Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack...

Date:   9/28/2007 8:40:44 AM ( 18 y ago)

By AHarleyGyrl

Sports encompasses many meanings for people, but all Sports do share a common denominator. You have heard the saying, man cannot live by bread alone and things like that..well, for the same reasons that City Planning Commissions enact Beautification Ordinances to make us feel good when we view their aesthetics, humans use Sports. Humans were set up with emotions and one of them is happiness, which we express through laughter and smiling, cheering and such. So, we must have an outlet to express all our emotions. Humans are social and form collective groups especially focused around where they live.

Competition goes back to primal days, some say it is tied to our survival as a species, competing for food and such. Somewhere along the way, Sports evolved. It crossed class, race, gender, national orientation, ethnicity, and religious preference like no other social institution has ever accomplished. No other place can peace and laughter and joy be found within the constructs (if you will) of such diversity, and there is a feeling of unitedness just by the awareness of this when people gather. Patrons come from all walks of life, with all kinds of individual realities, ideas, sorrows, woes...but when they attend a Sporting Event, they are one. There is no personal agenda, just peanuts, hotdogs, and crackerjacks. Sports is a universal unspoken language. Even the losers are still part of a team, still part of a human sect who found their joy through the connection of competition.

The love of Sports is a form of social bonding that has less to do with the Sport itself than with the comradery it forms amongst humans. I have been in Indiana during Hoosier season and at 5 PM heard the phone ring off the hook and saw tvs on all over the house. They network it. And, I'll tell you what, you get a warm fuzzy feeling and feel like you are a part of something electric and good. There ain't nothin' like it, Christmas tree lit, smell of firewood cracklin', sugary cream pies seeping under every door in the house, and the sounds of squeaking tennis shoes and whistles in the background of nearly every home in the state.

What drives people toward Sports? The human condition is subject to crisis. Crisis is unpredictable. But, every year, we will have Sports. We know that as sure as we're sittin' here, as sure as the sun is gonna rise in the morn and set in the eve. Santa will come down the chimney, The Pope will always be Catholic, and the New York Knickerbockers will adorn the court of Madison Square Garden come Fall. Humans like certainty. Humans live on hope. Humans are social. Humans need to express feelings of joy and happiness. Where do all these things come together...take a trip to Indiana this Winter, and you will certainly find out. And, if you think that is somethin' special, try attending any playoff game in Anytown, USA, even better if you feel some connection to the town, but not mandatory. It is guaranteed to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. If the a cappella National Anthem doesn't get you, We are The Champions or We Will Rock You, surely will.

A good book on the history of Sports is More Than Just a Game by Kathryn Jay.

"Win one for the Gipper"

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