Friday, November 26, 2004

More Artest!!

I thought I was done with this topic, but ESPN's Skip Bayless wrote an outstanding article, "Sports' darkest day? No way." Read the whole article, but he writes that one reason this brawl is such a big story is the video was so good. Recent baseball fights in the stands were more violent but the video wasn't as clear. He also writes about how Artest being involved makes the story bigger.

I admit to being guilty of that. I don't like Artest as a player, so as soon as he did something wrong I was ready to pounce.

One last thing about the brawl (I hope): I'm tired of hearing commentators saying this brawl is an indictment of society as a whole, or pundits claiming that this brawl shows how our society is troubled. These people are so off-base. They're ignoring that brawls or riots like this have happened before. This was a case of some players making bad decisions, some fans acting like jerks, some mob mentality, bad security, and that's it.

After hearing all of this commentary about how our society is doomed, I watched Monday Night Football. The players on the Chiefs and Pats were extremely well behaved. I didn't even see any of the usual taunting. Also, the loud, enthusiastic KC fans caused no problems. All they did was cheer like fans are supposed to do. I guess this game show how our society is a utopian paradise.


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