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I have a peculiar blind spot with regard to soccer, a.k.a. world football: I can't feel any suspense or excitement when I watch it. I can usually access those feelings a little even when watching some kind of sport that few people care about, such as, I don't know, luge, or curling. Obviously I know many people are passionate about world football. People regularly remind me that it's the most popular sport in the world. I have a friend from Maryland who's very into it, although he's terminally frustrated by his inability to keep up with things from the US without paying exorbitant fees for multiple video subscriptions.
A reader sent me a clip of a sensational goal by the rising Spanish star Lamine Yamal, but—well, I felt no "sensation" watching it. Doesn't move me. A guy makes a kick in the direction of the goal and gets lucky, is what it looks like to me. Four inches further down and the goalie would have blocked it, one inch further to the left and it would have bounced off the upright. I can't believe that he has the athletic control to put it precisely where it went, so I don't see much in it. Even a baseball pitcher doesn't have that kind of pinpoint control—air works on the ball to disturb its flight. But the main thing is that I just can't feel the excitement or the suspense that so many people obviously feel. Weird.
Blind Spot
I've often wondered why I feel this way. It's been consistent over the years. Perhaps because I never played soccer, so I can't feel in my body what the basic mechanics of the sport feel like? Perhaps because I never watched it as a child and it was never the subject of discussion and admiration? Because I don't know the difficulty of what the good players are doing? Obviously the top players must be exceptional, because there have to be huge numbers of people striving to be good at it, and the teams in the top matches must be the crème de la crème. But I can't see it. I certainly don't know the subtlety or the strategy of the play. To me it just looks like they kick it randomly back and forth until my head falls off.
I don't get the game, is what I'm saying. I'm well aware that this is a blindness of mine, so you don't need to point that out. I know I'm just not seeing it. It's my own deficiency. But why am I blind?
I do try to remember this when I write about my own favorite sports on TOP. I know intellectually that many people feel about my favorite sports the way I feel about soccer. (Cuesports especially? I used to think everybody liked pool.) It helps me stay away from those topics and not subject you to them too often.
One of those things
Why was I drawn to pool as a kid before we even had a table, when there's no tradition of pool in my family or, indeed, in the social class I was born into? Why have I been so fascinated by it for so long? I suppose I can lay my interest in track and field and tennis at the feet of narcissism, because I participated in those sports as a kid. Without ever studying American football, I can tell you with surprising accuracy what's going on because I've watched so much of it. I remember my father watching football on the weekends, and he almost never watched TV. I only played football in seventh and eighth grade, although we played touch football endlessly on summer afternoons in the yard. I remember being hit in the head by the football one night because we had stayed out trying to keep the game going for so long that it got pitch dark. I have a pretty early childhood memory—I was eight or ten—of driving past Lambeau Field coming back from a family vacation. We were listening to the game on the radio, and, as Bart Starr connected with Paul Hornung for a touchdown, we could hear the roar of the distant crowd through the rolled-down windows of the car. Made the hair on your neck stand up. I've had a fraught relationship with American football over the years, but it's easy to see why I'm drawn to it: it's the sport of the culture I'm in.
Maybe that's all it is with soccer: I didn't grow up with it. But my friend from Maryland didn't grow up with it either, and he can tell you anything you want to know about the Premier League like he had grown up eating fish and chips in pubs. Or maybe I decided at some point that I don't have room for it: I put it in the category of "not-mine" early on and have never seen fit to modify that? I don't know. If I did that, I didn't do it consciously. I know some of our readers have decided they don't like sports in general, so they have expanded their "willful blind spot" to cover all sports. And they seem proud of that somehow. That must have been a conscious decision.
Assuming you actually have at least one or two sports you genuinely love (that is, you're not one of those proud-hater-of-all-sports guys), do you also have some that leave you so completely cold that you can't feel even a twinge of suspense or excitement when you watch them? What grabs you? And what doesn't? And, any idea why?
I guess for me it's just one of those things.
Mike
(Thanks to Sietse Wolters)
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Featured Comments from:
Tom Burke: "Anyone can play it. You don’t need any equipment, just something you can kick. A couple of pullovers can stand in for goal posts; indeed, you can play it in the street (or you could, in the 1950s and early 1960s) with just a single goal. It doesn’t require any special physical form. Being tall can help, but so can being small; Diego Maradonna was 5'5", Cristiano Ronaldo is 6'2". I think it’s the imperfections that make it so attractive. Most of the time, most of the moves don’t come off; players spend almost all of the game not touching the ball, and when they do get it, most of the time they mess it up. But sometimes, just sometimes, something glorious happens. And everybody in the crowd, or watching on TV, thinks 'I could do that!'—because it looks so simple. But of course it isn’t. Any professional footballer is a marvelous athlete; they’re all outrageously gifted with natural skill, and they’ve spent years developing their athleticism and skill; and still they get it wrong most of the time. It’s a very human experience."
Chris Bertram: "Don't get the indifference to what you call 'soccer,' but then I'm a long-time Liverpool fan. Spectacular goals: sure there's an element of luck, but there's also excitement in a forward beating three defenders to take a shot in the first place, a brilliant save or interception, a pinpoint pass, or a wonderfully rehearsed set-piece. Cricket can get me involved occasionally. The sports that leave me really cold are American football and (the remarkably similar) rugby league where dull repetition seems the order of the day."
KeithB: "In one of those 'connections' things, Walt Disney enjoyed playing polo, but his financial backers, fearing he would be injured, made him stop. So he switched to trains as a hobby. He created a ride-on railroad in his backyard and built a lot of the rolling stock himself. He also had plans for an amusement park percolating. He originally thought about a small-scale operation adjacent to the studios (where the freeway is now). Because of his hobby, he decided he wanted a full-scale railroad in the new park, which increased the size of the thing dramatically to several hundred acres. They found a good spot in an orange grove in Anaheim next to the Santa Ana Freeway which was under construction. And the rest is Disneyland."
darlene (partial comment): "I think guys look fantastic in baseball uniforms—those form-fitting pants really show off their legs, and the caps make their faces look even more handsome. It adds some eye candy to my love of watching professional baseball players, besides the strategy of the game itself. But football? It’s more like a fashion disaster meets medieval armor. And don’t even get me started on the game itself—it’s like watching a bunch of armored trucks crash into each other with occasional breaks for a tea party. Baseball? Pure joy. Football? A confusing chaos of padded mayhem. And no, I’m not apologizing for enjoying watching baseball players the same way guys enjoy women in swimsuits."
[Ed. note: For the full text of partial comments, please see the full Comments Section by clicking the link at the bottom of this post or by clicking on the post title and scrolling down.]
Dave Burns: "Of course, there's a famous Simpsons clip for your point. The full clip and the outtake from that that's more to your point. I'll assume you're the American announcer. :-) "
robert e: "I watch soccer only occasionally, but it strikes me as a massive performance of suspense and catharsis, and closer to the brink of chaos than most other sports, but for the thinnest yet resilient membrane of consensus and respect. Soccer and rugby thus seem the most primal of team sports to me, but I can only care about a particular soccer game if I have some vested interest going in, like rooting for a national team.
"I enjoy watching sports that are unfamiliar to me. I enjoyed part of a cricket match on TV last night (a very rare thing on US television). It's a sport I'm barely familiar with and whose rules still mystify me (though I do seem to pick up the gist more quickly every time I watch). The match (test? over?) took place in a field in the middle of Texas, USA, but the players and spectators seemed to predominantly hail from South Asia, i.e., Pakistan, New Zealand and places in between.
"My favorite thing about the Olympics is the opportunity to watch sports I rarely get to see in the US, contested by the world's elite practitioners—most all of them people I've never heard of.
"On the other hand, I can't get enough of tennis—a game I've played and loved since I was a child. For one thing, the scoring system—there are no 'dead' or meaningless points, so if the contestants are close enough in level, there are no 'dead' or meaningless moments in a tennis match, no matter what the score is. And it's beautiful—chess with athleticism and physics—what's not to like? Lots of variety and nuance, as well, though it probably takes familiarity to appreciate that in any sport.
"I played a lot of baseball, too, as a kid, but I have a more fraught relationship with that sport and have rarely watched it since the long strike of '94–95.
"I played playground basketball too, and followed the Knicks in the '60s and '70s, but didn't pay much attention as an adult until Michael Jordan's third or fourth season with the Bulls, and then I followed them religiously until he retired (both times). After that I gradually lost interest. I didn't pay any attention to women's basketball until Caitlin Clark's record-busting last year in college and first year in the pros, and discovered that WNBA games are more fun to watch than NBA games.
"In conclusion? There's probably a different reason for why I like or dislike any given sport at any given time."
Curt Gerston: "I can’t resist commenting on that shot from Lamine Yamal (not to try to change your mind, which I respect, but since you brought it up): I was watching that game (high stakes tournament soccer is my favorite), and I literally yelled as I jumped from my seat. You’re sort of right that he was a little lucky it went in at that exact spot, but also a player has to have tremendous skill to get clear of the defense, remain balanced, kick it at speed with the right pace and spin to even give it a chance to hit that location. Yes, most shots will hit the post or be saved by the keeper, so you have to try with all the skill you have and when that little bit of luck helps out, oh the joy! It’s hard to score in soccer.
"The other thing to enjoy about Yamal’s shot is that in that moment, his life changed. We witnessed something historic. Not every goal will do that of course, but every once in a while in this (and every sport) a moment comes and changes the course of a career, a team, or in this case, a country. They’ll be talking about that goal in Spain forever. That’s why we watch sports, for that magical moment, and to recognize it when it comes."
psu: "I never quite figured out how to watch soccer until I ended up spending around eight weeks at home after some wrist surgery during the 2022 World Cup which then led right into the Premiere League season. I think one reason Americans have trouble with soccer is that most of our interaction with it is via the international game (World Cup, Olympics, etc) which is very different than the 'club' leagues. I found Premiere League games to be much more active and aggressive, and the league itself to be full of NFL level between-game drama. With this involuntary deep immersion, I kind of figured out the how the rhythm of the game works, even if it still seems like they never score.
"Also the very best thing is the fact that the games play in the morning and early afternoon and never last more than two hours. But, it's still true that the game is more about the flow back and forth, and mostly failing to score even when you have good chances to. So if that drives you crazy there is nothing that will help."
"I can't believe that he has the athletic control to put it precisely where it went…"
Actually Mike, he did. That's what makes it a heart-stopping moment. Even the great players don't get it every time; we watch and wait for the rare and wonderful moment they do … and sometimes remember it for the rest of our lives.
Posted by: David Miller | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 10:10 AM
World football? Football is played around the globe. American style football is played in the US, in Canada which has a different rule book, and maybe a couple of other places.
[Globe, world, what's the difference?
In the US, "football" means American football. But world football fans get crabby when we call their sport "soccer." Hence, world football. --Mike]
Posted by: André Moreau | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 10:14 AM
The outstanding highlight of the Spain-England UEFA Final was the Spanish defense late in the game against Englands best effort to tie the game at 2 apiece. A header from an England player was punched away by the Spain goalie, then headed back in by another England player standing just in front of the goal box, to be headed out by a Spain player at the goal line. It went boom, boom, boom, boom in what must have been micro-seconds! I've watched some amount of European and Americas soccer, but never have seen anything like that sequence.
Some say that soccer is minutes of tedium interrupted by flashes of action, but that one was simply amazing!
Posted by: Rick in CO | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 10:42 AM
Never a big sports guy but I have a soft spot for baseball. My father was a baseball fanatic. We were living in LA when the Dodgers came to town and he was over the moon.
He listened to so many games on the radio back in the bedroom that I thought Vin Scully lived at our house.
He took my sister and I to a few games at Memorial coliseum and I treasure those memories.
He passed in 1962 and that was it on going to ballgames until my career brought me to Omaha for a thirty year love affair with Rosenblatt stadium.
On another point, I was recently cleaning out a closet and found a copy of Fine Woodworking from 1986 with an article by a writer who goes by Colorado Slim on the art of making pool cues.
It was fun to learn about star joints and the difference between European taper and American taper.
Not much of a pool player myself. I shot some while in the army but the punic wars have been over for a while.
.
Posted by: Mike Plews | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 11:05 AM
What you feel about soccer is similar to what I think about basketball. I haven't watched it much, and when I have it just looks to me like one team marches down the court and scores, and then the other team does the same, then the first team does it again, etc. But I can see how it would be fun to play. Same with baseball/software, painful to watch but fun to play.
I used to watch CFL and some NFL but stopped several decades ago. The games got too long with too many TV commercials and too much dead time. I have to laugh when people say that nothing much seems to happen in soccer. Kindly explain to me the fun in watching huddles in a game that lasts close to 4 hours where non-players on the sideline are calling all the plays.
It's all subjective of course. Some people like Canon, others Nikon. They televise poker games I'm told, so explain that to me.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 11:11 AM
As a Canadian kid hockey was the game of choice, and I played some softball. Now, after fifty years mostly spent in South America, I do get excited about soccer. I sometimes watch the Superbowl, but do not go out of my way to do so.
Posted by: Clayton | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 11:39 AM
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not you, Mike. I played soccer fairly well in school. But, today, I can’t think of a sport that bores me more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJu2qSJ9zno
On the other hand, neither of my parents expressed much interest in sports while I was growing up. My father was a car guy and a trained mechanic. But he didn’t following racing much. So why did I take to Formula 1, endurance racing and Indy cars back in the 1960s instead of NASCAR? Who knows?
I wouldn’t put too much effort into learning why it is that certain sports - or any subject - interests you. Life is too short., Enjoy what you like.
Posted by: Steve Biro | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 11:47 AM
Is there any topic you can’t write well?
[Thank you Farhiz. That's a very nice compliment and made me feel good. I always feel insecure when I post something off-topic. --Mike]
Posted by: Farhiz | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 12:04 PM
I think guys look fantastic in baseball uniforms – those form-fitting pants really show off their legs, and the caps make their faces look even more handsome. It adds some eye candy to my love of watching professional baseball players, besides the strategy of the game itself. But football? It’s more like a fashion disaster meets medieval armor. And don’t even get me started on the game itself – it’s like watching a bunch of armored trucks crash into each other with occasional breaks for a tea party. Baseball? Pure joy. Football? A confusing chaos of padded mayhem. And no, I’m not apologizing for enjoying watching baseball players the same way guys enjoy women in swimsuits.
Regarding your sports stories on a predominantly photography column, let me level with you—some of the photo stuff bores me to tears. I mean, how many times can you read about gear or techniques that were probably chiseled into cave walls by our ancestors? Reading about gear and beginner techniques feels like watching paint dry if you've been in photography for ages or if it was your profession. I don’t mind the other topics, but can we get more imagery? And not just your photos—though they’re lovely—how about showcasing more of your readers' work? Those posts are always enjoyable to read and view, and they stay very well in the context of a photography column.
I know most of your audience is male, and they may enjoy gear reviews, male hygiene talks (razors anyone? How about Kotex?), sports, etc., but trust me, more women are reading than you think. We’re just generally in the back, quiet and unnoticed—except for me because my background turned me into this delightful commentator.
Posted by: darlene | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 12:30 PM
I'll tell you my problem with it.
A couple of times (almost) every minute it looks like there is going to be a goal. But there almost never is. What a constant tease!
I watched a game once for 45 minutes in a restaurant while waiting for my food. NO goals. My head! And the food did finally come. Not sure about a goal. I stopped watching.
Posted by: Jim Henry | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 12:32 PM
It's interesting how soccer ebbs and flows in the USA. My father played varsity soccer at UC Berkeley in the 1930s, and he played on a club team at Purdue in the 1950s, and in the 60s, most colleges had a varsity soccer team, but few highschools did yet. Not too long after that, it became common enough in highschools that the "soccer mom" was invented.
There have been multiple attempts to create a professional league, including the weird indoor one, but they haven't taken. There's one going on now that's big enough that they built a new stadium just for soccer here in the Twin Cities, which is a first. (The team is Minnesota United FC, which is clearly a reference back to English naming for such things.) (I have this theory that we have enough immigrants who grew up around soccer to make a difference now.)
I've watched a fair amount of World Cup play, more recently. I don't follow any team particularly, though, or players, or keep track of the standings.
I react to baseball pretty much the way you react to soccer. I do think the issue is that if you don't know how to watch, you can't see what's going on. Plus they both have the problem that a perfect game has almost no scoring. (Baseball periodically makes minor adjustments to things to try to create a bit ore action, I think? Lowering the pitcher's mound 1.5 inches or something was one of them?)
I never played any sport in any sort of league or school competition. As a kid we played at football and baseball some, and I did get semi-serious about ping pong for a while starting in junior high; if there had been competition I might have tried it. (I've played against junior state champions and a guy who competed in the US national championship a few times; they're better than me :-) ). I played recreational tennis a bit.
I still have something of the stereotype of the dumb jock in my head, and there's less and less room for that in actual high-level competition these days.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 12:42 PM
I like most sports. I’m a huge fan of soccer, have been all my life, but then I grew up playing it in Seattle, a very soccer friendly town. It’s worked its way into my DNA. I like the other “big four” American sports a lot too, in descending order: baseball, basketball, football and hockey, though hockey only a little and only occasionally. Like many general sports fans, once every four years I enjoy track and field, gymnastics, skiing, ice skating, etc. I think competition is inherently interesting to watch even if I don’t get the sport completely. There’s always drama in competition. Heck, even during the early months of COVID when the only sport on TV was professional cornhole, that was mildly cool to watch.
The one sport I don’t have any interest in is car racing. Like you with soccer, I can’t figure out the appeal, though I would never want to criticize it or its fans. It’s great to a lot of folks, it just does nothing for me to see cars circling a track, even at great speeds.
I’m sure if I got to know the drivers and the history of it, that might change. Still wouldn’t hold a candle to soccer for me though.
Posted by: Curt Gerston | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:09 PM
Easy explanation - you don't like soccer because it's boring. They kick the ball around for a couple of hours, nothing happens for most of those 2 hours, eventually someone chips in a goal and the game ends at 1 to nothing.
Posted by: Patrick W | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:20 PM
At the risk of ruffling feathers I have to say that while I love a number of different "actual" sports (as opposed to games...) it's not the concept of sport itself that I dislike but the difference between participating and just being a passive spectator.
For every hour of TV sports watched one gives up the potential of one hour of active and healthy personal participation. When I look at a stadium full of people yelling and cheering for "their" team or their "star" all I can really see is a direct line from the Roman Colloseums with bloodthirsty fans giving the participants a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Many lives being lived vicariously instead of fully.
Tennis, I think, is a country club sport, meant as a pastime for the landed gentry, and how it ever escaped those boundaries to become widely "popular" as entertainment is beyond me. I occasionally play tennis with friends who can't swim and I enjoy the challenge but remain mystified that anyone would waste any time passively watching it . It would seem so much more personally rewarding, if one indeed "loves" tennis, to be out every day working on your own game of tennis. Improving your own skill sets. Watching sports in person is better, I guess. At least you feel the same wind on your face as the players but the flattened perspective of a screen and the subjective editing of a live TV director robs the game of its core authenticity.
I am consistently amazed at people in my own country. When asked to list personal goals the wish for better health and lower body weight is an almost universal response and yet, what could be worse than spending time sitting (and sitting all day is about as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes..), snacking and passively watching someone else being fit. Additionally, cardiologists tell me that there is a statistical rise in cardiac events on and just after big sports competitions like the Super Bowl. Fans become agitated when their teams lose or fumble and cortisol floods into their bloodstreams. It's not good.
The Olympics are coming up. I can't imagine there will be much coverage of race walking or synchronized swimming. Would I miss my own swim practice to watch someone else swim a race? Probably not.
I understand the American propensity to outsource anything that requires effort or discipline but to trade time happily exercising (and especially exercising and playing with a community of like-minded friends) in order to watch someone else make a fortune doing something on TV that one could do themselves is baffling to me.
Don't get me wrong, I really like to see how Olympic swimmers swim their races but I generally wait until all the good races are on YouTube (NBC Sports) and then watch a short race once in a blue moon while I'm waiting for photographic files to load into Lightroom.
If, as a photographer, I had an interest in games such as tennis, golf, badminton, pickle ball, etc. then instead of watching games on TV I'd find local teams to photograph for. That would seem to be a lot more fun. Whether you charged money or not.
I guess we gravitate to sports that seem aligned with our upbringing. My father played tennis and biked into his 80s but we never, in my memory, ever sat down and watched a sporting event on TV. It just wasn't done in the family home. There was always something better to do. Maybe it's just a case of suffering from a Calvinist Work Ethic...
My kid played soccer when he was young. While I adore him and attended every game I can think of a thousand other things we could have done with the time. Maybe climb a mountain together or go for a run around the lake.
Anything you can do yourself is better than passive surrender to mainstream entertainment. Religion is no longer the opiate of the masses; now it's watching sports.
to recap: All sports are great and fun...if you actively participate. All sports are just another docu-drama/sit com/rom com/slasher film if you only watch them on TV.
Posted by: kirk | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:26 PM
Baseball is my sport, because I grew up with it since the Sixties. It was the only major sport I wanted to play, being small and slow and generally non-aggressive. After I moved to Denver, I witnessed the birth of a new major league ballclub that was successful and exciting... initially, at least. Though I dislike some of the latest rule changes - yes, pitchers should hit, or try to - I expect to be keeping up with baseball for the rest of my years. This is the first year of the Colorado Rockies' 32-year history that I haven't paid a cable subscription, though, so their usually futile efforts have receded from view.
What's more pertinent to Mike's question is my belated effort to become a basketball fan during this years' NBA playoffs. I've been willfully basketball-blind all my life. The players seemed freakish and the action seemed repetitious. Like soccer, with too much scoring instead of too little.
I'd gradually become aware of Nikola Jokic's unusual mastery of the game. He is the only league MVP of Denver sports currently, so I resolved to watch these playoffs. Though things didn't work out this time, I was entertained by his contrast with the rest of the players. Jokic moves slower than others, and less. He can barely jump at all, but he's so tall that it seems unnecessary. Every now and then, a special athlete comes along to upset the pace and ritual of a sport. Muhammed Ali danced like a butterfly. Nikola Jokic introduces chill to the game, ambling around like slacker until he finds a way to score, and often. He won my heart with quotes like, "There are more important things in life than basketball," and, when informed that a victory parade was coming, "Oh no, I want to go home."
I doubt I'd watch a basketball game without the Joker in it, though. So I'm not converted.
Posted by: John McMillin | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:27 PM
I used to really enjoy watching a number of sports: (American) football, hockey, baseball, and tennis among them. Over time, though, I started to see more of the bad things associated with them (e.g. kids brutally pushed by their parents from birth to play a particular sport, ugly problems created by enormous power differentials, the toxic masculinity of locker rooms, the bizarre tribalism of fans, etc.) and it ended up souring me om them. I gave up watching sports entirely about 15 years ago.
That said, even when I was into watching sports, I was never able to find much value in a number of them: I never cared much for NBA basketball (though basketball at other levels was sometimes interesting), and, like you, I could never "get" international football. I'd watch it, the announcers would start getting really excited, the crowd would get all worked up, and I'd just see the same "person running while kicking the ball in front of them" that I'd been watching before. I am certain that there is something genuinely there to appreciate, but it's totally opaque to me.
Posted by: Nick | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:34 PM
I don't hate sports. I just don't care about them. I can enjoy watching a good football game. Baseball totally bores me. I know there's something there I'm missing, but I just don't care. The main problem I have with sports is the way people get so worked up about them. It's just a game. I know that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull for some sports fans, but I don't care. Nothing that happens in sports matters. There are important issues in the world to get worked up about. Sports aren't among them.
Posted by: Dave Levingston | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 01:34 PM
Me thinks that you are conflating two ideas... an interest in a sport or sports and an interest in professional sports (as seen on TV, maybe?).
I am completely uninterested in professional sports (televised or not). Folks getting paid unreal amount of money to 'play games' is just not something that interests me. In my view, professional sports are really about entertainment not about sports.
However, I am interested in some sports on a more personal or local level. Now, as I quickly approaching my eighth decade, I don't participate in sports as I did when I was younger but this is more a matter of interest in not injuring my self than a lack of interest in sports.
Rather, these days, I get my exercise hiking or biking in non-competitive situations.
That said, I do like to see a live game locally on occasion.
For those living in New England I recommend the New England Collegiate Baseball League. This league is modeled after the venerable "Cape League" (i.e. college players who retain their eligibility while playing at a decently high level) but it has teams all over New England. I imagine that there are similar leagues in other regions.
Posted by: Frank Gorga | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 02:23 PM
For me it’s basketball. A bunch of sweaty players bouncing a ball back and forth in a closed room simply has no appeal for me.
Posted by: J. Paul Thomas | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 03:10 PM
"(that is, you're not one of those proud-hater-of-all-sports guys)"
Not proud, nor un-proud, just indifferent. I was an avid, engaged fan of many sports for something like the first half of my life.
The classic old guy in his last contest vs. the younger, stronger man for me is Bill Russell vs Wilt Chamberlin in his last Celtics championship series. I played poker with the Oakland Raiders' first quarterback. I watched Lew Alcindor, Sidney Wicks and co. dismantle Cal, watched the world class Cal gymnastics team, and esp. Dan Millman.
I was an avid sailor, Commodore for two terms of the University of California Yacht Club. I could go on, and on. Over time, in the middle of life, I simply lost interest. I can sit next to a friend, watch and enjoy American football, baseball, BBall, but am uninterested on my own.
". . . you can't feel even a twinge of suspense or excitement when you watch them?"
Sure, but then, it's all going to end the same as all the prior games I've watched, in the broad sense. The spectacular athletics will be like those that preceded them. As a kid, I was a great fan of Willie Mays. Now, his death brings paeans and the idea he may have been the best of all time, some putting him above The Babe. That was all a while ago.
". . . What grabs you? And what doesn't?
I have the same disinterest in soccer. I tried to suppress my yawns when watching my grand daughters play it. I wouldn't mind understanding Cricket, if it didn't require effort.
"And, any idea why?"
Sure, ready for lectures on Jungian psychology and the musings of a mystic on individuation, tribalism, etc.?
Posted by: Moose | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 03:11 PM
I get it. A friend of mine insisted I join him for a professional soccer/futbol game so he could teach the beauty of the sport to me. There were thirty two shots on goal and the final score was 1-0. Only two more of the thirty two came even remotely close to the goal. Repeatedly, break away goal attempts were called back for offsides. At the end, despite his enthusiasm for the game and the obvious athleticism of the players, I couldn't help wondering why he found it exciting. The success rate was 1 for 32. And, as far as I can tell by looking at soccer scores, that's pretty typical. Yawn...
Posted by: Doug | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 03:53 PM
I grew up in a family that didn’t pay attention to athletics of any stripe, amateur or professional. For some reason or another, I’m also not very competitive on most, non-technical matters. As a consequence, I just can’t get excited enough to root for any particular player, team or sport.
However, I do have a fair grasp on physics, and enjoy almost any clip, in almost any sport, that seems to defy those laws. Last year, our local baseball team acquired a young player, Elly De La Cruz, of particular brashness, exuberance and skill. Even as an extremely casual baseball fan, it is obvious that he is out there on another plane and fun to watch. In a game last year, he stole 2nd, 3rd and home in just two pitches. Seen him catch a ball falling backwards and accurately rocket it to first for the out. Just does not compute as humanly possible and he is doing it on the regular. Doesn’t hurt that he comes across as a likable fella just eaten up to play and improve.
I also enjoy downhill and slalom skiing, plus sledding sports, although they don’t get much airplay, save for the Olympics. But those are almost unbearable to watch, with commercials stacked on commercials, interrupted with too many human interest stories, and followed by bouts of verbal diarrhea from the announcers. It doesn’t take much to learn that the cleanest runs, slicing through the snow and ice, without tossing it about, with a fluid effort, are the fastest. Seeing slow-motion video of a downhill skier's planks oscillating wildly while plummeting forward at 70+ mph makes one scratch their head about how it is even possible.
Watching those crazy runs of your pool heroes generates a similar nod of amazement. While making each shot, they are contemplating several moves ahead on where they cue ball needs to be, to either make the next shot or stymie their opponent. Good stuff.
Turn offs are easy, any unsportmanlike, entitled or boorish behavior.
Posted by: David Glos | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 04:43 PM
Different spot has different pace and angle. For example, last Sunday we have England vs Spain and it is very hard to watch as an England fan. I and my wife decided to "watch" by sitting live stream feed from Tele but doing something else try not to be frustrated. Football really have seldom very tense moment and then wait. For those who know those stars etc. they might enjoy. But for that match we didn't but has to watch as it is England (which for man at least the last top world ... is 1966! and hence the odd thing that it will NOT COME HOME). And England does not disappoint us by being disappointed us once again.
For curling it is different. It is really strategy and every move counted and only one minuter per excitement. Hence, I like this more. Sadly as like you said outside certain area you do not have a chance to watch and have to wait 4 years for the Winter Olympics!
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 05:35 PM
Siskafet anybody?
Posted by: JTK | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 05:43 PM
OMG!!! Simpsons for the win. Thank you David.
Posted by: kirk | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 05:55 PM
I grew up loving and playing football, snooker and pool, but they no longer interest me. My cousin is a well-known ex-football player and was one of the TV pundits during the final of Spain vs England. Most of my friends and family love the game, and most of them, including the pundit, rib me constantly about turning my back on the beautiful game
I didn’t even watch the European finale. I was catching up with a sport many people don’t understand or care about—cycling. The fans at the side of the road at the Tour De France get one of the best sporting spectacles on the planet. For free
Posted by: Sean | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 06:28 PM
Alright Mike, you have disqualified yourselves as a soccer/football connaisseur enough now. For a part you are right of course. Yamal Lamine had some luck, but he has it more often, so we can be sure the goal was no coincidence. It is not only his skills with the ball or his moves that make him so exceptionally good at his age. He reads the game better than others who have been playing it for over twenty years and he is capable of letting his teammates play better too.
Of all the sports I practiced I liked squash the most. Played it from the age of 35 until 70. Was a lot of fun, but I find the game rather boring to watch. With soccer/football it’s the other way around. It’s too intensive for me. Professional players run nine to twelve kilometers during a match? It’s a game for athletes.
North-America and the Antartica are the only continents where football is not the most popular game. Although Ernest Shackleton used to play the game with his crew when they shipwrecked there in 1901.
In many parts of the world football is essential. A way of life. As a famous Dutch coach once said: “football is war.” After their victory over England some of the Spanish players celebrated this by singing; “Gibraltar is Spanish.”
I think people in the USA are used to high consumption so they also need sports with high scores. Here in Europe we can watch a game that ends with a 0-0 draw and still have a great time.
(By the way, the link you used for the clip can not be opened here in Europe. Was it the same that I send you?).
Posted by: s.wolters | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 06:41 PM
You are ruining your blog.
Posted by: Peter Williams | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 07:14 PM
Football is self explanatory in that "soccer" is the only sport where you kick the ball and aren't allowed to use your hands.
I like racquet sports and have played a little tennis, squash, badminton and especially table tennis. It's not a good spectator sport if you're not into it because it's so fast but the speed is one of the appeals to me along with the pinpoint placement and ball control through spin. I only ever play sporadically at club level but I have a good friend in Japan who was champion of his province when younger. He still managed to come third in the Australian Open when he was visiting years later and out of all the players he was poetry in motion.
Posted by: Kefyn Moss | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 08:59 PM
Although I played it as a child, soccer is a bust for me as well. I enjoyed playing basketball as an adult, but it has changed so much over the years I can't bring myself to watch a game where all the players travel all the time. Pool has geometry going for it, it maybe the ultimate "math" game—fun to do and to watch. For me, curling is ultimate Zen.
Posted by: Stephen Cowdery | Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 09:45 PM
I love soccer. Started playing in high school and at 58, I still play on two teams nearly every week. I find watching the perfect pass to set up a goal to be sublime.
Nascar racing, on the other hand—that's what leaves me cold. I realize it takes skill, focus and stamina to drive at 200 mph but somehow I can't shake the feeling that the car is doing all the work.
Posted by: Greg K. | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 01:27 AM
The only part of the Super Bowl that we watch here in Europe are the half time shows.
Posted by: s.wolters | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 03:50 AM
Well Mike, if you want an example of random skill, search YouTube for ‘Messi nutmegs reporter’. He doesn’t even wait to see if his outrageous gag works. He knows it will. Of course, Messi was the GOAT.
Posted by: Donald MacDonald | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 05:53 AM
"I can't believe that he has the athletic control to put it precisely where it went ...". Just like the guys who play pool or billiards and randomly hit balls around the table and occasionally one falls into a pocket? :)
Posted by: Chris Nicholls | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 07:17 AM
I’m not a big soccer/football fan myself, but the games can have a certain atmosphere to them. The cheering, chants and singing seem so much more spontaneous than any other sports. It is certainly something when 20,000 people leap from their seats in excitement only to collectively let out a massive sigh.
Posted by: ChrisC | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 07:47 AM
Plus one on kirk's comment about how TV flattens and fragments sports, because it is a pet peeve of mine. I'm sure all field and court sports suffer from this to some extent, but tennis is what I know best from the inside and it suffers a lot. TV directors seem to be ever so cautiously taking advantage of our wider screens and higher resolutions, sometimes showing entire points from court level, but that's still rare, and it's still nothing like being there and able to physically sense how much energy, control, weight and intention a good player imparts to the ball and, at the other end, must deal with. (Just as true for soccer, I could add, except with the added difficulty of having to do it with one's feet!)
I don't know how, or if, still photography could solve that problem. (See what I did there?)
Also appreciate the irony that the more one participates in a sport, the more one can get out of watching it, but the less time one has to do so, and vice versa. Of course, there are very different modes of watching, too--watching athletes (or musicians or craftspeople or photographers, etc.) with the goal of improving one's own skills is a very different activity from consuming or participating in a spectacle, whether in person or virtually.
We are tribe and pack animals, though, so we need some such outlet. I sometimes wonder how much mayhem, chaos and violence we're being spared thanks to Big Sport. Maybe Roman emperors, medieval kings and Greek city states knew what they were doing, with their bloody spectacles?
By the way, the federal judge whose order finally ended the major league baseball strike of '94-'95 was Sonya Sotomayor (currently a Justice of the US Supreme Court).
Posted by: robert e | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 02:07 PM
I admire the skill top level athletes possess in almost any sport. For about 5 minutes I can remain interested in watching. I just start daydreaming after that. If I'm at a live event I usually end up watching the audience or the stadium more than the athletes and miss the big plays. But give me a camera and I can follow the action looking for the perfect shot. Sports on TV really leave me cold, except the highlight reel.
I can say I enjoy participating much more than watching, though I'm not very athletic so I seem to gravitate to solo sports (probably so don't let the team down).
Posted by: Larry Gebhardt | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 03:02 PM
One of my greatest realizations was when I understood futbol, hockey, and basketball to be variations on the same thing. In all of them, sides go back and forth and back and forth. For the first two, scoring is rare; in basketball, not scoring is rare. But the flow is the same.
Enjoying that flow, marinating in it, is what takes enjoyment of those sports beyond the highlights for me. I can thrill in the moments that don't make SportsCenter.
Of course, I'm a baseball fan first and foremost. I'll watch a game between two last-place teams and enjoy it immensely. So take this all of a piece :-)
(I used to be an American football fan. CTE + Ray Rice + Kaepernick and I'm done.)
Posted by: Joel Becker | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 04:25 PM
I don't know if it is still the same in England, but around 1968, Saturday afternoon football was like religion. I think most games were played at 3pm or so. I was doing contract work for Rolls Royce Aero Engines in the Midlands, working what was supposed to be 7 days a week and the local guys would disappear at noon. But they would work Sunday all day.
Posted by: JTK | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 04:27 PM
It was Frank Deford, the notable PBS sports commentator (now deceased) who once said “Soccer is America’s fastest growing sport—and always will be.”
That might not apply today, but it still reflects my opinion, and that of many others. They need to fix the scoring. Teams that conclude regular play with the score tied should not have to resort to one-on-one free kicks to determine the winner.
Posted by: Bryan Geyer | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 05:48 PM
For the inevitable “it’s called football” people. No, in the US, where Mike lives, it’s called Soccer. In different countries, things have different names. I’ve never understood the condescending anger on this subject from Brits. In Italy it’s called Calcio (the kick), in China “ Zúqiú” it’s called Football in some places, and others have a different name for it. Imagine that!
Posted by: Daniel | Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 06:14 PM