i'm shocked!!!
Posted on 07/02/2010 6:07:13 AM PDT by hripka
"Pro football provides the circus for the hordes." — Congressman Emanuel Celler (D-NY 1923 – 1973)
There are two histories of professional sports. There is the one fans know and cherish, filled with great players, genius coaches, incredible plays, and dynasty teams. It is the history chronicled in each league's Hall of Fame, the history fans are urged to remember about the games: the moments of struggle, joy, and triumph along with the vast cast of characters that individualized each one of them. Perhaps more than anything, it is this history that has allowed professional sports to mesmerize such a large swath of the population.
There is another history of the sporting world, however, that exists in the shadow created by the glaring spotlight of the sports media. In it the same people exist and the same games take place, yet results are not as pure as most believe them to be. In it Hall of Fame players are criminals, addicts, and gamblers; owners care more about profit than winning; and championships aren't won on the basis of hard work or rising to the occasion, but perhaps because games are outright fixed.
This Hall of Fame history has led sports fans to believe that no game has been fixed since the famed 1919 World Series in which gamblers bribed members of the Chicago White Sox to lose intentionally. Yet, the reality is that gamblers and their Mafia associates have always had a hand in manipulating the outcomes of games. No league has been unaffected by this outside influence, and it continues to seep into each sport today. These stories have been willingly erased not just by the leagues, but also by a sports media apparatus all too willing to bow to its masters' wishes. There is a valid reason
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
i'm shocked!!!
And they mooch off the taxpayers.
And some people think I’m weird because I’m not ‘into’ sports... at all.
It’s hard to believe the Wall Street Journal published this nonsense.
Ping for later read. Looks like a interesting point of view on sports.
Every football fan should read The North Dallas Forty (read, not watch the silly movie). It will change the way you watch the NFL, and it was written 40 years ago, before the rise of steroids, agents, and lot of other innovations. I doubt things are better now.
I agree, I read the excerpt in case there was something substantial to back up the headline, but only discovered the astonishing fact that sports are a billion dollar industry involving TV ad revenue and sporting apparel profits. Who knew?
Same here. That and the fact that i have never owned a Beatles album...
Not me.
I think you're weird because you have the results of The Superhero Personality Quiz posted on your profile page ...
That settled it for me.
In an economic sense, you could say that high player salaries are at least a partial defense against corruption; the Black Sox took the payoffs mostly as a protest against their meager pay from Charles Comiskey.
Despite his sordid dealings, the NBA still has not effectively refuted the allegations made by Tim Donaghy. As Donaghy stated, the NBA made it clear which teams it wanted to advance in the playoffs. Certain teams, regions and matchups were engineered. It wasn’t a question of one game/one call. Rather; an accumulation of calls over a 5 or 7 game series fatally hindered one team or the other’s chances.
This NBA postseason was laughable in its naked ambition. The two most storied franchises advanced to the finals and the finals went 7 games. Maybe Smirkin’ Dave Stern is getting old and sloppy but even true believers have to wonder about 2010.
Anyone who follows NASCAR, especially since the inception of the so-called ‘Race for the Chase’ playoff system, MUST be aware of the contemptible and cynical manipulation of the outcome imposed by NASCAR on both the outcome of individual races and the overall championship.
It is beyond blatant, transparently crooked, lacking in ANY subtlety or finesse — ‘debris in turn 2’ but the TV guys never seem to ‘see’ it. Pit row ‘speeding’ violations that seem to invariably affect the outcome for certain drivers while other drivers are seemingly ‘immune’ from such calamities. And isn’t it curious how often they just throw out a yellow and close up the pack when any one driver asserts an obvious dominance by gaining too much of a lead in the late stages — GOTTA have more ‘competition’, y’all !
Green, white, checkers ? Rerun it up to THREE times ? Cosmic joke ...
A guy wins 3 races out of the first 12 but is points-whipped outside the top 12 because others manage to top-10 often enough to accumulate points to ‘stay in the chase’, even if they can’t find the checkers with a guide dog ...
Of the top 12 drivers this season, only 5 have actually won at least 1 race. And the season points leader has only won once, while TWO of the guys still chasing him have won 5 apiece. What’s up with THAT ? Parity ? How ‘bout ‘farce’ ?
The 36-race season championship has gone to drivers who only WON once all season ? ( Check out Matt Kenseth in 2003. )
I still watch but my cynicism concerning the outcome simply runneth over ...
One man’s opinion
21stCenturion
>>And some people think I’m weird because I’m not ‘into’ sports... at all.
>
>Not me.
>
>I think you’re weird because you have the results of The Superhero Personality Quiz posted on your profile page ...
It was either that or a rant against C/C++. ;)
But seriously, I thought it was interesting that I got Green Lantern and was kinda tired of having an entirely blank page.
i never would of believed a Superbowl could be fixed, but one of the Cowboys/Steelers games my bookie came into the bar at halftime and gave me and a couple other guys Pittsburgh Steelers World Champion Superbowl hats now i know that they have to make hats for both teams before the game is played on the premise either team could win and the hats had to be there and ready in either event, the thing was, it was Halftime when he handed them out
it just also happened to be the year that the Bookies cleaned up on the spread!!!
he was my Bookie and my girlfriends father
NASCAR have fooled themselves into thinking that the icing was more important than the cake.
A neutral observer might wonder about any attempt to the racing out of racing but large piles of cash often make otherwise sane men lose their minds.
I personally never understood the mania for ‘cleaning up’ the sport’s image in light of the fact that the image was the attraction in the first place! It’s like telling Aerosmith to get crew cuts and wear bow ties.
As always, marketing people left to their own devices are a very short-sighted and misdirected lot.
to the racing out of racing => to take the racing out of racing
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