Stu channels his inner Drew Magary, pushes down the caps lock and rips off the knob. Stu?

Recently, there was a minor hullabaloo amongst the RandBall commentariat about the dread cocktail of politics and sports. Naturally, I’m now going to write 300+ words about it. For those who’d rather skip it entirely, please enjoy Zoneblitz.com!

Still with me? OK. I can understand why people would rather not see the two topics mix, particularly if you’re a Team Red fanboy at the moment. However, and this is a vitally important point that most people miss, NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK. At no point in the last 8 years did anyone ask me if I cared about Commander Bunnypants smothering the English language with a pillow while greeting the latest Super Bowl champion. At no point in the last 8 years did the guy in my Fantasy Football league who named his team after various right-wing hobbyhorses ask me if it offended me, a known Gore voter with delicate, carbon-neutral sensibilities. This is because NOBODY CARED WHAT I THOUGHT. Thank goodness.

You see, as much as you may want to keep the political and the athletical in their tidy, separate compartments, that’s just not how it works. Sports are an escape from a world that is messy, awful and complex, but that escape is never a hermetically-sealed one. This Sunday, you’re going to watch a Super Bowl featuring the Arizona Cardinals. The most noteworthy player in this vagabond franchise’s history, with apologies to Neil Lomax and Jim Bakken, is Pat Tillman. Nothing political about that, no sir, move along, nothing to see here. Perhaps you’d be more interested in the halftime entertainment by a completely non-partisan musici—oh, wait. Well, there’s always the commercials, right? (Wrong.)

Still, writers should respect those who’d rather keep this interactivity to a bare minimum. The best way to do this is to keep it relevant, or failing that, keep it funny. President Obama is on record as saying the BCS is a crock (bold stand, that), so it’s appropriate to bring him up in the context of a college football playoff system. Rod Blagojevich and Sarah Palin continue to be pure comedy gold, so feel free to bring them up whenever and wherever. But when you find yourself trying to discuss the efficacy of closing Gitmo in a story about the Twins’ bullpen, you should stop. Because NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK.

That is all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.