A little off the TD beaten path, but a provocative Dave Bry sports piece at the Guardian on whether the rise of football (despite brain damage and criminal activity) as the American viewing sport of choice and the relative collapse of baseball is a sign of American decline. I leave it to you to decide. Tom Sadly, it’s more than clear at this point that Americans don’t much like baseball anymore, at least compared to how much we like football. This is a deep – and worsening – flaw in our collective character, as telling a sign of American decline as our terrible math skills, our tragic and preventable high infant mortality rate or the depreciation of our GDP vis-a-vis China. Through its first five games, this year’s World Series has been an excellent one by almost all accounts: it marks the Kansas City Royals’ first trip to the postseason in 29 years and pits them against a burgeoning dynasty in the San Francisco Giants, who have won two championships in four years. It’s been beautifully played, closely contested and very exciting. Nonetheless, 7.2 million more people watched a regular season football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers, according to Variety, than watched Madison Bumgarner pitch the Giants to victory in Sunday night’s game five... Watch a group of defenders tackle a running back at the line of scrimmage. The swarming, the pile-on – do we have a better metaphor for the “tyranny of majority”, the great danger De Tocqueville warned us of way back in 1835? Individual expression, steamrolled by a horde. An America that worships football and ignores baseball is one choosing its worse angels over its better ones. It is – we are – a dumb, floundering nation. theguardian/commentisfree/2014/oct/28/declining-interest-baseball-waning-american-power
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 16:07:45 +0000