Sports: A Distraction

Why do we care about sports?  Regardless of what sport we like, whether it's golf or baseball or futbol, we care about sports.  We are passionate about teams, jerseys, players.  Sports are as much a part of life as eating and drinking.  For some, it is much more.  A fan of the Boca Juniors in Argentina has this to say recently before a big match against a heated rival:

"Boca is about passion.  You can get divorced, change your religion, or change your friends, but you can never change the team jersey."

And that was one of the more restrained fans.                                           

This lead me to find an old article I wrote about sports and how it ignites passions in a sometimes passionless world.  I felt that it would sum up in many ways the relationship that sports has with our society.  See below:

"Life is strange. I sit in my house with my parents, watch men moving around a baseball diamond or a sheet of ice, trying to manipulate a ball or frozen disk in a manner that would lead to victory. And, somehow, my passions, emotions, and feelings are tied to this process. On the face of it, the entire process is absurd. These guys don't know me, I don't know them. Why should I care about it? But, you see, that's the secret, and the beauty, of sports. It's important because, ultimately, it doesn't matter. I'm still going to go to sleep in my safe surburban house, win or lose. And, win or lose, these guys are going back to their mansions, trophy wives, and foreign sports cars. What it does for me is stir up passions, emotions, and feelings that would otherwise be lost in the bland neutrality of middle-class life. People care about sports, so much so that talk-radio, the internet, and the newspapers are a cottage industry around the games. People should care, because real life tends to be much more difficult, burdensome, and passionless than the games on the field (or ice). And if our personal favorite teams are able to create passions for us, or distract us from those difficulties and burdens, then they have already won."