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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">SPORT AND SOCIETY FOR ARETE</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">April 18, 2020</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">It has been several weeks since the world changed. The regular patterns of life have been disrupted, and keeping track of what day it is has required some effort. Sport with its familiar patterns and
rhythms is gone. March Madness took on a very different meaning; the NHL and the NBA shut down; spring training in Arizona and Florida ended abruptly; the Olympics have been postponed for a year; and across the world, sports at all levels have been cancelled
or postponed. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">For those who pay little attention to the World of Sport, these developments are of no great concern. For sports fans, the games and competitions are missed. For the sports fanatic or sports junkie,
withdrawal has been painful. With considerable impatience many wonder when the games will return. Will the NHL and NBA conduct playoffs? Will there be a full baseball season, or at least a partial season?
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">For some fans, watching video of historic games, classic playoff series, or just great performances are proving a pale substitute for live action. Horse racing has continued with no fans in the stands,
and there has been some interesting competition in Derby prep races, as well as a few stakes races of interest. Gambling online on these races helps sustain some interest. However, even for a fan of horse racing like myself, it simply is not enough.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">For NFL fans, the great non-event of the NFL year is coming up next week. The player draft, an obsession for many fans, will sustain some of them though these dark days. On sports talk shows, the NFL
draft is virtually the only topic under discussion. However, the event will lack a considerable amount of its luster. There will be no live gathering of players, coaches, executives, television network analysts and commentators. Also absent from some over
faux regal venue will be the fans. The inability to boo Roger Goodell and to denounce the choices of particular players by fans will drain the event of much of its energy.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">So the lament continues. We miss our sports! Bring back our sports! The withdrawal is killing us!
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">While listening to all of this and sharing many of these feelings, I have been trying to arrive at some understanding of what it is we are missing, when we say, “we miss our sports.”
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">At this time of year, I am usually caught up in the final push by NHL and NBA teams to make the playoffs. As a night person, I fill my late nights with games from the Western time zones. One year, I
inexplicably became obsessed with the San Jose Sharks. The last few years, it has been the Golden State Warriors who provided a happy ending to my day. Moving into April, the other great joy is the start of those playoffs and of the baseball season.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">Why do I watch all this stuff and much more? Is it the teams, the rituals, the players, the drama of the competition, or is it all of these? Or something more?</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">Certainly, the attachment to particular teams and their fortunes are an important element for any sports fan. I am a baseball lifer, and since I was undergraduate at the University of Minnesota when
the Minnesota Twins moved to the Twin Cities, that team has held my attention and my loyalty. Prior to that, it was the Milwaukee Braves. The same holds true with the Vikings, who arrived in my undergrad days, while prior to that the Packers were my team.
Since then, my fan interests have widened depending on where I was living and what was available via television.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">From a very early age, hockey and ice skating were important to me. Living in Minneapolis these were part of life in winter. My interest in hockey clearly began there, as did my interest in figure skating.
Both developed over time into something well beyond an interest in these sports. With figure skating the Olympics led to an appreciation of the amazing skill and the artistry of that sport. It has never left me. In hockey too, there was a maturing of interest
beyond the outcomes of games. The skills with stick and puck, as well as, the power and speed of the skating were nearly hypnotic.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">My appreciation of basketball came from my childhood and young adult years where I was able to watch the greatest basketball players in the world come through Minneapolis to play the Lakers. I have
memories of those NBA Champions led by George Mikan, Jim Pollard, and Vern Mikkelsen. But maybe more important was seeing, in person, such great players as Bob Cousy, Wilt Camberlain, Hal Greer, Dolph Schayes, and Bob Pettit. Just prior to the Lakers departure
for Los Angeles, it was Elgin Baylor who revealed to Laker fans, as no one before or since, the full possibilities of basketball as an aesthetic form.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">And then were was baseball. It was part of my family. When I was born in 1941 my father wanted to name me Theodore William after Teddy Ballgame who was having a historic season. My father was overruled
on that one, but it indicates the place baseball had in the family. My father was at times a coach and umpire, a fan, and someone who deeply loved the game. On holidays, he took my sister and I to at least half of the St. Paul Saints and Minneapolis Millers
home and home doubleheaders; One game in the morning, then a streetcar ride to the other city, with the second game in the afternoon. These rivalry games were lessons in baseball appreciation and baseball fanaticism, and a lesson in the civic importance of
sport. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">That was the beginning of baseball for me, and it became part of who I am. The interest in and love of the game grew over the years having been able to see great players such as Hall of Famers Ray Dandridge
and Willie Mays, both of whom played for the Minneapolis Millers. Then came Carl Yastrzemski and Earl Wilson after the Millers became a Red Sox farm team.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Major league baseball arrived from Washington with the Senators renamed the Minnesota Twins. The first decade featured Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, Jim Kaat, Bob Allison, Camillo Pasqual and Mudcat Grant. And a decade later when I wound
up in Orlando, the Twins were still here for spring training with Rod Carew, Bert Blylevin, Rich Rollins, and many more, allowing me to retain close ties to the Twins.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">So what is it about sport that I miss?
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">Looking at what I have written, there are some tentative answers. I miss the teams and the players caught up in the competition. I miss the attempt to reach perfection that each athlete strives for
and never quite achieves. I miss the attachment that sport gives to place. I miss the personal attachments that sports provide, especially family, but also the community of fandom.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">The language of sport is pervasive and the social interaction surrounding sport is ubiquitous. Sport is the second or third topic that surfaces after people meet one another socially, be that for the
first time or with old friends. Sport is the safe topic when talking with new acquaintances and the staple of casual conversation. It is one of the significant elements of community cohesion. So I miss all of that along with the face-to-contact with fellow
fans that we no longer can enjoy. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">Perhaps more than anything, I miss the chance to watch the struggle of competition, the striving for perfection, and above all the pure aesthetic beauty which to me is the essence of sport. As proclaimed
on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, I miss, “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.” The fact that I often misremember the first part of the phrase as “The Joy of Victory” may reveal even more.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau in semi-isolation reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.
</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:
"Courier New"">Copyright 2020 by Richard C. Crepeau<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
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