see why you think the comment is logical, I’m just warning you. You’re skirting an edge here. Don’t cross it.Report
Maribou,
I think you’re missing the sarcasm.
Ultimately, liberals aren’t powerful enough (even in Europe) to pull shit like this.
The Powers That Be, on the other hand, run experiments like this allll the time.
(See my comment on College Football).Report
@kim You’re right, I was. Thanks for clarifying.Report
@will-truman
are you coming to your senses and dropping that “soccer” inanity, and calling things like playing with a ball with your feet only football?Report
[Sp9] Wait, I’m confused by the sentence – you hope that football is not replaced by football? Is this football (American / hand oblong) being replaced by football (European / soccer)?
Or that lacrosse is not replaced as (thing N notches below the top) by football remaining at least one notch above lacrosse as it sinks through the notches?Report