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| Violence in footie? Whatever do you mean? Please ignore the cannon. |
Inside Television 520
Publication date: 9-24-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn
After a series of fairly heavy columns over the past few weeks, I thought we’d relax a bit on the couch and join the potatoes. I honestly can’t remember who said this - if I was playing Final Jeopardy and had to guess I’d say Tom Wolfe, but I would not feel confident in the wager - but someone or other once said that the one thing every man in America bears in common is that they all used to ‘play a little ball.’ Granted this is Canada, but same difference. the ball can be dimpled, fuzzy yellow, seamed, oblong, palmable, bendable, or chopped melted frozen and renamed puck, but it has been played with. There - there is my ethical justification for doing a sports column this week.
Not that there isn’t industry justification to go with it. I looked up the latest Nielsen Ratings in the US for the week of Sept. 13-19 and there on top was Sunday Night Football with 23.1 million viewers. To find a non-sports, non-news (60 Minutes still running strong) or non-reality show you have to drop down to Number 8 fore NBC’s new courtroom drama Outlaw with 10.68 million viewers. So the hottest thing with actors and writers and things came in with less than half the interest than the Indianapolis Colts doing unspeakable acts of violence upon men who for some reason were wearing undoubtedly stolen New York Giants uniforms.
Then again, unspeakable acts of violence certainly are an entertainment draw. Ask any very old lion you happen to run across, he’ll tell you. ‘Rome. Rome was the days my friend. I was a draw. Emperors, generals, they all caught my act baby. You think that kid Bieber’s hot? I invented hot. Back then, The Mane was The Game...So you want fries with that?’
Granted, it is concerning about a trend I’m detecting towards what Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange called The Ultra-Violence. I’m already on the record opposing the licensing of MMA in Ontario. People will die or be turned into shambling wrecks. Don’t talk to me about ‘safety standards.’ Boxing commissions have ‘safety standards.’ Watch the ESPN 30 for 30 on YouTube about Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes. Now tell me how great MMA is, with less hand padding than boxing and wrestling hooks that even WWE won’t use.
Ah, but how can one be a football fan then? How can one endorse a wide receiver being turned into a spinning broken bird by a strong safety aiming low? And you’re right. It is absolutely hypocritical. But I’m curious to see what the effect of the expansion of the NFL schedule to 18 games will be.
Bill James, who virtually invented baseball saber-metrics (all those strange little statistics running across the bottom of the screen), is also a very good, very funny writer. He once wrote a short essay about violence in baseball - Pete Rose mashing up catcher Ray Fosse in a home plate collision in an all-star game - and wondered how baseball would be played if it had football’s 16 game schedule and football played baseball’s 162.
James felt that the violence levels would flip-flop. The shorter the schedule, the more important each individual game and each individual moment of the game becomes. Theoretically, in baseball you might have some scrub with a fastball come in to pitch to A-Rod with the exact purpose of burying a baseball in the Yankee star’s earhole.
On the other hand, the longer the schedule the more important wear and tear on the stars becomes. If all of a sudden the Packers are drafting in burly bartenders from Fox River taverns because they’ve run out of linemen in Week 17, then it’s time to maybe ease back on the throttle.
The speculation, particularly Tony Kornheiser on Pardon the Interruption, is that injuries will mount when the schedule increases by two games, or 12.5%. I think that’s undoubtedly true for the first year or two, but either roster sizes will expand (again passim Kornheiser) or the players might get a little smaller with increased cardio fitness. In other words, everybody turns into the Denver Broncos, traditionally the smallest team in the league because of playing at altitude.
Anyway, there’s always footie to follow. It’s even easier to find than ever, with TSN, Sportsnet, Setanta, The Score, CBC, OLN and Fox Sports Canada all offering various professional leagues and competitions. If you’re new to it and want to get involved, please don’t start with the Champions League in Europe until the knockout stage begins after the Christmas break. Until then, it’ sharks eating minnows, lesser teams parking the team bus in front of the net (in Jose Mourinho’s classic phrase) or the giants sniffing at each other like a couple of prideful mountain goats.
I would have said start with Barcelona in Spain’s La Liga, but the best player in the world Leo Messi was carted off the pitch on the weekend, so maybe hold off on that one for awhile. Go with Arsenal in the Premier League. They make more passes than a Roman rogue, and have an almost snobbish disdain for taking a shot from a range greater than three yards. As such, they are a pleasure to watch, except when playing the Boltons Blackburns and Sunderlands who snap at Gunners’ ankles and Gunners’ knees like so ten hungry corgis.
Thanks for reading. I had fun. Be seeing you.
Publication date: 9-24-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn
After a series of fairly heavy columns over the past few weeks, I thought we’d relax a bit on the couch and join the potatoes. I honestly can’t remember who said this - if I was playing Final Jeopardy and had to guess I’d say Tom Wolfe, but I would not feel confident in the wager - but someone or other once said that the one thing every man in America bears in common is that they all used to ‘play a little ball.’ Granted this is Canada, but same difference. the ball can be dimpled, fuzzy yellow, seamed, oblong, palmable, bendable, or chopped melted frozen and renamed puck, but it has been played with. There - there is my ethical justification for doing a sports column this week.
Not that there isn’t industry justification to go with it. I looked up the latest Nielsen Ratings in the US for the week of Sept. 13-19 and there on top was Sunday Night Football with 23.1 million viewers. To find a non-sports, non-news (60 Minutes still running strong) or non-reality show you have to drop down to Number 8 fore NBC’s new courtroom drama Outlaw with 10.68 million viewers. So the hottest thing with actors and writers and things came in with less than half the interest than the Indianapolis Colts doing unspeakable acts of violence upon men who for some reason were wearing undoubtedly stolen New York Giants uniforms.
Then again, unspeakable acts of violence certainly are an entertainment draw. Ask any very old lion you happen to run across, he’ll tell you. ‘Rome. Rome was the days my friend. I was a draw. Emperors, generals, they all caught my act baby. You think that kid Bieber’s hot? I invented hot. Back then, The Mane was The Game...So you want fries with that?’
Granted, it is concerning about a trend I’m detecting towards what Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange called The Ultra-Violence. I’m already on the record opposing the licensing of MMA in Ontario. People will die or be turned into shambling wrecks. Don’t talk to me about ‘safety standards.’ Boxing commissions have ‘safety standards.’ Watch the ESPN 30 for 30 on YouTube about Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes. Now tell me how great MMA is, with less hand padding than boxing and wrestling hooks that even WWE won’t use.
Ah, but how can one be a football fan then? How can one endorse a wide receiver being turned into a spinning broken bird by a strong safety aiming low? And you’re right. It is absolutely hypocritical. But I’m curious to see what the effect of the expansion of the NFL schedule to 18 games will be.
Bill James, who virtually invented baseball saber-metrics (all those strange little statistics running across the bottom of the screen), is also a very good, very funny writer. He once wrote a short essay about violence in baseball - Pete Rose mashing up catcher Ray Fosse in a home plate collision in an all-star game - and wondered how baseball would be played if it had football’s 16 game schedule and football played baseball’s 162.
James felt that the violence levels would flip-flop. The shorter the schedule, the more important each individual game and each individual moment of the game becomes. Theoretically, in baseball you might have some scrub with a fastball come in to pitch to A-Rod with the exact purpose of burying a baseball in the Yankee star’s earhole.
On the other hand, the longer the schedule the more important wear and tear on the stars becomes. If all of a sudden the Packers are drafting in burly bartenders from Fox River taverns because they’ve run out of linemen in Week 17, then it’s time to maybe ease back on the throttle.
The speculation, particularly Tony Kornheiser on Pardon the Interruption, is that injuries will mount when the schedule increases by two games, or 12.5%. I think that’s undoubtedly true for the first year or two, but either roster sizes will expand (again passim Kornheiser) or the players might get a little smaller with increased cardio fitness. In other words, everybody turns into the Denver Broncos, traditionally the smallest team in the league because of playing at altitude.
Anyway, there’s always footie to follow. It’s even easier to find than ever, with TSN, Sportsnet, Setanta, The Score, CBC, OLN and Fox Sports Canada all offering various professional leagues and competitions. If you’re new to it and want to get involved, please don’t start with the Champions League in Europe until the knockout stage begins after the Christmas break. Until then, it’ sharks eating minnows, lesser teams parking the team bus in front of the net (in Jose Mourinho’s classic phrase) or the giants sniffing at each other like a couple of prideful mountain goats.
I would have said start with Barcelona in Spain’s La Liga, but the best player in the world Leo Messi was carted off the pitch on the weekend, so maybe hold off on that one for awhile. Go with Arsenal in the Premier League. They make more passes than a Roman rogue, and have an almost snobbish disdain for taking a shot from a range greater than three yards. As such, they are a pleasure to watch, except when playing the Boltons Blackburns and Sunderlands who snap at Gunners’ ankles and Gunners’ knees like so ten hungry corgis.
Thanks for reading. I had fun. Be seeing you.
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