Bear with me for a moment...

CTown...you sir are my ambassador of Kwan...we are nothing without opposition in the Lodge...I thank you for your passion and I feel this argument has ripened and called for a Lodge version of NPR’s “This I believe”

I don't want to waste a post proclaiming my own rhetoric about how professional sports are in decline...because honestly, if you asked someone back in the early 20th century what he thought about players getting paid, the forward pass, teams in California and lights on the field...they would probably answer...the game is being ruined, I’m out….that is not the basis of my argument and hopefully the following will enlighten.

So what is the argument? Behind my wife, family and cash comes my next and second oldest love Sport…Sport is not a single entity…it is not an oblong ball being thrown around a field of 120 yards…it is not two men trading blows in a confined ring…it is not the sound of the final pin going down for a perfect 300…it is a philosophical ideal. You can’t find a single image, example or proper definition of Sport, because it exists as a theoretical, an origin point, instilled into humans by society, before we can even dispute it. Some will mistakenly refer to it as competition, but the two are separate, competition relies on the point to point impact with either another player or hypothetical player that is prevalent in individual sports. Sport encompasses the entire motivation, the aura of the game, which includes competition.

I can’t remember a single name or teacher from my fourth grade glass, but I can recite to you the entire starting lineup for the New York Mets from the 1986 World Series. Is this because I love baseball? Partially, but more important than loving the specific game that was being played is that this is the very first moment that I remember Sport moving from my sub-conscious to my conscious. I recognized the aura of what was happening, what was at stake, the intangible elements that I hadn’t even known existed prior to that moment. There had been moments before that, my first viewing of Monday Night Football and the awesome look and sound of Texas Stadium, the community buzz from a town of 10,000 people on an island in Alaska about Super bowl XX and the feel of learning to grip a baseball bat, but that exact point in the 1986 World Series during Game 6 was only equivalent to one’s first sexual experience or dropping acid.

As time continued and I elevate my understanding of specific entities or games of Sport, like the proper way for a guard to pull in the counter or the backdoor screen, I increased my aptitude for deciphering good versus bad in the theoretical ideal of Sport. Some would argue that my favoritism for all things Cowboys and Daryl Strawberry tainted my overall perception of good versus evil, but that’s an argument for another day. The point is, that as a child grows from adolescence to adulthood, perception changes and realities about life come into focus in ways that you’ve never thought of before, the same is true for the element of Sport.

I know I’m getting to Operation: Lost Season, and thanks for sticking with me so far. I wanted to give you insight into my perspective on the ultimately ridiculous games we as a society play that alter our emotion and hope, and anyone that’s every played whiffle ball with me can attest to that fact. I’ve defined Sport for the purpose of trying to explain my ridiculous notion of Operation: Lost Season. CTown I apologize, but thanks for taking the bait. It was not my intention to honestly have a ‘silent absence’ from the NFL. The TO’s, referee’s and Rothlesberger’s of the world aren’t strong enough to take away my passion for Sport wherever I decide to focus it. I will more than likely end up viewing the entire season of Seahawk football and will find myself enjoying the majority of it, even though I will wonder if a 10-1 Husky Team can bring back any of the 25% of Football fans in this town that create waiting lists for Season Tickets. I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

I’m going to continue to talk about futbol on the Lodge, not because I think it’s better than another game or that I think I’m better for watching and following it and please don’t think that I’m calling anyone here out on the bandwagon (huhemmm Joe), but because of the feeling that I get at the very thought of the game. It’s a feeling that I don’t know that I’ve felt as strongly about since watching a graining 19” TV listening to Vin Scully utter the immortal words, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, you’ve just seen about a million.” The ideal and power of Sport is not exclusive to geo-political or sociological lines, it is ultimately the single most unifying element that human beings have ever tapped into, and I choose re-focus my Sport on words like boots, pitch and pace and see how it fits.

Thanks
(climbs down off soap box and heads into pub for a pint of bitter)