Casual
Casual From Bradley to Barkley Maybe I'm slow. But it wasn't until a conversation with my friend Bob that I realized how ideological American sports have become. Bob asked if I'd been to the...
...And not as fun to watch...
...Charles Barkley has replaced Bill Bradley...
...A moderately conservative style, I'd say...
...Baseball is liberal because liberals have idealized the game...
...He was "the open man," reliant on others to screen his man so he could get off an unimpeded shot...
...Liberal sports are non-violent (mostly), collective, and less than triumphal-in a word, McGovernesque...
...Really...
...You know what Bradley is...
...I enjoyed the UVA soccer game far more than recent Redskins games...
...Liberals hate football...
...The played hockey the way liberals like...
...Olympic soccer team this summer, Virginia isn't methodical and low-scoring...
...Yes, George Will has contributed to this, but he actually likes baseball...
...Now one-on-one matchups are everything...
...even the short white guys in the NBA dunk, and basketball is far more exciting...
...I suspect many liberals who extol baseball don't...
...Basketball isn't like that anymore...
...Hockey is the best example...
...If it's one in which women are as thrilling to watch (and almost as good) as men-you know, tennis and swimming and soccer-it's liberal...
...The Knicks won several championships with that style of play...
...Nearly all sports, I've concluded, are either conservative or liberal...
...The closest thing to the old Knicks is today's Cleveland Cavaliers, and they're barely over .500...
...Fred Barnes...
...The classic liberal team was the New York Knicks of Bill Bradley's day...
...Bob asked if I'd been to the Washington Redskins football game the day before...
...Baseball, at the major-league level anyway, is heavily represented in the Northeast and Rust Belt, liberal stomping grounds...
...They play the game the conservative way...
...Certain sports are both liberal and conservative-call them Clintonsports...
...After all, the game is often slow and boring...
...Now contrast them with the staroriented U.S...
...Barkley, by the way, is a conservative Republican...
...It's the summit of conservative sports...
...There are a couple more things that make a sport liberal...
...The players were a model of socialist teamwork...
...Bob was on to something...
...To stop football's advance, liberals concocted myths, like the one about a surge of domestic violence during the Super Bowl...
...Not only because it's violent, but also because its biggest enthusiasts are southerners and Catholics, two disproportionately conservative groups...
...Walk wasn't kidding...
...It's the only thing...
...Vince Lombardi made the same point: "Winning isn't everything...
...Rather, basketball should be judged like ballet, for its artistry...
...But if you're a Gingrichian Knicks fan, don't fret...
...Bradley had few one-on-one skills...
...It's obvious boxing, wrestling, football, and basketball (1990s-style), which involve lots of physical contact and one-on-one confrontation, are conservative...
...He said no score should be kept...
...Losing is death...
...Or if liberals love to participate in the sport or profess to enjoy watching it, it's also liberal...
...It took a few minutes before it dawned on me what Bob was really getting at: I'd passed up a chance to watch a conservative sport, football, for a liberal one, soccer...
...The conservative view was expressed by longtime Redskins coach George Allen (father of the Virginia governor): "Winning is life...
...But baseball, soccer, and basketball (1960s variety), where violence is supposed to be kept to a minimum and intricate teamwork matters, are liberal...
...The fundamental liberal vision of sports was stated two decades ago by a pro basketball player, Neil Walk...
...Occasionally, there's a happy medium in Clintonsports, a mixture of brilliant teamwork and individual entrepreneurship- the Brazilian soccer team, for instance...
...That brings us to basketball, the sport that went from liberal to conservative...
...The conservative ones are rough, individualistic, obsessed with winning, just as Newt Gingrich is in politics...
...Nope, I answered, I gave away my tickets and went to the University of Virginia soccer game instead...
...Under coach Bruce Arena, who'll coach the U.S...
...and Canadian players, who are frequently selfish, hogging the puck and taking outlandish shots...
...It's fine to like liberal sports...
...But liberals lurched to baseball's defense when football threatened in the 1960s to become America's number one sport...
...The Virginia way combines clever teamwork with individual flair, fast-paced play, high scoring, and lots of victories...
...Liberals detest the Super Bowl...
...Worse, football players often pray after scoring...
...How could I pass up football for that wimpy, boring sport...
...Remember when the Soviets first sent their hockey squad to North America...
...And soccer, in which many games end in ties, is too...
...Bob was thunderstruck...
...There's another telltale sign of a liberal sport: Winning isn't paramount...
...So marathon running, where the important thing is not finishing first but just finishing, is a liberal's delight...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 20
