Tuesday, December 19, 2006
I'd Kinda Suspected This
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the hoo-ha over the 'brawl' at the Knicks game this past weekend was how this was nothing compared to a typical hockey brawl, so why was everyone freaking out over it? At least everyone came out of it with the same number of teeth that they had going into it; that's not always the case in a hockey fight. Now I think I know why, thanks to Dave Zirin:
In hockey, brawling has become so essential to the sport that it spawned the joke of a thousand lounge acts: "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." In football, Tennessee Titan Albert Haynesworth stomped his cleat on the head of Cowboys center Andre Gurode last October, and the condemnation in the court of public opinion fell solely on Haynesworth's sorry shoulders. In baseball, when Chicago Cubs catcher Michael Barrett punched A.J. Pierzynski in the mouth this summer, the benches cleared, but it merited barely a mention in the media, more punch line than punch-out. But in basketball, a fight gets decidedly different treatment. It's debated and discussed like the 1992 Los Angeles riots--with an overcaffeinated mix of condemnation and concern. The NBA has become the spittoon for every racial anxiety aslosh in Sportsworld.Nice to see I'm not the only person who suspected this from the beginning.
More blogs about politics.
