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 Baffled by the sports world
Posted: Wednesday August 11, 1999 12:29 PM
I've just returned again from the psychiatrist, where we're dealing with my feelings that I'm a fraud. Here I am, posing as a sports expert, and the truth is, I don't know jack about jockdom. And if I'm a professional, and I'm ignorant about sports, what about the average fan? How can anybody keep it all straight anymore? My trauma is heightened, too, by the fact that when I was a little boy, a lot of little boys, like me, knew everything about sports. Back then, it was easy. You knew all the players and all the boxing champions and all the laws, like the infield-fly rule and how waivers worked. I knew much more about the sports universe when I was 10 than I do now. Players? I don't even know all the teams now. When it was brought to my attention that Wade Boggs of the Devil Rays was going for 3,000 hits, I had to pause to ask myself the What? Devil Rays? And then, after I did recall that they're in Tampa Bay, I still wasn't sure what league they're in. Do you see, doctor? Do you see what a poseur I am? For example, doctor, I don't know a single specific of any salary-cap rule. I understand the health-insurance debate better than anything about salary caps. I read the other day that an NBA player had turned down "a $2 million middle-class exception." Did all the other sports journalists already know there is a "$2 million middle-class exception?" Am I the only impostor, doctor? Here are some other things I don't know: I don't know what a cruiserweight is. I don't know who coaches the Kansas City Chiefs or who manages the Kansas City Royals. I have no idea how college football teams qualify for the Bowl Championship Series. No matter how many times I see it on instant replay, I don't understand the rules in football about when and how you can hold up and beat up wide receivers without getting a penalty. Whenever I hear the word "exemption" in any sport, I haven't got a clue. Who are the Phoenix Coyotes? What are the Pan American Games? Moreover, doctor, besides all of this where I am simply ignorant, there is also so much stuff going on that I just don't get. There are whole major league teams out there that simply don't exist for me. The Baltimore Ravens, for example. The Milwaukee Brewers. The Los Angeles Clippers. I mean, I know they're there, as sure as I know various South American countries, like Bolivia and Peru, are there, but they remain flatline in my consciousness. And yet I'm convinced that all the other people in my profession know the strengths and weaknesses of the Baltimore Ravens, they know who coaches them and what sets they run. Did I tell you, doctor, I also really don't know what football "sets" are? My only rationalization is that, for years now, sports has simply increased exponentially. Who can possibly know it all, the way li'l 10-year-old Frankie and his friends did? There are some specialists now, for example, who don't know anything about football, except they know everything about next year's football draft. Imagine. Maybe you have to be a nerd to really know sports now. Myself, I practice intellectual triage -- that is, some sports I just skip altogether. Then, I only do heavyweights in boxing, men in golf, and women in figure skating. Most other sports I refuse to acknowledge until the playoffs, when the teams are down to a manageable number. I pay no attention to preseason analyses or any competition called a "classic" -- because that means it isn't. But I can't stop thinking that I'm a sham, doctor. I know I'm going to be exposed for the 1999 sports ignoramus that I am. Please, tell me again whatever happened to the Houston Oilers. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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