The Electrons beat the White Sox on Saturday, by a score of 3-2. It was a beautiful game. Novotny played well, despite being hung-over and recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. Brad was a commanding player at bothe first and third. Dave looked comfortable in the outfield. Rich took one on the elbow and is day-to-day. Cesar pitched a complete game.

I enjoy seeing the Electrons improve with every game without turning into competitive assholes. Baseball might be the best expression of human ingenuity, and the Electrons might be the best expression of Baseball.

-steve

You are a real dick, Andrew.

Intern_8033 wrote:Okay -- now I am going to quote Noam Chomsky from a speech he gave in 1989.

Noam Chomsky wrote:... non-participation sports generally, play a huge role. I mean, ther's no doubt they take up just a tremendous amount of attention.

I don't mean to rain on the parade, but I think it's interesting the way that sports are universally accepted as teaching good, wholesome values and building character. We see President Bush starting a T-Ball league at the White House and give him a pat on the shoulder -- no one thinks that he is helping to build totally irrational ultra-competitive personalities.

Generally not being a dick,
Andrew

Your man Chomsky (Isn't he a reserve catcher for the Devil Rays?) is right about non-participation sports, which is specifically not what I was referring to. You are right about T-ball, because it isn't anything like real baseball, where the kid would have to worry about getting beaned if he mouths off. It teaches sass without responsibility.

I detest sports, with the sole exception of baseball, because I cannot participate in them. I cannot participate in them because I am even worse at them than I am at baseball, and I am a bad baseball player. In the words of an Irish fellow I met, "I only like things I can be instantly brilliant at." Substitute "barely competent" for "brilliant" and you get the idea.

I like Billiards, but it isn't a sport. Morbidly obese people like Steve Mizerak and Raymond Cuelemans can be great at it, so it can't be a sport. There's always the Boog Powell argument about baseball for the same reason. Perhaps there is a connection, or perhaps I just like bringing up Boog Powell.

Baseball as politik is awful: Full of scoundrels, liars, capitalists and assholes. But there are a few great men in it. There is Bill Lee. There are the Electrons. And the game itself is maybe the best game ever.

-steve

i remember chomsky mentioning that he got some heat for those comments once. he brought up the fact that he isn't "anti-sport" on the whole and even enjoys taking his grandchildren to baseball games when he gets the chance.

he's got some great points though. i'm sure we all went to high school with people who seemed to be the least interested or motivated creatures on earth but were able to analyze sports much better than we could analyze anything, ever.

it's nice to see that intern_8033 is a fellow andrew. i respect that in a man.

Intern_8033 wrote:

Noam Chomsky wrote:...

Chomsky is a pretty astute fellow, and he’s written some compelling arguments. This, I think, is not really one of them. He’s obviously not a sports fan, and admits he knows nothing about them, so why anyone would take his views on sports to heart is beyond me. You might as well ask John Ashcroft what he thinks about rock music.

Obviously, competitive sport can be viewed as a chauvinistic, testosterone-imbued pig roast and all the things Chomsky alludes to. Certainly watching the advertisements usually accompanying a sports broadcast would lead you to believe so. This year’s All Star Game coverage began with images of flags, eagles, and F-14s taking off from aircraft carriers, as if there is some connection between America’s pastime and jingoistic support of the war in Iraq (thank you Fox).

However, a fan of sport can see things differently. There are many values and lessons that can be experienced easily through participation in sport. Teamwork is the most obvious of these (cue “The Untouchables”). Learning to fail is another one. The last time I played competitive baseball was in little league. I was on a traveling All Star team (no, really) and we were in a tight game mid-way through the tournament. To make a long story short, I logged the final out of the game, striking out to an excellent pitcher (I think it was Danny Almonte’s caucasian counterpart) with the tying run in scoring position. I had always prided myself on my ability to make contact at the plate, and when this happened, I was devastated. After that, my family moved to a larger community where the competition was even more intense, I dropped out of sports all together (and gravitated toward music) and didn’t even pay attention to them until years later, after I had gotten over the jocks vs. geeks mentality, which is basically what Chomsky is describing above. In hindsight, I wish I had continued to play sports; I let the taste of failure defeat me, and I have tried to learn from that experience in my present life.

Of course, spectator sports are another matter, and the lessons that sports can teach are wholly lost when it comes to professional sports, where winning and money are everything. There is, however, a great deal of artistry that can be perceived in virtually any sport when one knows a bit about the game. Bottom line is, there are all kinds of people in the world. There are Neanderthals who are going to see the world the way they do regardless of whether sports exist or not. Everyone needs to be entertained. It’s stupid to criticize sport itself simply because one dislikes patterns of behavior exhibited by certain sports fans. Maybe some people don’t like metal because they think it contributes to anti-social behavior or even violence.

Noam Chomsky wrote:you're taught from childhood that you've got to worry about the Philadelphia Phillies, where I was. In fact, there's apparently a psychological phenomenon of lack of self-confidence or something which affected boys of approximately my age who grew up in Philadelphia, because every sports teamwas always in last place, and it's kind of a blow to your ego when that happens, people are always lording it over you. But the point is, this sense of irrational loyalty to some sort of meaningless community is training for subordination to power, and for chauvinism.

I am a Mets fan. I am a Mets fan because I live in the "meaningless community" of Queens. I do not feel a lack of self-confidence or any such tripe because they are, well, the Mets. I try to take something positive out of the experience of watching a Mets game. Like, let’s see what the team’s up and coming talent is like. Or, let’s see how not to run a 100 million dollar organization. Or, well the comedians can insert their own jokes here. More significantly, they provide me an outlet for my self-deprecating sense of humor. If they’re not going to win (and they do a lot of not winning), I might as well laugh and cheer at every bumbling, embarrassing play they make (and they make a lot of them). I think it’s better to be able to berate your team, than say, to beat your girlfriend. Some people appreciate sports and some do not. More often than not, the ones that don't are those that aren't any good at them, as Steve has alluded to. Arguing that sports are bad because they lead people to complacent acceptance of the more important issues surrounding them is both elitist and inane. People do not need sports to ignore the larger world around them; there are plenty of other distractions available to do the same.

-greasygoose

>>Chomsky is a pretty astute fellow, and he’s written some compelling arguments. This, I think, is not really one of them. He’s obviously not a sports fan, and admits he knows nothing about them, so why anyone would take his views on sports to heart is beyond me. You might as well ask John Ashcroft what he thinks about rock music.

it was actually painful to read

noam chomsky has got to be one of the dumbest smart guys of all time

his views are often solipsistic and lazy--he has a talent for fitting any old subject into whatever frame of reference he happens to have. consistently, he fails to recognize the pinched nature of his perspective. so many would-be academics (fans of pinched perspectives if there ever were any) lap up his output that he can only conclude he's got it all right.

and he's just wrong about sports in general, anyway

anyone who has ever competed and learned something about himerself in the process understands what is compelling about sports

anyone who does not 'get it' needs to accept that they don't know what they are talking about, literally--they don't need to be at all BOTHERED by that fact, but they should be humble enough to recognize it nonetheless.

my favorite comment along these lines is used often to describe baseball: 'it's a kids' game.' baseball is the finest of all team sports precisely because it retains its essence at all levels of play, but it is not fundamentally a fucking kids' game. is chess a kids' game b/c kids can play it? kids can read--is reading child's play?

last night, in the cards/dodgers game, mike matheny made the third out of the eighth inning at second base, after driving in two runs. if anyone who believes that baseball is a 'kids' game' can show me an eight-year-old who understands why:

it was o.k. for matheny to do what he did

but not o.k. to do the same thing with a single baserunner running from 2nd base

and not o.k. under any circumstances to make that out at third base

then maybe that person will have a point.

steve wrote: I am a bad baseball player.

now, now, steve...you caught a mean fast ball between innings once, don't forget about that!!

regards, jet.

i've been pretty compelled by the controversy surrounding the cubs management and their ticket scalping scam that was recently uncovered.

i listen to sports radio throughout my workday and i hear people call in who get so angry about the way cubs management has fucked over the fans --- but at the same time, whenever topics roll over to somewhat political issues that seem like pretty close example of the cubs mess, people seem not to care or be extremely uninformed. (this was pretty evident in the beginning of the year with the developing war in iraq)

in any case, i love baseball. i love football. i love basketball. and i think chomsky seems to be stereotyping sports fans.

some people are real assholes but there are also some that just love the way it feels when you slide into second base, non sexually speaking.

andyk (whom some refer to as andrew)

andrew wrote:i'm sure we all went to high school with people who seemed to be the least interested or motivated creatures on earth but were able to analyze sports much better than we could analyze anything, ever.

it's nice to see that intern_8033 is a fellow andrew. i respect that in a man.

Intern_8033 wrote:My problem with sports is that they're innately competitive, meaning, in order for you to be good, someone else must be bad. You could argue that this isn't true in theory, but it certainly is in practice. Compare this to music, for example, which is regularly practiced as a self-contained process of challenging _yourself_, competing against _yourself_.

baseball can be "regularly practiced as a self-contained process of challening [ones self]"

i do this when i spend an hour at the batting cages, working on hitting the ball the opposite way. its done taking ground balls or simulating a game in your head while you practice pitching against a backstop, etc. etc.

in the same sense, while we can assume that a majority of the people who post on this board are members of the "indie-rock" community and tend to follow the DIY aethstetic / ideals that come with that tag (and therefore dont think of their music as competition)... in my dealings with musicians over the past five or so years, i can definately say that many musicians are extremely competitive, their goal being to "make it big"

"in order for you to be good, someone else must be bad"

i think that applies to everything in life, not just baseball and music.

andyk

>>Did you steal that from an interview with Dean Kamen about the Segway?

boy, you got me there (?!)

many reductionist absurdities at hand, but i'm baffled by much of the rest of what you are trying to say, which probably reflects badly on one of us--not sure which

>>My problem with sports is that they're innately competitive, meaning, in order for you to be good, someone else must be bad. You could argue that this isn't true in theory, but it certainly is in practice.

the good/bad dichotomy is not true in practice, in anything near every instance, for anyone who pays attention to sports beyond the _sportscenter_ level of paying attention to sports

as to competition, well...that's life outside of sweden or holland for you. part of my point is noncompetitors are the ones who are obsessed with winning and losing as outputs of competition. of COURSE you WANT to win if you bother to compete in the first place. but to focus solely on winning and losing is to ignore many of the most interesting parts of competing--vital parts of sports, owning a small business, going to school, whatever. athletes often say they 'only care about winning,' but they're lying--it's a canard that is well thought of among sports journalists and is therefore perpetuated at every turn. uniformly, after their careers are over, athletes sing a different tune. clearly they draw sustenance from the experience of competition, even apart from crushing their foes. it's some fraction of that sustenance that draws people to watch and study and obsess over sports, perhaps unhealthily at times.