Sports Central

Ernest Hemingway once said:

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.

Peter Capstick added dangerous game hunting to the list.

The rest are merely games.

I notice that we are beginning a football season, wherein players from Junior High to professional will be enrobed in pads and fiberglass and will strive mightily under the afternoon sun or evening lights to move a pointed ball down a marked field.

There are rules, of course, but without the hype, it would be a game played by young boys in sandlots, like baseball is supposed to be.

This type talk would get me lynched in Texas, or Alabama, but football is merely a game. If you took an honest poll, you'd probably find that not one person in 10 gives a tinkers damn whether or not football is ever again played. The Nielsen ratings guide shows that 14.3% of American households watch Monday Night Football, and you can believe that for every fan who watches the game, there is someone else in the home who doesn't. That 10% figure may be high. Probably less than 10% of Americans are football watchers.

Yet the hype is unbelievable, the salaries are astronomical and the news agencies dedicate time to it. Actually, very few people care about it.

It's not a sport. It's a game.