Ostomy Memories of Sports

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN SPORTS ACTUALLY interested me. As a boy I was a baseball fanatic, right down to knowing batting averages and pitching records. The college years put sports on the back burner, but once I was out into real life and earning a living, pro football took over and I followed it. That morphed into more interest in college football. But, over time, even football fell by the wayside. “Football,” said George Will, “combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings.” My growing disgust with the obscene amounts of money they paid professional athletes provided the death blow to any lingering interest I might have had in watching, or even following, sports. Pro golf was a bunch of guys walking the course wearing clothes covered with company logos. Wrestling was fake. Soccer was boring. Basketball had lost me in high school (see July 1 post on Mediocrity). Tennis was too upper-class for my plebeian tastes. I do enjoy track events, especially the major marathons in NYC and Boston. But sports enduring contribution to humanity may be the quotes of those involved, the Yogi Berras and the Casey Stengels. There are priceless things sports figures have said over the years that are easily applicable to all of life. Berra and Stengel easily deserve special attention on their own, but here’re a couple of others you likely haven’t seen before:
“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” Barry Switzer
“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?” Vince Lombardi
“Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off.” Bill Veeck

Hello HenryM.
Thank you for raising the subject of 'sports' and I can fully understand your perspective on these activities.
As a keen (if somewhat detached) observer of most human activity, I have come to view competitive sport as the ‘game’ of trying to dominate in a chosen activity, to put one’s opponent down and make them ‘lose’.
For me, this behaviour is one of the signs and symptoms of the ‘bully’. As such, it peaks my interest in ways that highlight this particular facet in both the ‘players’ and the ‘spectators’ . This has not only stimulated and motivated some rhymes on the subject, but has moulded my own perspective on participation in competitive ‘game playing’.
I do believe I have shared the rhyme (below) on my feelings about this before. However, as these rhymes have no time limit or use-by-date (and I have just finished my sixth book about ‘Bullying’), I will share this rhyme expressing my attitude and behaviour again here.
Best wishes
Bill

TO LOSE AND YET TO WIN.

Winners always think they’ve won
when once the game they play is done.
For them the secret of success
must be to win and to impress.

It is their focus and their aim
to be the winner in their game.
These people are not altruists
for them, no other game exists.

I understand this sentiment
but find it an impediment.
For winning means that someone’s lost
and therein lays the hidden cost.

For me there is a subtle charm
to live my life and do no harm.
So why would I put someone down
or be the cause of someone’s frown.

There is a certain satisfaction
that can flow from selfless action.
So, I have made a specialty
of losing games with subtlety.

When people start to play a game
they think opponents play the same.
They will assume ‘all’ want to win
within their game or discipline.

But I don’t want to win at all
for that might make another small.
So, if I am obliged to play
I contribute a different way.

I make out that I play real hard.
but it’s really a charade.
My aims within the games I choose
is eventually to lose.

B. Withers 2012

(in: A Rhyming Cookbook 2013)