Sports; Bring Us All Together by Breaking Barriers

I am unsure of how many people listen to ESPN Radio, or for that fact listen to Colin Cowherd (you will all learn that I use the wonders of Wikipedia.org to explian things to the masses when I know I cannot myself). But, over the holidays, I listened to his show in 1050 ESPN Radio (nothern New Jersey) and he had said somoething that I notcied to be true, something few of us ever notice.

Sports are more than just scores, stats and super-egos. Sports are racial tensions and clashing cultures. That necessarly does not mean that the tension that sports cause are a bad thing, infact they are probably the best at which they can be.

There are two sports in which I will draw a lot of my examples from, one being baseball and the other being football. So looking at it from that persepective;


Racial Tensions
Football - Will a black quarterback ever be able to put up the same numbers that Dan Marino, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning? Sure it can be done. But has it happened yet. Personally, I'm not so sure it can happen. We may have seen our first black quarterback (known for running plays rather than terrific passes) playing as a white (accurate, smart passes lacking the footspeed for the most part) and he goes by the name of Byron Leftwich. To me, he is and will be a black Drew Bledsoe. A slightly above average quarterback at best.

Culture Clashes
Baseball - What better than the Red Sox's newests pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to show the most talked about culture clash in sports these days? Imagine for a second, the man nicknamed D-Mat by baseball fans, who might possibly be the greatest Japanese pitching prospect to ever play the game, pitching against the greatest players in america, the ones who invented the game! It goes even deeper. D-Mat is a part of the biggest rivalry in sports, Red Sox-Yankees, 40% of the baseball profits are because of this rivary. Personally, I cannot wait to see D-Mat pitch his first game against the Americans, this time, for the Americans.


Keep in mind, that while many of us bet on sports, call their favorite team "us" or "my team," and revolve on whole day in early February around football and eating. Reflect for a min, in between snaps, pitches or whatever is the shortest moment of your desired sport to what sports really is. Forcing people in situations that they are never really in if it was up to them.