h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As you can probably tell, I don't watch the Super Bowl. I don't care who wins or even who's playing. I don't want to know. It doesn't matter to me. But somehow, living in America, it's hard to avoid not knowing something's happening.

The streets of the city are abnormally quiet. The university seems to be asleep. But I know they aren't asleep or are they? It's almost like being in the desert again. Maybe the only day of the year when everything appears to be asleep in this city that never sleeps.

Could this be a defining moment? Could this be the summation of a civilization? Well, probably nothing so profound or trivial.

It's just sort of interesting to observe what many people think is important in their lives, so important they'll drop everything else and just sit and watch a few hours of a vicarious contest, the world championship, which it isn't.

Canadian football teams aren't represented ever, and I don't know where else the game might be popular. Football for most of the world outside the United States or Canada is football, a game where you kick the ball, you don't pick it up and run with it or throw it to somebody else. You kick it with just your feet, hence football, what the Americans call soccer. Who knows where they got that name?

But American football isn't so much about the ball as about gaining yardage and repeatedly invading the endzone. It's a game of brute force and deception, about taking or defending territory. It's a model for conquest, or settlement if you prefer.

That's probably why it's an American game and that's also probably why I don't watch it. Why watch something you've seen already, brutally portrayed in real life?

Which makes me wonder what possibly could be the facination? Haven't the Americans seen it all already too?

Football is the reinvention of the gladatorial games in a modern setting. All of the participants are physical freaks, huge exaggerations of the ideal male archetype, fighting for domination over one another. It is a substitiute for the hunt or war or any release of the testosterone fed need for dominance, displays that males need to experience. By being fans of a team, some men identify with the players on the field. This is especially evident with Raiders fans, and their outlandish costumes. I love to see the underdog come through, and always will stop to cheer the team that seems overmatched, enjoying the occasional victory that an underdog pulls off.
As far as football in my experience, I love competition and have an addiction to violence, so it is a nice vicarious experience to watch. My step-father played in the pre-cursor to the world football league as a hobby while he was stationed in Europe (in the late 1970's for the Dusseldorf Raiders), so I am familiar with the international flavors. The WFL and CFL are minor leagues where NFL hopefuls can refine their skills.
Personally, I was always too fragile to play football, battling through an injury plagued high school athletic career. Baseball was where I thought I had a shot, but my arm (five broken bones, scar tissue in shoulder and pec, affecting rotator) is too far gone at this point to even throw strikes consistently. Thankfully there's always room in the local leagues for another never-was to show his stuff.

Not that you're wrong or anything but I always thought World Wrestling Federation crap was more like gladitorial games, which were probably just as phony.

Not that they didn't need an occasional kill to sweeten the drama but I bet a lot of it was faked. The Romans were great showman after all and all those tunnels and trapdoors in the Coliseum had to be for something. If you were just snuffing people, why bother to have all those things. Just drag them out the normal portals just like they do with the bulls in the corrida.

I wonder if football is faked too?

I think to some degree all pro and college sports are fixed these days, but in more subtle ways than the picking the final score. A guy goes down with an injury here, a season schedule ends up stacking your toughest rivals in sequence. Little things that can turn the tide. It doesn't have to be blatant, just enough to turn the odds, just like gambling itself. The outcome is always in doubt but the odds always favor the guys with the most money. That's why local leagues are the most fun, true random chance, and a few skilled "ringers" determine everything.

Don't you think that teamwork makes a difference, at least on the local level?

Depends on the sport, one good pitcher can ruin your day as a team in baseball. But in sports like soccer and hockey, the ball and puck cover too much ground and lessen the impact of a single superstar. That's why I love pitching though; when you're on, you can carry the weight of the world on your back with ease. Of course when you suck, it's a nightmare your team can almost never overcome.

Hmm, that's interesting. God for a day, or at least until the reliever shows up on the mound.

Relievers are for the big leagues, or really old timers leagues.