I Like Violence

This post is actually about football not a descent into mental illness. However, I must begin with the honest assessment that a game I love is a form of controlled violence. I appreciate a solid hit on an opponent whether it be a tackle or a block. I enjoy the physical domination of my favorite team over its rivals. I also know that the game I love can physically destroy the men who play it.

When you see a NFL player in person, it is often shocking how large and muscular these men are. As a straight female, I admit that one aspect I enjoy now that I didn't as a child is the incredible physical specimens these men turn themselves into. This guys make "buff" a weak term. They are incredible athletes. But this means football is a game in which very fast and strong men ram into each other at top speed. This isn't meant to injure, but it does injure. In ever game, every player knows the next play may be his last. Even those who never suffer "serious injuries" often spend their post-football life dealing with the cost to their bodies.

I post all of this because in the first 3 weeks of the new season we have seen one QB, Trent Green, receive a severe concussion that had him unconscious for more than 10 minutes and, yesterday, another QB, Chris Sims, had to have an emergency splenectomy after his game. He evidently played some part of the game with a ruptured spleen. Luckily, he will recover. At no point during the game did he fail to get up after a play. He simply took such blows that his body broke. And QB is the most "protected" position on the field.

Yet I still love the game. I'll keep watching and living and dying with my team. With all of the violence the game currently has, it has less than when I started watching 40 years ago. Head slaps and spearing are no longer legal. But the game is and always will be controlled violence and very risky. There is no such thing as an overpaid NFL player. Not when their livelihood can be lost in an instant. I can only hope that the players and the league will work to reduce the risk as much as possible and we fans always remember that the "bums" we swear at and call "no good" are receiving a physical punishment that we cannot imagine.

Random Thoughts

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. There is football. There is serious baseball. There are the best holidays on the horizon. And every other year there is an election for political junkies like me. I'll be commenting on most if not all in the days to come. Today just some random thoughts.

1) Whatever your favorite team did Sunday...calm down. Keep repeating, "It is only the first game."

2) For all the crappy leadership provided by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, he did get the wild card in play. This year, once again, it is proving to make the last month of the baseball season much more exciting.

3) Keith Olbermann is simply marvelous.

4) Democratic line for 2006: Republicans aren't capable of protecting you.

Republican line for 2006: Democrats don't want to protect you.

My line: Anyone want to actually tell me how much danger we actually face as opposed to how much we might someday face if horrible things happen? [Insert chirping crickets here.]

5) Now that the Syrians have prevented numerous deaths in an attempted attack on our embassy, does that mean that GW Bush will actually talk to them?