The amazing thing about sports to me is its ability to unite masses of people together for a variety of reasons. I’ve always found it amusing how sports fans use the term ‘we’ when referring to their team like they are part of the organization (I’m just as guilty as anyone). While some like the thrill of competition that sports provides, others may use sports as a way of escaping their daily lives for a few hours. As someone who is interested in the medical profession, I’m fascinated by how athletes are physically able to do what they do. From hitters in baseball being able to distinguish between a 90-mph fastball and a hard breaking splitter in half a second and still be able to hit the ball over 400 feet to basketball players hanging and twisting in midair for a lay-up, sports are a testament to the almost endless ability of the human body. As a result, I am saddened by the alleged use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes that make their accomplishments less realistic. The fact remains, however, that we all have our own reason for being fascinated with sports and those reasons represent a gateway into human thought and feelings. I thus find the philosophy of sport to be a way of understanding human nature.
3 comments:
I was once reproached by a University friend for saying "Australia beat New Zealand" instead of "the Australian cricket team beat the New Zealand team" (he was a New Zealander of course). I guess that's another example of extending the team to include others, though maybe a bit different: your example refers I think to the way we concretely feel like we participate in the team's actions rather than the more abstract issue of them "representing" us, a city, a country.
Your medical interest is interesting because it reminds me that even though, perhaps on more amateur levels, we (or "some") talk about how sport develops a rounded personality, professional sports people are in fact trained to perform incredibly specialised physical actions in quite abnormal ways - often to their physical detriment (I imagine baseball pitchers face the same physical problems as cricket bowlers: effectively a kind of "repetitive strain" injury).
PS Re above: you mention this of course yourself in your second post...
The thing about profesional spots is that these are the best players in the world and it is entertaining to watch them show us how its done properly. I always find it interesting how people develope an emotional atachment to teams and see themselves as part of that team. It's even posible to love a team even though you don't live anywhere near where they play. The dynamics make sports one of the greatest things to watch.
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