(Photo: Crime Scene in Minneapolis)
Motor City Motown Detritus, MI
It’s been a tough week for those whom God made Detroit fans by birth. First the Chicago Bears cheated their way to victory over the Lions. (Witness that kick-off return for a touchdown–a clear violation of the rules, and all those screaming fans pretending to see nothing while the commie refs looked away and whistled the Nunc Dimittis.)
Then the Minnesota Twinkies cheated their way to a division title by unlawfully scoring more runs than the noble Tigers—in a tent, of all despicable places. Imagine playing America’s game in a giant weather condom like that! Unchristian! So now, thanks to these snack-cake up-starts, the Tigers have the distinction of being the only team to take a three-game division lead into the last four games of the season and lose the title. Apparently it isn’t bad enough to be brothers under the uniform to the NFL’s only 0-16 team. The whole world has to conspire to make sure the Our Lord’s team, the Tigers, becomes the only club in the Majors to lead a division since the 10th of May but lose it on the last day of the season.
Yes. It’s been a sad week for professional sports. So much cheating; so little respect for the game. The dies irae just got hotter.
And now, what with hockey and basketball up and running, there’s no telling how many teams will cheat and get a way with it against the Red Wings and the Pistons. All of them, I should think. I can hardly believe that last weekend Michigan State was able to overcome the cheating repellent illiterate Michigan Wolverines and their silly helmets. Thank God true and faithful Michiganders can still count on luck now and then to fend off the iniquities of others.
But oh the burdens of birth! Oh how the world hates me! Do I dare eat a peach?
Where’s the respect for the team that made George Plimpton famous? How come no one teaches the children anything about the greats who played at the corner of Michigan and Trumbell? Dave Bing? Nothing more than the mayor of a dying town. Bob Lanier? A guy with big feet.
I blame the schools and the gummint and Calvinism. Are you a loyal sports fan on the wrong side of double predestination too? Consider the Mitchell and Webb approach to loyalty. Don’t forget the scotch.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Jason,
Time to put on your white flannel trousers and walk along the beach.
Sorry about that whole division pennant thing last night. Honestly, if I didn’t know better I would have thought that your Tigers tried to lose the game, so my Twins would have to suffer the the ignominy of another humiliation at the hands of the Evil Empire.
And I’m sorry about the woeful Lions. My goodness, what can I say? That’s a whole lot of pain and suffering to bear. As a lifelong Bills fan I can commiserate. http://20prospect.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/wide-right-and-other-wounds/
To quote a Lutheran friend of mine, after he watched my Bills choke a few weeks back, “Your suffering is so… Catholic”
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
Speaking of Lutherans, last night’s ump was obviously one; he probably grew up on a Norwegian farm. I’m not calling into question his sexual orientation as much as his failure to give Brandon Inge his base when he got hit in the 12th inning. I would guess that he’s from up in Lake Wobegon (or Anoka?), but that would make him a good-looking by default which is more than I’m prepared to say.
Time to cue Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time is Here” and mope around until next Spring…
Try being an orthodox Anglican in the Episcopal church, a White Sox fan, and an antitrust-loving conservative.
Rest assured, JP,
My heightened adherence to the principles of Minnesota Nice prevented me from toasting the Twins’ victory over the Tigers with a bottle of Bell’s Two Hearted. Such a toast would have been ignominious and mean. (Well, mean and impossible. I was in class.) And we in the Twin Cities offer our condolences and admit humbly that the Yankees will prove undoubtedly to be too much for us. Furthermore, God knows that my Timberwolves will disgrace themselves regularly in the Pistons’ presence and the Illini will fall flat in the face of the Mighty Spartans.
But let’s be honest, no team needs to cheat in order to beat the Detroit Lions (excepting perhaps the Redskins who, I suspect, were themselves the victims of malicious flimflam). The Lions practically beat themselves.
Yours ever-respectfully,
EJ
I think that sports offer an interesting conundrum for folks interested in tradition and localism. We are supposed to forego corporate fast food and corporate agriculture and corporate retail, even when it’s locally owned (McDonalds is franchised, after all). Or if not forego these things, then to at least prefer the local, the homespun, etc.
But then when it comes to football, we disregard the backyard in favor of the gargantuan conglomerate known as the NFL, which ships in ringers from afar, charges $8 for a beer at the stadium and $150 for a shirt, and bilks local governments of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars tp build free stadiums for itself.
I am not saying this as a purist. (I am a Steelers fan… and recognize that the affinity the team has for “local blue-collar culture” is a farce.) Yet I wonder why our standards are different for things like sports and entertainment. (I know plenty of people who would never eat a Chilean apple, but would fall all over themselves to signal to their sophisticated friends that they had “discovered” a Chilean playwrite or musical artist.)
I fear that this is a double standard. I am fortunate enough to be in a position to be choosy about my food. It’s easy to lecture people about being true to their communities when it comes to buying a cake form a local bakery versus one from WalMart. Because i can afford the more expensive local version.
But when it comes time for me to sacrifice a little quality I could watch local high school football, or even a local Division III team. But of course, they are not as good. So I blame them and go corporate. Similarly, I could walk around my neighborhood and find a local garage band. But they might not be up to my standards. So I buy a CD from a huge corporation which has craftily and crassly marketed the material to me with a multi-million dollar media campaign.
Yet I still feel free (obliged, even) to lambaste my neighbors who choose a different NFL team to root for. because, you know, they are not being true to their community.
Something complex seems to be going on here, apart from my rank hypocrisy. Or at least i hope so.
Sam,
Sports are affairs of the heart, not of the intellect. Like love, they are absurd, and irrational, and yet we keep sitting in front of the TV, or in the stands for ridiculous sums of money, to yell and scream and carry on, and in extreme cases (like football in the UK) bash each others heads in. Deplorable, I know, but so much of humanity is.
Go Twins beat those ()&^#@&*!(%^{ Yankees! (you see, there I go again)
Thomas,
I agree that sports are affairs of the heart. Which would appear to steer us more towards localism and tradition, not away from it.
It seems obviously more emotionally powerful to root for a home team composed of “local boys” against the boys from another locale/culture. This was the case in the early days of professional sports, with local teams composed of people from around the neighborhood. I lived in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield, where there is still a huge sense of shame that local boy Johnny Unitas, who played “under the bridge” for the Bloomfield Rams, was cut by the Steelers and was eventually signed by the Colts.
That’s not possible at the NFL level any more. Not even at the Division I level. But you can still get that with high school sports, community colleges and Division III teams. But the vast majority of football fans disregard that in favor of corporate sports.
Again, I am not seeking to cast aspersions. I do the same thing. But it;s worth considering why we set a different standard for “things we like.” Any number of local groups DO, in fact, take people to task for eating corporate food or shopping at corporate retail. They disregard the defense that the corporate offerings are superior, cheaper, or more convenient.
Reallign your priorities, seems to be the message. Your emotions are, for lack of a better term, wrong. Sure, maybe the all-you-can-eat option at the Olive Garden is something you really like, but that’s only because our culture of consumerism has ruined your taste buds! You are so far gone, you have forgotten what food is for, why you should value it, and the impact it has on your community!
Doesn’t my taste in sports do the same thing? Should I not take measures to correct it? Or at least disregard my tastes and suffer for the sake of the community? Perhaps, after a few years, I will have corrected my consumerist tendencies and come to a higher understanding of community.
Granted, I amnot going to do this. But it strikes me as odd that nobody is asking me to. People ask this of me all the time when they find out I bought a set of lawn jarts from WalMart, or chose Arby’s over the local diner. Or (shudder) ate a chicken that was not free on the range.
Sam,
Yes, I think you nailed it. It is strange that we make an exception for sports. I think part of it is that most of the people I know who demand I eat free range chicken, or drink local micro-brew beer, or think-shop-buy local, or drink shade grown organic free trade coffee (which I do most of these things most of the time too) are the bumper sticker crowd.
In their world sports in general is viewed as altogether unseemly. Something that is hopelessly unredeemable, unless viewed from an intellectual perspective (like baseball, which is so deep, and non-linear, and 19th century, that they can accept it) Football, and other more “coarse” sports are something for the “underclass”. That is a big part of why they don’t demand it.
I think it is a class thing. As a son of a working class schlep from McKees Rocks, I never had any hangups about sports. Growing up in Western N.Y. like I did, it was accepted that everyone followed the Bills-Sabres-etc… and if they weren’t playing, the next best thing was to root for the Browns-Steelers-Lions, or some other rust belt team, because we identified with what they allegedly stood for, against the cake eating teams from LA-NYC-and other warm weather locales. To question whether we should follow “our teams” was just not something that ever came up. To try to ignore sports entirely was to “put on airs” and act like you were “better than everyone else”, not something that was ever deemed acceptable.
I don’t think this phenomenon of class identity overriding logic, and peoples best interest is confined to sports. It’s apparent in places like politics too. I’m reminded of Joe Baegent’s book “Deer Hunting with Jesus”, which delves into this mindset.
So, I agree, we have a glaring blindspot where sports is concerned. I think it is a result of class identity, and is also prevalent in politics.
Judas, man. You couldn’t be more wrong about the helmets. Nothing connotes the distinctions of traditions more than Michigan’s helmets. Losing two in a row to those lower-class bumpkins from East Lansing may be a sign of impending apocalypse.
Peters,
Look at the bright side at least we have Cabrera to remind us of the good ole days of hard-drinking and homerun hitting with scars to prove it.
This is an interesting take on Calvinism. I always figured to be one of the elect, as God made me a Yankee fan by birth. But then I realized that I had the option of going with the Mets. Did I freely choose the Yanks? Riddle me that bar jester.
I didn’t read the comments exhaustively, but the Chefs….er Chiefs, THEY might have to cheat to beat the Lions in any given season (even pre-season!).
Thomas G: Ain’t got no white flannel trousers to roll. And, yes. There’s more heart than head involved.
sean: Like the refs, the umps also averted their eyes and whistled the Nunc Dimittis.
Mark: I’ve tried. Can’t be done.
EmJ: You’re not supposed to know about FPR, and I’m not the “JP” you’re thinking of.
Sam M: You’re right. And right. I wouldn’t pay a dime to see a pro event. And I do my damnedest not to buy from the TV sponsors, whoever they are. (I got no digital TV.) Go River Bandits!
Jeff: Your undergraduate institution failed you. Sue it.
GAS: Cobb lives!
Nathan: Yankee fans are Reprobate, not Elect. Your choice is an illusion. Non posse non peccare.
Bill Burns: Thass great. But who de “Chefs”? (Great googledy-moogledy!)
I intended on keeping my mouth shut, as the World Champion Picksburg Stillers are scheduled to play the Lions tomorrow (I am currently fasting on Primanti sandwiches). However, in great sympathy to the continuing derailment of social order allow me this comment re: this statement: “..while the commie refs looked away and whistled the Nunc Dimittis.)” And, as that was as eloquent a lament as I’ve ever read, we must be aware, my dear sir, dat dem damm commies is everywhere, even taking up residence in the White House!
After six World Champion NFL titles one gets used to it. However, the Picksburg Pirates couldn’t take a series from Kauffman’s Muckdogs! Then there’s the Picksburg Penguins and associated world titles that are to be!
Thomas G. and Peters,
You can add the hit declared foul last night that bounced a full foot inside the line and only 30 or so feet from the ump to your ledger of bad calls. But then, last nights wonderful game is further proof that Baseball is a game for enjoying human frailties…like the type of frailty where a fast base-stealer can flummox the course of a game headed toward the Twins win list.
Is that Vacuum Bag of a stadium always that empty?
Nathan: Yankee fans are Reprobate, not Elect. Your choice is an illusion. No posse non peccare.
Fair enough. However…nostrum peccare es temerarus. I mean, go big or go home, right? If you’re damned, do it right.
As for the illusion – I think you must have stepped off the Porch in an irrational moment of fandom, and forgotten that place is everything, man, particularly in the five Boroughs. (nevermind that I grew up in closer proximity to the Indians and the Pirates).