In sports, as in life, it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game
I have heard that Seattleites are becoming enthusiastic about building a new sports arena in our city. The history of these things being what they are, and the fact that I live here, tells me I may be impacted. Therefore, even though I have no idea what sports is about, I feel the need to comment at length.
My first thought is that “arena” is ancient Latin for sandlot. Even in ancient times, arenas were very expensive. Apparently, Rome had a severe sand shortage, so it was necessary to take sand from Egypt to build Roman arenas. The Egyptians objected, so they had to be conquered, and the rest is history.
One of the problems I have with the concept of sports is the idea of winning and losing teams. I don’t understand why we can’t all be on one winning team — the human team.
I know what you are all thinking when I say that. “Gag me,” you’re thinking. “If there were no winners and losers how could sports be exciting?” However, I learned recently that a Seattle baseball game was won by means of bringing about a “no-hitter.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe a “no-hitter” is a three or four hour bore-fest, at the end of which people jump up and down for joy because it has ended in their favor, in total denial of the fact that so much boredom could never truly be said to be in anyone’s favor.
Or, take basketball, which I call tall-person ball. The entire excitement that tall-person ball generates for me is the anticipation I experience, generation after generation, as I observe Darwinian evolution at work, inevitably cranking out taller tall persons, just like elk antlers keep getting bigger and bigger every eon. Go, Darwin!
If there were no winners and losers there would be no evolutionary pressures to evolve sumo giants, little jockey persons or basketball players. But, imagine the fun you could have at a Seahawks game if it were open to the entire crowd, and all the spectators were allowed on the field. To prevent people from fighting over the ball, there’d have to be hundreds of footballs on the field. But you’d still have all the same excitement as a regular game. In fact, there could be many, many more head-on collisions.
I’m just trying to help by bringing an outsider’s fresh outlook onto the whole business of sports, and the evolution of Seattle sports, and the improvement of the Seattle sports scene.
So, you all want an arena in Seattle in which to watch live professional tall person ball and ice puckey games? Well, let’s brainstorm how we should arrange this.
As I see it, there have to be winners and losers. Because that’s just the way it is.
There have to be players and spectators. If the players and the spectators are the same people that isn’t sports, that’s just healthy exercise, and no one wants that.
We already have too much traffic congestion in Sodo, site of two major stadiums in Seattle, so we’ve got people hurting there already. We need to keep that pressure up for the win and build our arena as close to those stadiums as we can get it.
We shouldn’t wimp out at just a football stadium, baseball stadium, tall-ball court and ice puckey hall in the same six blocks. We should also cram in a horse and auto racetrack, a polo field and an Olympic-size swimming pool. Oh, and a rodeo. And a dedicated world-class competitive marching band and drum and bugle corps stadium.
Then, when we’re done with that, we’ll have to scrape up another couple billion dollars to extend the tunnel under it all, to get our traffic moving again. Everybody rich and poor will win, after all, each in his or her own way.