The on the playing surface adversarial element of multi-millionaires for effectively perfecting a children’s game, has exited the arena and now resides on an urban West coast street manically babbling to herds of yuppies, hoping that the idealistic hive mind will listen. Unfortunately, for the proponents of reason, and lacking the showmanship and comedic undertones of the epic Andre the Giant versus Hulk Hogan Wrestle Mania grudge match, certain people are resonating with the illogical rants.
Memorial Day 2022 backyard barbeques and celebrations in all probability at some juncture will pierce the tedious subject of “did you hear about the Giant’s manager who has chosen to sit out the National Anthem?” The insufferable narrative is content not fit for enjoying a great American holiday, however instant gratification culture has seeped into all compartments of society.
As those over forty still recall how deliciously satisfying it was to stew in hating the iconic rival face of a Larry Bird, Barry Bonds, or John Elway, the transference of angst spilling outside the confines of the stadium has taken an uncomfortable turn as the common knowledge that chronic “offendees” have swarmed big tech and college campuses. Their disciples are no longer the Dalai Lama, Lincoln, or Mother Theresa, but any public figure on social media half baking ideas with twice the caffeine and a minus four on the substance rating. In a society where cosplay and identifying as a muskrat has replaced a day at the library, or playing bridge, things have gotten progressively weird, and even the “good old boys” club of pro sports has misplaced its roots and purpose.
As Colin Kaepernick is to decrying law enforcement, Steve Kerr is to a pushing New Zealand magnitude of gun control, while a new face of unpatriotic sentiment has put a representative of major league baseball aligned with the dubious duo in the form of San Francisco Giant manager Gabe Kapler. In the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, Kapler has been vehement that he will be absent from the National Anthem in the near future to apparently conjure solace for the victims and their families, and promoting federal gun control measures. On cue, the liberal media is literally eating GMO legumes out of his hands, with various instances of hero worship and tired phrases such as, “taking a stand”, and “battling extremism”.
In pivoting towards issues outside of the game, the former journeyman player has cemented baseball in the wavering land of ideological purgatory, as three of the most profitable sporting leagues on the planet are now tarnished by zealots penetrating the sacrilegious by mixing entertainment with politics. The fan experience is dying a painfully and glacially, as the groupthink wildfire has consumed the souls of the professional ranks. Individuals who make more in a year than the majority of their supporters will earn in a lifetime, are emphasizing preaching and not playing.
The hypocrisy with the prevalent trio of athletes experimenting with pseudo-intellectual garb is that coaches and players are protected by security details, or law enforcement professional all carrying firearms in gaining protection from opportunistic criminals.
If exploiting the pedestal is not enough to rub the average fan the wrong way, inviting facets of the mass mind to the periphery of game day, is certain to result in apathy, if not a rapid decline in audience numbers as seen with MLB and NBA paltry television rating and dwindling popularity over the last decade. And again, Kapler lacks the magnetic personality of a 1980’s wrestling superstar in coming across as forced and contrived in failing to articulate an innovative perspective that is the antithesis to intriguing. The undeserved entitlement is insufferable, and a disturbing reminder that hundreds of millions of social media end users are under the delusion, like Kapler, that they are experts in specific disciplines simply for forging an opinion that is believed to be correct and based on the empirical, and not conjecture.
While Kerr is a vocal gun control activist both as a coach and a citizen, Kapler represents the masses lacking developed critical thinking skills in echoing recycled platitudes and effectively hijacking a travesty, a gruesome talent that Joe Biden has perfected. The age of sabermetrics in baseball has allegedly given a demographic group in the major leagues the false sense of suddenly possessing a refined intellect, and the optics are not favorable for a sport struggling to relate to the average person. In the abundance of arrogance, the stain of moral superiority now transcends the 54 meaningless games which comprise a third of the languishing marathon of a regular season.
At some point the concept of a fan focusing ire on a player, coach, or owner, and projecting the trivialities of life towards celebrity millionaires, was a fun and satisfying exchange and release that at the end of the game dissipated like the light of a Summer evening. In the contemporary nightmare of the information age, the pageantry and trash talking, has been bartered for toxic indoctrination, and neither of the aforementioned are oblivious to the fact they exist merely as pawns for some unruly off planet rogue supercomputer responsible for every Zuckerberg bot calibrated to terminate fundamental freedoms.
As reprehensible behavior is becoming normalized by a multitude of factors, including the corporatized media bent on forwarding a number of agendas, chaos is embraced over common sense. Within this universe, the raving lunatic previously confined to a street corner during the dark ages, now earns a social media PHD in nonsense, and is not shy about claiming to know everything about what is essentially nothing.