Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Dave Zirin says:
Nice interview with DZ, MZ.
I’ve generally enjoyed his pieces over at Counterpunch. He was on Democracy Now, recently. He’s younger than I expected. Seems like a real good guy.I admit, I’ve always been confused by my own interest in sports - it seems so very “elite-supporting,” at times. But Zirin has made me feel better about these goofy but relatively normal interests, if only because I’m now able to consider them more rationally.
He ( I think / hope it was he ) wrote a piece about basketball in which he spoke about one of the great black players who said he often looked up into the stands during a game and “saw no one at all who looked like his friends and family or folks from the world in which he grew up.” He just saw well-to-do white folks with a few black (but also well-heeled) people sprinkled in. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about this…
Kudos, Z-guys.Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/23 at 04:16 PMOk...at the risk of annoying everyone, I’ll jump in here. I have two problems with sports. First of all it wastes important time that could be used for other more important activities. That arguement could be countered by saying that some recreation is important to renew the spirit. Criticizm of activities like sports could also be broadened to include other things, such as watching junk TV, shopping, etc. I would agree though that sometimes just having fun is important, BUT, there is another problem with sports and that is its competitivness. The idea that my team is better than your team, leads to my school is better than your school, leads to thinking that my country is better than your country. I have recently come to know some Quakers. I cannot help but admire their attitude toward others and their total lack of vanity in every aspect of their lives. They seem to stress cooperation as opposed to competition. A long time ago, due to an odd set of circumstances, I wound up as a high school basketball coach. Being totally non-athletic, I did not even know how many players there were on a basketball team. I did my job as well as could be expected. The thing that amazed me the most was the total lack of sportsmanship that I saw. I was really shocked at some of the things that I saw. Back in those days, most believed that it was important to have sports teams in school to encourage sportman-like behavior. Maybe I just don’t get it. I don’t understand how anyone can think that it is important if a ball goes through a hoop, or over a goalpost, or in a little hole on a golf course. BTW, I grew up in the rough and tough coal mining region of northeastern Pennsylvania where the Friday night fights were the most important “cultural” event in town. Anyone out there remember Rocky Castellani or my relative Bill Jackowski who umpired some important baseball game?
Posted by rosemarie on from 07/23 at 06:20 PMNow, not so fast, young lady!
What about curling? Nobody doesn’t like curling!
Actually, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve often thought that if the money and energy and creativity that goes into ONE Superbowl was put into, say, inexpensive housing for the poor, we’d eliminate homelessness and sub-human housing for everyone in NYC in one swoop…
And, of course, there’s the fact that millions of humans spend many billions of dollars on sports and sports apparrel and sports mags and the like, when many millions more are starving…
And there’s the kids who persue some pro-basketball or pro-football dream, instead of studying or helping out in the community…You’re not annoying us, Rosemarie. These perspectives apply to sports in general, I’d assume.
Cept curling, Rosemarie. I stop short at curling!
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/23 at 07:17 PMJoe, I do curling every night...right after I wash my hair! Actually this conversation tonight has brought back a lot of memories. I just went to the Rocky Castellani sites and remember the excitement every Friday night. All of the coal miners and their families...the kids I went to school with, hero worshipped Rocky. His brother was one of my best friends. I wonder what happened to everybody and where they all are now. That seems like a million years ago, Joe. People didn’t know about the things that the government was doing back then. Some people were enlightened, but in my little hometown, most people were extremely hard working, blue collar.....I will always remember what the coal miners looked like when I saw them every day as I walked home from school. Their faces were totally black, covered with coal dust. Many of them, including my Grandfather, developed “black lung”. I remember hearing the stories about the miners who were killed in the mines. The mining company would bring the body to the home of the dead man, and just drop it on the doorstep for the wife to find. There was one street in my home town, where all of the houses were painted green....they were company houses. Remember that line in the old song, “...I owe my soul to the company store...” That’s really the way that it was. Almost every other building on Main Street was a tavern. Life was hard and the miners needed to ease the pain of their existance. One of my friends in high school took a survey. I think that he counted 27 gin mills, 4 churches, and 3 shoemakers in our little town.
Posted by rosemarie on from 07/23 at 08:05 PMI don’t really like sports anymore (i hate how it’s all about the money with the exception of very few players), but I love to read Zirin talk about sports. It’s really good stuff. I used to love the 93-93 Lakers with their losing record (or was it 94-95?). I loved them so much I would listen to their home games on the radio (no cable). I was probably one of the very few 4th or 5th graders that ever did that. They had Peeler, Threat, Divac, Campbell, Smith, Scott, and I forget who else. No one flashy, but they were great together (The Clippers too!!!!). They were the comeback team. I don’t know how many times they came back from 20 down in the 4th quarter. Then they traded for Shaq and it was all gone. Ever since then I stopped being a sports fan. What a shame. Zirin brings a different perspective and allows me to enjoy sports, even if it’s only through his writing that I ever read about sports. It’s still very worthwhile.
Posted by RB on from 07/23 at 08:11 PMRosemarie, I just checked ESPN, the sports network, but they have no listings for your curling episodes. Are you pulling the hair down over my eyes?
The town of your youth sounds amazing - but scarey. I say scarey because, though I have no experience with such towns, I saw a film, Matewan (John Sayles - an amazing and frightening film), several years ago which really had a powerful effect on me. It was about a mining town which tried to organize a union. (In Pennsylvania or West Virginia or… Colorado?) The miners were paid with company script, so they had to shop at the company store. It was with a young Chris Cooper, and James Earl Jones… Truely, it was one of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen. If you’ve not seen it, I imagine it would be especially significant for you.
I guess, now, I have a better sense of where your political sensibilities began… Wow.
Back to sports, for a moment. I think Jack Dempsy, former heavyweight champion, was from a mining town in Colorado. He’d go to bars and fight people for money. He made a lot of money, and finally made it to the big game, where he won it all… Miners are said to be pretty tough boys…
Hey, RB - good stories. I often feel like you do, about all the greed and big name talent. I keep hoping that Alan Iverson, little guy with a huge heart and lots of bruises, will win the championship… Nope. Lakers (and Shaq) in 5…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/23 at 09:03 PMSorry I’ve been out of the loop...busy day. All I have is this addition: American food for American athletes: http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0744
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/23 at 09:18 PMRosemarie, I am left unannoyed by your commentary. My feeling about competitive sports is that they are like little wars, and some of the get-ups look to me very much like flags. Moreover, at the risk of simpliflying as well as annoying, I believe there are a few strong arguments that this interest has long created ways for half of society (of any age or station in life) to be separated out, and where sport provides a way out, a dream, it’s not an equal-opportunity dream.
That said, I know that some sportspeople or people who pay attention to sportspeople have been most perceptive politically, or at least very stylish. Muhammad Ali said that “boxing was only to bring me to the people.”
It was boxing, right?
Posted by Lee Hall on from 07/23 at 09:38 PMJoe, thanks for the tip about Matewan. I don’t see many films but there have been a few on this topic. I have not seen this one, but now want to. I will be looking for it. “Coal country” seems to have had a unique culture, or maybe I am just glorifying it because it is a part of my heritage. Even though most of the mines have been closed for some time now, that area still has a rough and tumble mystique..........Lee, I like your comment about sports being like little wars. That is really true. Also there is that blood-lust aspect. Sort of like the sadistic pleasure that the observers received when the Christians were thrown to the lions.
Posted by rosemarie on from 07/24 at 08:26 AMI agree that competition taken to the level of pro sports can be warlike...but as someone who loves the give and take of an intense basketball game or even a foot race, I feel there’s something cathartic about it. I was just watching the amazing Lance Armstrong win his 7th Tour and there’s something admirable about his drive and mental strength. Here’s something he said: “Too many athletes live as though the problems of the world don’t concern them. We are isolated by our wealth and our narrow focus, and our elitism. But one of the redeeming things about being an athlete—one of the real services we can perform—is to redefine what’s humanly possible. We cause people to reconsider their limits, to see that what looks like a wall may really just be an obstacle in the mind.”
Surely that mentality can be transferred to whatever we pursue.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/24 at 08:55 AMTwo sports books that offer a behind-the-scenes look:
“Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” by Michael Lewis
“Bloody Sundays : Inside the Dazzling, Rough-and-Tumble World of the NFL,” by Mike FreemanPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/24 at 09:19 AMAll those poets compiled After Ovid New Metamorphoses after Ovid’s Metamorphoses that’s a cover book. Eugene O’Neill wrote that Mourning Becomes Electra trilogy play based on the Aeschylus trilogy play about that cat Agammenon who comes home after fighting in the Trojan War and gets bumped off by his wife. Can’t wait to read O’Neill’s version it takes place during the Civil War. That’s a cover book and cover play in one.
Posted by TM on from Earth 07/24 at 04:11 PMGood point, TM. I guess, when it comes down to it, the Bible, the Greeks, and Willy Shakespeare provided all the basic plots and everyone else is crafting variations on one theme or another.
What I was musing about was a literal “cover book” the way a cover song or movie remake works.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/24 at 04:28 PMWell, DC and Marvel superhero comics are constantly covering themselves, updating origins and stories to move with the times and new, younger, readers, ones whose moms hopefully give them lots of money to burn on comics… but no, hm-- I might be thinking of some Borges experimental short story that might be about this idea. Have you read much of his stuff? But still, no-- there must be an instance of a ‘cover novel’. When I can think of it I’ll type again…
Posted by James on from NYC 07/24 at 09:59 PMHoly crap! Has anyone seen the original Bad News Bears lately? I watched it a couple of weeks ago with my kids (might have been a mistake!). One: My five- and seven-year-old are in little league, and the foul-mouthed Walter Matthau and gang were a refreshing breeze of normalcy compared to today’s “good jobs"(after the kid strikes out, falls down, kills two fellow players, and sets the field ablaze with his ineptitude). Since when does everything have to be whitewwashed? Why do kids have to be shielded from every failure? Why are kids praised for mediocrity, or even inadequacy? We all have to suck at something! Two: I might have wished to shield the kids from some of Walter’s drunken meanness(emphasis on some).
Posted by lghink on from quogue 08/01 at 06:57 PMLGH rocks: “We all have to suck at something!”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/01 at 07:49 PM
Next entry: Confession
Previous entry: There ain't no Dubya in NYPD
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
