Sports as a Leading Indicator
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Brandenberg Gate, Berlin [Russell Chant / Flickr]
What is this comprehensive “globalization” of sports stars, money, victory all about?
What is the story unfolding in this World Cup summer of empires falling and rising — empires of money and fashion as well as of national pride and prestige?
Is the buzz in the Arab world to be believed: that France’s Zinedine Zidane was taunted into that ugly head-butt by Marco Materazzi’s calling him a “terrorist”?
In another dimension, the World Cup finish looked like Rummy’s worst nightmare: Old Europe going at it in the World Cup Finals, after the strange confrontation of yesteryear’s “axis of evil,” Italy and Germany.
The US eclipse far beyond soccer is a story in itself. At Wimbledon US didn’t get into the quarterfinals among either men or women, an unheard-of rout. Meanwhile, an Italian basketball star was the No. 1 pick in the NBA lottery.
A Ghanaian blogger we love, Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah at Koranteng’s Toli adds, by email: “Nathan’s hot dog eating competition was won by Kobayashi again. A small Japanese guy out-ate red-blooded Americans. Hot dogs for God’s sake.”
This conversation was triggered by Selena Roberts’ jarring column in the NYTimes last week:
There are exceptions to the free fall — like snowboarders, dude — but just what has eroded the United States’ perch? Globalization. As the geographic sandbox widened and the world shrunk, as images spread across the Internet and political walls collapsed, technology exposed the American athletes’ modern weaknesses
Selena Roberts, Face It: U.S. No Longer Reigns Supreme, The New York Times, July 4, 2006
There are deeper implications here about, for example, what’s “cool” or manly in the world…. About how global money and television have redistributed identity and styles on the field: Koranteng suggests the range of angles:
You’d have to talk about the changing nature of the game and how everyone plays in Europe. The Brazilians have made almost one billion dollars selling their players to European teams. The Africans too and these days many of the African teams were were playing a very European
game with only flashes of their style.You’d have to talk about America’s place in sports. Great Power? Things Fall Apart? Decline and Fall? I don’t know but small things add up. You need some joie de vivre and the sports headlines should be providing comfort.
It was not a good 4th of July… No McEnroe, no Connors, no Agassi, Sampras or Roddick, no Venus, no Serena, no Lindsay Davenport winning at Wimbledon. Instead a Swiss guy and a Spaniard are providing the excitement. And what about that tall Chinese woman who made the quarter finals and gave Clujsters the fits, Li Na? What about feet binding? The Chinese are coming…
Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah, Koranteng’s Toli, in an email to Open Source, July 9, 2006
Does it seem that the US has been isolated in the summer’s sports news as the fat old banker with the guns, but without the hungry players on the field?
Question: who should be at the table talking about the issue? Off the top of your head! Here’s the pass, take the shot!
Robert Lipsyte
- Author of Heroes of Baseball and writer for The New York Times
Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah
- Blogger, Koranteng’s Toli
Stacy-Marie Ishmael
- Blogger, AOL sports World Cup Soccer Blog
Patrick Belton
- Blogger, OxBlog
John Ralston Saul
- Author, Voltaire’s Bastards and The Collapse of Globalism
- Extra Credit Reading
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David L. Smalley, Where have the athletes gone?, from his myspace profile, July 9, 2006
Doug Lieb, Outplayed. Harvard International Review, July 4, 2006
Crunk Raconteur, Well, I Haven’t Been-to-Prague Been to Prague, But I Know That Thing…, Cole Slaw Blog, June 12, 2006
Annaswamy Natarajan, Now that the 2006 FIFA World Cup is over…, NARAYANEEYAM DAY, July 11, 2006
Selena Roberts, Face It: U.S. No Longer Reigns Supreme, The New York Times, July 4, 2006
Anne Applebaum, Flag on the Field, Slate, June 18, 2002
Featured on the show: comments from plnelson, nother (here and here)
and a blog post from Doug Lieb on the Harvard International Review.
July 10th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Sports, like the military, tends to be populated by the social and economic underclasses. Kids growing up in poverty can’t conceive of themselves as businessmen, engineers, or scientists, but they see sports as a path out of the ghetto, the banlieue, the favela. Most Americans have better alternatives. And while it’s true we have our own poor (and they, in fact, comprise a disproportionate number of professional US athletes) the fact is that the US has only a miniscule portion of the world population, and an even more miniscule portion of its poor.
So the really surprising thing is that we create as many athletes as we do.
I’m more concerned about declining US math and science skills, and the shrinking number of US students selecting science, engineering and computer majors. I couldn’t care less about World Cup. While it’s true that the hooliganism off the field was a bit less this time, this was more than compensated by the increase in hooliganism ON the field. Far from being Rummy’s worst nightmare, the World Cup violence, not to mention the domestic sleaze affecting half of Italy’s top teams, would seem to represent Rummy’s highest ideals - mindless emotional violence and “flexible” ethics.
July 10th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
[...] host of Radio Open Source, wonders if this years lack of American dominance in sports is a leading indicator of its decline. It’s not only the early elimination of th [...]
July 11th, 2006 at 4:58 am
I think Frank Deford recently wrote about the dearth of great American tennis players (remember the era of Sampras, Courier, Agassi, Chang et al?).
Also, Christopher Clarey, the excellent sports reporter for the International Herald Tribune.
July 11th, 2006 at 5:06 am
Hey, we still got Tiger woods… And NBA basketball is a winter to Spring sport.
But to look at it another way, those gangsters who are hiding out at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with robber’s roosts across the capital, are the wimpy upper class schlubs who could not make the team or probably impress the girl with any kind of prowess physical or intellectual, the chicken hawks who avoided the war in Vietnam but have no compunctions about sending today’s brave youth to die in a war of murky origin and purpose.
But ruthlessness was in their mother’s milk and that’s why they shamelessly hold onto power. The dems and the left just have to eat their wheaties…
July 11th, 2006 at 5:19 am
Hey, we still got Tiger woods… And NBA basketball is a winter to Spring sport.
But to look at it another way, those gangsters who are hiding out at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with robber’s roosts across the capital, are the wimpy upper class twits who could not make the team or probably impress the girl with any kind of prowess physical or intellectual, the chicken hawks who avoided the war in Vietnam but have no compunctions about sending today’s brave youth to die in a war of murky origin and purpose.
But ruthlessness was in their mother’s milk and that’s why they shamelessly hold onto power. The dems and the left just have to eat their wheaties…
July 11th, 2006 at 6:05 am
Sorry about the double message. It was not because I think the depth of thought merited twice the space, but because of some kind of computer mistake on my side.
I would like to make the further point that these ne-con, neo-Christian fundamentalist, corrupt, proto-fascist Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld et al who are (mis)running things in Washington NEVER believed in fair play. Thir mantra is win by any means and don’t get caught.
So the sports analogy to the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Whoever regime zetigeist goes only so far. Athletic games have rules. Sure you have Barry Bonds or a great deal of the Italian football league who cheat or conspire to win by other means. But in the end, Bush et al never believed in any rules of the game in the same way they never really believed in democracy or fair and accountable elections. Because if they did, they’d have to get down on the playing field with the people while they are in power to protect old and big money and corporations and privilege in a kind of Disneyland of democracy we have now.
And, of course, we should be wary of associating America’s power with physihal and athletic prowess lest we fall into the old fascist fear and motivation of the waning of national (we don’t have a ‘volk’ her thank g-d) vitality.
I know this potential show is partly tongue-and-cheek at the pure gaudiness of all that is overdone in sprots around the world today and think it would be a hoot to listen to.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:30 am
“And what about that tall Chinese woman who made the quarter finals and gave Clujsters the fits, Li Na? What about feet binding? The Chinese are coming…”
Foot binding? I can say, from having lived in Taiwan for 20 years, that this comment falls squarely into the racist slur category.
I could be wrong, but ask a black about that bone in his nose for comparison to the reaction you would get….
July 11th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Oh that beautiful American individualistic spirit - have we’ve crossed that thin line into narcissism and avarice? It has now become common for foreigners to lampoon Americans selfishness in team play. The European Ryder Cup team has been inferior on paper for some time but they play us with confidence and win. The tennis Davis Cup team stinks (Sampras never showed up when he was around), the US men’s basketball team lost with the best players in the world, the US baseball team looked pathetic in the World baseball Classic, The US hockey team lost, The US soccer team played poorly. The only Americans successes on the world stage recently are individuals such as Pete Sampras, Venus and Serena, and Lance Armstrong.
Ultimately, in the spirit of Tip O’Neil, all sports are local. America’s diminishing status in the wide world of sports will never diminish the charming hatred a Tar heel fan feels for Duke; or the heightened emotions of an Ohio State Michigan game, or the unrivaled rivalry of the Boston Red Sox and – that other team. Most Americans are more concerned with the results of their local high school football team then the US soccer team.
Could it also be that because we are a divided country right now, we don’t have the same urge to root for a team representing us as a whole?
July 11th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
The entire premise of the show is flawed. If, and I say if, the US preiminence in sports is declining its only in relation to the rest of the world and is due to globalization. Which, the US is the inventor, facilitator and leader of.
You can’t train for a sport if your belly is empty and the reason why less and less people’s belly’s are emtpy and thus full enough to enjoy sports is because of the the free market capitalism the US has brought to the rest of the world since WWII.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:56 am
Tangential, maybe, but:
I have this theory that blogs have transformed politics into something like fantasy baseball.
I know many people who follow blogs and now give money to races outside their own locality because they’re following “the team” via the blogosphere.
July 12th, 2006 at 1:02 am
We need a good, atmospheric show on minor league and ultraminor-league baseball. Something like the Emerson show, where part of it is recorded at the ballpark.
Go out to Lynn to see the North Shore Spirit, where you can get a seat for five whole American dollars and the rowdiest segment of the crowd is under four feet tall. It all happens in a stadium that was built as a WPA project.
(It’s too bad they demolished the companion football stadium next door: it was a creepy Stalinist-Meets-Thunderdome kind of place with hulking slabs of concrete and four iron lattice towers. But it was weird and interesting to look at. The ballpark, thankfully, is a modest, swoopy little thing with a cantilevered roof over the grandstand; it feels light, airy, but sculpted and not bolted together, like the Erector-set park played in by the Brockton Rox. Who are in part owned by actor Bill Murray. Who knew?. If you go to Lynn, get to Tacos Lupita before, or, if it’s an early game, after the game. Very houndish.)
July 12th, 2006 at 4:24 am
I’d love to spend an afternoon at the North Shore Spirit ballpark…
Having just listened to the delightful show on the transcendentalist women, I would say that the transcendentalist sport of today is ultimate frisbee. A favorite of students here in Berkeley, California, played in sylvan settings with a sublime mixture of whimsy, keen but innocent competition, and floating beauty, it makes the euro soccer mania we just witnessed seem pointless, hopelessly earthbound and brutish by comparison.
Yes the euros have Spanish tennis stars, Austrian ski champs, Italian World cuppers, and South Africa and Asia some cracking cricket teams, but they have not caught on, and they have not caught up if they haven’t embraced the truly American and truly transcendental ultimate frisbee.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:10 am
re: Lydon’s OpenSource Promo
Americans *shut out* in tennis? Such was implied by your morning
promo. Were you talking about Wimbledon? Twins Bob and Mike Bryan might
beg to differ having completed a career grand slam by taking the Gentlemen’s
doubles championship. This happened despite much talkeratti pontification about
all the Americans having been eliminated and having gone home. AND, only an hour after that victory Bob Bryan teamed up with Venus for the final in mixed doubles.
And, yes the rest of the world has become more competitive.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Roger Cohen, who offered superb commentary on his World Cup blog for the International Herald Tribune, observed in his round-up piece for the NYT on July 9th:
July 12th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
A positive American indictor: our national pastime, baseball. It looks like the United Nations on the field and we should be proud of that! Is there another country around the world whose national sport is as diverse as ours?
I also believe that America is ahead of the curve when it comes to preventing racism in sports. ESPN recently did a series of reports on racism in soccer where they interviewed the heads of FIFA and held their feet to the fire. We simply would not tolerate spitting on black players and NAZI chants to happen in our stadiums.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I find it fascinating that Zidane came out to day and send he does not regret his actions. He said “he is a man first�
This is an amazing statement. If that happened in baseball he would be vilified. Instead he was given the Golden Ball.
It tells me that this is something bigger. Was Zidane giving a head butt to the country of Italy who have a reputation of dirty soccer, deserved or not. Or was it just his personal manhood he was worried about, or was it the word terrorist – and would that make it ok? I’m told he is an otherwise classy man so I wonder.
I have a feeling that that head butt will be debated for a long time.
July 13th, 2006 at 3:05 am
Before you get too proud, nother, you might want to read the two article linked below, and how do you explain the continuing use of Native American terms for team mascots, such as Redskins and Braves.
Lapchick: Is racism gone?
ESPN Wednesday, July 14, 2004
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1839521&type=page2Story
Racial divide driving a wedge into soccer’s grassroots
Steven Wells finds issues of race and class still blighting the sport’s development in the United States
Friday June 17, 2005
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9753,1508828,00.html
July 14th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Nother,
Zidane was given the golden ball award based on media votes that were cast before the headbutt. (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=373632&cc=5901) So, your comparison to his being vilified if it were baseball doesn’t hold. It would be interesting to see if he would have gotten the golden ball if they had voted after the match.
Still, he was the single best player in the tournament. There is nothing to read into the incident. It was just man who has shown a temper before, in the heat of the toughest competition in the world, acting on his anger.
July 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Oh, and another thing, somehow in American baseball, bench clearances, pitchers who intentionally beam batters, fixed bats, fights, and now cheating through the use of illegal drugs are all a part of the game. Sports are sports—often those how win are willing to do whatever it takes. The rules are just an obstacle.
As the old saying goes, “If you’re not willing to cheat, then that means you just don’t want it bad enough.”
July 15th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Marlin, Zidane didn’t want to win bad enough. All those things you mentioned that are done in baseball are done with the ultimate goal of winning the game. What makes his head butt different is that it had the opposite effect; he knew it would hurt his team and he didn’t care.
He was not the “single best player in the tournament” because his act might have cost his team the World Cup. You can be the fastest guy in a race but if you trip and fall at the end are they going to vote you the best racer?
You seem to say no big deal, just a man acting on his anger. That is part of what sports are about, controlling your anger.
I keep wondering what the reaction would have been 60 years ago if Jackie Robinson had given a head butt to any of the number of players that called him the N word.
July 17th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Or if the great French player Henri, a black man - if he gave the head butt would the worlds reaction be different.
July 27th, 2006 at 10:55 am
I was very disappointed with this show. Anecdotal evidence is a shallow and unreliable way to prove a point.
There were lots of potential facts you could have looked at to make more interesting points.
1) Look at the number of foreign players who are playing in the NBA (and non-North American players who are playing in the NHL, for that matter.)
2) In tennis, looking in the top eight is not really proof of anything. Getting data on the top 500 or 1000 players in the world is not that hard. Noting statistically significant trends in that would be thought-provoking. I think the rise of the Russian women and Chinese women (you may think Na Li IS Chinese women’s tennis, but two others won the Women’s Doubles title at Wimbledon) are phenomena to behold, even if I think that counting Maria Sharapova as Russian is bogus since she came to America when she was nine and really developed here. Roger Federer does not prove the dominance of Swiss tennis with his singular brilliance.
3) Being a professional athlete is still an aspiration for most strata of American society. It doesn’t have the stigma like being a “ho” (ha-ha) does. If you count the athletes who earn over $100,000 in college education by playing collegiate sports as professionals, this aspiration is held by an even wider swath of the population.
4) You could have looked at some singularities like Lithuanian basketball (compared to Estonia, Latvia, Poland), Swedish tennis (compared to the rest of Scandanavia), South Korean short-track speed skating and even the negative singularity of French golf compared to its surrounding European neighbors.
I’m sorry I didn’t see the preview of this show so I could pose those questions.