Sports priorities change

The professional hockey season was canceled this year. Yawn! Ho-hum. Oh, well. I admit that my brethren from the north and my fellow North Americans, the Canadians, may see this as something to lament, but not I. On the issue of professional sports, strikes, millionaire athletes, and club owners who whine and cry, my "give-a-dang" is busted.

Do you realize that Major League Baseball has had eight strikes or lockouts since 1972? The National Football League has had two strikes during that time and the National Hockey League has experienced three strikes or lockouts, including the current season-ending debacle. So sad. Too bad. I just don't care.

I used to care, back when the Atlanta Braves were in the basement and you could throw a curve ball in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium without hitting another fan, such was the attendance at games in those days. I was in the packed and standing-room-only stands when the Braves won the division, oh, so long ago and remember the euphoria of the sweet smell of success. But, before long, the strikes ripped the heart and soul out of my interest for professional baseball.

I have sympathy for people in Uganda who make two dollars a day. I am all for collective bargaining for coal miners and others who put their lives on the line for the good of the society. But I have had it up past my eyeballs with spoiled rotten millionaire, steroid-using, mostly uneducated people who want to quit playing because they aren't making enough millions this year. I haven't been to a professional baseball game since 1993 and the stadium is just up the highway. In fact, I don't think I've watched an entire baseball game on television since 1993, except for the playoffs. Last year, I didn't watch one inning of the World Series. I just don't care.

I love sports. I love football and baseball and have an appreciation for soccer, basketball, and hockey. I just have lost my affection for the professional expressions of those games. The players and owners are at fault. The game is great; it's the participants who have made me stay home from the stadium and turn the television to the History Channel. I still watch college sports on TV and enjoy an occasional high school game, even though my kids have long since graduated. This year, my sports participation will be limited largely to T-Ball games, Little League baseball, girls’ softball (I have seven grandchildren, five of whom play sports), and church league softball. It may not be as good, but at least it hasn't been fully corrupted as of yet.

A major southern newspaper devoted four pages of one issue to the death of the hockey season this year. Did the moon landing get that much coverage? Are there that many hockey fans in the southern states? Does anyone really care?

Remember when the United States did not allow professional athletes to participate in the Olympic Games? Oh, other nations did, notably the bad, evil, wicked Soviet Union. We fielded the "good" teams. Only the pure, the truly amateur, the genuine lovers of the sport could compete for the United States. The "bad" team, the USSR, was full of paid players, professional athletes supported by the state, people who had been corrupted. When the U.S. hockey team, filled with college students, defeated the Soviet team, populated by pros, it was as if good had triumphed over evil! The chants of "USA! USA! USA!" filled the earth! Now, we are no different from the Russians. "The Dream Team," we called the first US Olympic basketball team filled with NBA pros. We corrupted ourselves and took pride in it. This last Olympics, I cheered for the Lithuanians as they played the U.S. Olympic basketball team.

Last year, a friend of mine, Dr. Kent Ford was injured playing sports. Kent, a physician, is a few years younger than me and was giving his all in a church league softball game. An athlete in his youth, age did not diminish his love of the game. Each play, each at-bat, was an opportunity to give everything he had. One night, he took off from second base toward third. He continued to play, although injured, for the rest of the game. We didn't know it at the time, but he seriously injured his Achilles tendon and had to have a surgery that affected him for months.

I bet there weren't 20 people in the stands that night. He and the other players, on both teams, were playing not for money, glory, fame, or prestige, but for the love of the game. I'd rather watch the Kent Fords of the world, who pay to play, than any of the high-paid prima donnas who do it for the big bucks.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch a five-year-old play in her first season of T-Ball.