Monday, June 15, 2009

Chase Me Out to the Ballgame

Bizarro is made possible by a grant from the Tossing Dirt on the Reaper Foundation.

Since I'm a groovy hip artsy type, people are often surprised to hear I'm a sports fan. Sorry if you are disappointed, not all sports fans are numskull beerbelly boobs like Joe the Plumber. In fact, the dude who lives across the street from me here at Bizarro International Headquarters is a college professor of some high-minded socialogical something-or-other, and he's an even bigger sports fan than am I.

I have always been athletic, I have good genes for that in all ways but size. So I played a lot of sports as a kid and learned to love it, but as I got into middle and high school, I was not behemoth enough to leave the bench in my various coaches' opinions, so I stopped trying out for the school teams. Additionally, I began to come into my own as a groovy hip artsy type and many of the other athletes began to come into their own as frankensteinian meatheads who cared about little more than sports. So we parted ways.

Though I love to watch sports, hockey is my favorite with American football a firm second, I loathe to watch a single athlete or coach being interviewed. I love the entertainment value of watching physically skilled humans exhibit amazing feats of athletic prowess, but when it comes to what's between their ears, I am always bored stiff. I have no doubt that some professional athletes are bright and creative, I just don't have the patience to wade through all of the "Joe Sixpack" simpletons to find them.

It is remarkeable how far we've come as a society, however. Just a couple of hundred years ago mobs of torch-bearing villagers hunted down mutants and murdered them out of fear. Now we dress them up in flashy jerseys and award them with multi-million dollar paychecks for slamming into others of their kind. It makes a human proud.

DISCLAIMER: Not all athletes or sports fans are idiots, maybe not even most. I said that above, so let it go. But let's face it, a lot of them are.
My pride in how far our society has come is largely facetious, as we still hunt down women's healthcare providers, homosexuals, atheists, etc. We have replaced torch-bearing mobs with Fox News, but you can't really call that progress.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

You forgot the quotes in Fox "News."

Waldo said...

ha ha ha... but would Frank pass the drug tests? "... a bit high on the electrolysis..." ...via the electrical shock during his revival... ah never mind.

... but the type of sport that you play is just as important as where you live. For example: I swam in HS (midwest) and collage (CA) but in HS all of us male swimmers were given the nickname of (not joking or using the slang to insult anyone) "swimmer fags". Specifically because of our Speedos (before the full body suits) where as the wrestler (who wore tights and roll around with other sweaty men) were REAL MEN.

But take me to CA and we are as popular as the football and basketball team.

Go figure...

Unknown said...

Again, Dan, I wish you wouldn't try to demonize everyone on the "other side" of the political spectrum as being a violent bigot. Actions by a small number of extremists don't mean everyone in that group has the same beliefs.

And again, yes FOX is stoking flames, but the same can be said of left-leaning stations like MSNBC. There's bias and insanity on both sides; the problem is that people are prone to brush over the extremism on their side while they point out that across the spectrum.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just how I see it.

Penny Mitchell said...

nah nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh HEY nuh nuh nuh nuh!

Lord Stanley is in Pittsburgh!

Please mark this on your calendar, because I will NEVER EVER say it again, but...I would have been okay if the Red Wings had won. Since the entire state of Michigan is on the verge of suicide, I would have been happy to see them win.

I am, however, a Colorado native. We are required by law to loathe the Red Wings. Sorry. I'm just doing my civic duty.

Tegin said...

this is one of the best Bizarro's I've ever read

Waldo said...

Josh: "...left-leaning stations like MSNBC." They weren't always "left-leaning" (whatever that means) but they are a bunch of followers who are trying to follow the trend of the nation. O's the pres so they are trying to accommodate the O fans. Previously they were pro Commie (er Bush) and Cheney's comrades. (sorry to burst your bubble, but I am not drinking the Obama Kool-aid either)

I just wish there was a news station that just did the (wait and have a seat - yes) just news without any political agenda. Faux proved that being slanted toward a specific political party was profitable and thus... everyone else (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc) are trying to tap into the left-wing or right-wing political sided viewers.

I guess I am in the minority when I do want the political slant in my news.

Nowax said...

It never ceases to amaze me the people who actually defend Fox "News". Yes, MSNBC is left-wing biased, but they don't even come close to the crazy, horrible, nastiness of Fox. If you can't tell the difference between the two, it probably explains why you actually listen to Fox in the first place. You're an idiot.

Sorry to be so blunt, but we have been listening to these hate-mongers -- and yes that's what their chief goal is, to peddle hate -- for so long. Especially Bill O'Reilly, who I hold partly responsible for Dr. Till's murder. And the other senseless murders of late, of left-wing people by crazed right-wing fanatics, has me livid. I am a Unitarian-Universalist. One of our churches was the target of one of these crazy nuts. A nut that was frustrated that he couldn't take out one of the people listed as "bad liberals" in a book by one of Fox News regular nut-case guests, so he went out and shot up a church (during a children's play!) wounding eight and killing two.

Give me ONE, one example of any one on the left doing anything remotely like this in the past 10-20-30? years?

So when someone on the right has the temerity to try to defend Fox and right-wing radio, and to say that "left-wing" media is just at bad, it just makes me want to vomit.

doug nicodemus said...

it is funny...not the cartoon so much...but i was listening to an interview with woody allen and he was saying the same thing...he plays a nebish in public but when he was a kid he was very into sports...track and baseball...and dreamed of being a professional baseball player.

he said that he is a huge yankee fan and when people come over and see him drinking a beer and watching the game they freak out...he said he flunked out of college his freshman year ...because he couldn't cut it including FILM making...but everyone just THINKS they know him...

Josh Blonz said...

Hey Dan,

Glad to hear you are a hockey fan. Who's your team? Do you have any hockey strips that I might have missed over the years?

Unknown said...

Nowax: you completely misinterpreted what I said. I don't watch FOX, and I already said it was biased. But yes, in my opinion, the other news sources are just as biased, and I think you won't see that because they cater to your political ideology.

Maybe I'm wrong, though, and maybe you think I'm viewing this from some libertarian fantasy-land where there is no difference between the left-wing and the right-wing.

Piraro said...

@ Josh Blonz...
The Rangers are my team but I was rooting for PBurg once NY got knocked out. I couldn't believe they pulled off a win in game 7 at Joe Louis. Amazing.

@ Doug Nicodemus...
I remember being surprised to find out Woody Allen was an athlete, too. He still swims regularly, I think.

About Fox vs. MSNBC...
I agree with Nowax, their is a difference in tone with these two stations. Fox uses threatening language that incites kooks to violence. More importantly, MSNBC shows do not lie about facts, or claim to be "fair and balanced." Fox gets caught lying daily, all the while claiming to be a balanced news station, rather than the propaganda wing of the GOP that they are. Regardless of your politics, there is a level of deliberate dishonesty in Fox that
isn't found anywhere else in TV news.

Anonymous said...

college professor of some high-minded socialogical something-or-other, and he's an even bigger sports fan than am I.

Another example:
Carnegie Mellon

Unknown said...

Piraro: These nuts were crazy long before FOX and Limbaugh came about. James von Brunn was a rabid racist for most of his life.

Blaming right-wing radio and news is, to me, as foolish as trying to blame an act of violence as being incited by a violent movie, video game, or music. It creates a fictional scapegoat instead of placing the responsibility where it belongs; the monsters who carried out these horrible murders.