By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Are we angry at our own ignorance? Or at those who made us aware of what we didn't know?
It was Hollywood stuff, a paperback novel, the descent of the man whose statue has been carted away like that of a toppled dictator, the crash of a man who virtually had wings.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LONDON – He plays the wrong game, the one, which has made him rich and famous across the ocean but is barely recognized in his home country.
“The British Olympic Giant,’’ was the title of a piece in the Sunday magazine of the Times of London. Giant in terms of height, because as everyone familiar with the NBA knows Luol Deng is 6-foot-9.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
In only a few days, the season has improved dramatically for the Giants. Baseball joyfully provides for such rapid swings of success and emotion.
As opposed to the sport that matters most here in England, soccer, or as they call it, football.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Maybe the federal government will figure it out now. Lawsuits are like sporting events. The team with the talent, the high-priced guys, invariably wins. Meaning in this situation, the opposition.
Author and onetime sports writer Paul Gallico told us long ago that while the battle isn't always to the strong and the race to the swift, it's still a good way to bet.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
On the front sports page of Thursday's USA Today, three headlines: "NBA Suspends Heat's Haslem for Game 6,'' "The Problem of Slow Play'' and "Players Sue NFL, Claim Collusion Over Cap."
This is the toy department of life?
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
This headline was on ESPN.com: "Tiger Shoots 74 at Players.'' The subject was Tiger Woods, tied for 100th, and not either of the co-leaders, Ian Poulter or Martin Laird? Why, of course.
We're not selling results in journalism, and ESPN, for better or worse, is journalism in the 21st Century. We're selling celebrity.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
So again the sporting world is confronted by tragedy, and we are left to debate and contemplate.
A gunshot. Disbelief. A haunting refrain, the Beatles singing, "I read the news today, oh, boy, about a lucky man who made the grade ..." A lucky man who took his own life.
All too prophetic. All too real.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
And so we return to sport's disgraceful past, when a man's performance was less important than the color of his skin. But hatred and ignorance are now introduced through the modern marvel of social media. Or, in this situation, anti-social media.
A hockey player from the Washington Capitals, Joel Ward, scored an overtime goal Wednesday night that eliminated the defending champion Boston Bruins from the Stanley Cup playoffs practically before they got a chance to get in, the first round.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
The number, 42, hangs in every major league ballpark, a reminder of a man who was as much a pioneer as an athlete -- a superb athlete -- talented, proud and courageous.
Sixty-five years now since that April day in 1947 when Jack Roosevelt Robinson integrated the majors.
When he became the correction to one of the game's great wrongs, one of America's great wrongs...
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Someone had to make a stand. Someone had to make us believe the rules in sports, as the rules of society, were created for a reason, and just because the country is full of scofflaws and liars and thieves who masquerade as businessmen – yes, you Bernie Madoff – we should keep winking and nodding.
These are serious times in football, the game, although wildly popular, undercut by the stories of concussions and dementia, of Dave Duerson shooting himself, but not in his head, so medicine could research the effects of a lifetime of tackling and blocking had on the human brain.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Was it always this way, American sports and the 10-second attention span? Did we ever stay focused on anyone or anything before the next news cycle? Another Tweet, another change of subjects.
The end of last football season someone discovered Denver had a quarterback who threw like a man tossing melons but because Tim Tebow could run, Tebowmania was upon us like an elephant crashing through a jungle, unstoppable.
© RealClearSports 2012