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 The Sports Curmudgeon speaks
Posted: Wednesday March 24, 1999 12:15 PM
The Sports Curmudgeon has been simmering so much about all the evils and excess in sport that finally he demanded again to shout out. Be forewarned, this isn't pretty. The Sports Curmudgeon is just not athletically correct. What took the Sports Curmudgeon over the top is the decision in the fight between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. You see, that forced the Sports Curmudgeon to worry desperately about our nation, our very way of life ... if politicians in local, state and federal government didn't get upset until after the decision. The Sports Curmudgeon asks: What kind of fools are we electing, who don't know that boxing has always been crooked and rotten? The Sports Curmudgeon is also pulling his hair out about the dreadful overuse of the cliché, Cinderella, in sport. Especially this Cinderella-ization is overdone in the NCAA basketball tournament, where every underdog is promptly dubbed a Cinderella team. The Sports Curmudgeon fairly snarls, and I quote verbatim, "You sports journalists can take that glass slipper and --" The Sports Curmudgeon does want to know, though, why there are never any Cinderella players? Just Cinderella teams. The Sports Curmudgeon thinks that if whole teams are going to be figuratively dressed up in ball gowns and push-up bras, then a few rough-tough individual players should also be Cinderella-ized. But the Sports Curmudgeon suspects that sports announcers (or Sports Illustrated editors) don't have the nerve to call some 6'10", 240-pound brute, Cinderella. This might surprise you, but the Sports Curmudgeon is thrilled that that balloon got around the world. Why? Because now, he sneers, we will be done with rich guys trying to fly balloons around the world -- and forcing hard-working people to waste their time and a lot of taxpayers' money pulling these wealthy balloonists out of the ocean when they crash. The Sports Curmudgeon says, in fact, There are no Cinderella balloons. He also says that henceforth we should leave personality ballooning to Babar the Elephant. The Sports Curmudgeon is appalled -- absolutely appalled -- at the number and size of tattoos that have suddenly appeared on athletes. Now, the Sports Curmudgeon has nothing against tasteful, discrete tattoos. But athletes never know where to stop. By now this graffiti crawls all over their bodies, turning them into ugly human murals. Pretty soon, in fact, the Sports Curmudgeon fears, some athlete will sell his biceps to an advertiser. Meanwhile, speaking of Dennis Rodman ... no, the Sports Curmudgeon refuses to. But, the Sports Curmudgeon says, with a sigh of relief, everything is relative. The Academy Awards are now being touted as a female Super Bowl. Poor women, sighs the Sports Curmudgeon. Sigh, sigh. Now there are pre-Oscar shows as turgid and dreadful as pre-Super Bowl shows, and as bad as the sports announcing gets at the Super Bowl, at least, he bellows, it soars like a balloon above the depths of Whoopi Goldberg's patter. And now the Sports Curmudgeon is off to Augusta, Ga., there to wallow in the whispered pretension of the Masters, where choruses of angels sing the heavenly praises of Amen Corner. The Sports Curmudgeon hopes that this year a Cinderella golfer wins the green jacket and is slipped into a green gown instead. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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