After the energy drink infused buzz of a novelty act finally dissipated into a crisp fall night, the defeating apathy of a long winter ahead annihilated any remaining anticipation. The Washington Nationals earned their first trip to the World Series in franchise history, leaving the hopeless Seattle Mariners as the sole remaining team never to win a pennant! For a brief viral moment the storyline had wings, but then a lackluster match-up of boring baseball set in, the snooze fest tainted by a controversy.
With all things in the sporting world being unequal and the East coast bias in media coverage a reality, how dare the Houston Astros represent the American league, and not the rightful and perpetual championship deserving historical brand name of the Yankees? Especially, when marred by a former employee, who allegedly engaged in back alley sexual harassment towards a female reporter. New York fans and baseball supporters play by their own set of rules, and within the context of the fandom perception of reality, the Astros are a small market irrelevant team, and the accomplishment of the Nationals is a cute story.
As the delusional scale of pro wrestling induced testosterone measuring enthusiasm developed by an MIT clinical psychologist cannot be applied to the nationwide legions of fans, the logical shortcomings and asinine behavior at times of sports enthusiasts simply comes with the territory and is an acceptable part of modern culture. With universal forgiveness administered to the loud drunk guy in the stands spewing garbled slogans in the form of a pat on the back, where does that leave the uninspired remainder of the Houston versus Washington match-up and the overall status of major league baseball in the coming years?
Cue the intense riveting music…
Will the low hanging fruit style hate mongering polarization of the White House temporarily save the day for a wallowing sport that is absent from a salary cap and schedules an arduous marathon of a 162 game season the length of which can cause temporary symptoms echoing radiation sickness?
Cut the music and let the air out of the proverbial balloon.
In the deflating epic breaking news story of the week, president Trump attended game number five in the nation’s capital, and all the dominoes from the mainstream media to the self-serving social networking channels fell in harmonic unison, the vitriolic content purveying the tiresome three year stagnation of unmitigated hate depleting the world of any trace of goodness or harmony. In the la la reactionary dominion of grand delusions, the leader of the free world should stay locked up in the cellar, and not show support for the local team. Subsequently, the majority of DC booed the president, and opened up at least the idea of a wormhole where despondence is preferred over grace. At the conclusion of the reprehensible display of anti-patriotism, the rest of the country suddenly took notice that championship baseball was being played and along with the epiphany, extremists calling it their destiny in taking the opportunity to bash Trump. Will their lives serve any purpose once another individual takes command of the Oval office?
Sport and politics usually mix like the incendiary composite of a Molotov cocktail and dissenting ideology, and in this case the reckless reactionary response to an elected official was actually able to transcend the George Steinbrenner fierce stranglehold on a pastime that once encapsulated the spirit of an entire nation. At least fans and dignitaries actively participating in the ugly sideshow of a public display amid chants of “Lock him up!”, were engaged in a coordinated and live real time activity about as far from the social networking graveyard as the rain forests of Madagascar.
Physicists and engineers cautiously estimate that the net amount of energy over the last 36 months devoted to criticizing the current administration could power 10 million self-driving vehicles over the span of a century resulting in thousands of needless deaths. Yet the relevant thought experiment leads to more questions than answers in questioning just how much productivity and individual liberty has been vanquished to the dark side by those engaging in the ultimate example of activity without achievement. Meanwhile, Washington National players are left to wonder if their fans attend the games to cheer on the team, or deal in hapless ulterior motives based on smartphone selfie opportunities and propaganda motives.
With everything being relative in the modern age of confusion, even the simple things in life are vulnerable to unwelcome and toxic politics. And in the end, winning is absent from the equation.
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