OT: a brief piece of writing for your non-sports fan spouse or pal?

Submitted by Blue Vet on December 13th, 2021 at 6:58 PM

Here's a short comic piece from the New Yorker, about non-fans' discomfort as they pretend to be interested.

That doesn't apply to anyone here. But if you spend lots of time with someone not interested in sports, they might appreciate your gesture of showing them this piece.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/fight-or-flight-responses-to-talking-about-sports?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_121221&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_recirc&bxid=5be9d0282ddf9c72dc1960d1&cndid=26009297&hasha=d724954a18313402f06f0bdf4a21fef0&hashb=56e8d361b72f691fa6e94e447a216174c3bcd242&hashc=8adc8ee829e792c7738f39859e7e99f4d5528beee95ec007951d1cc0f7ddb689&esrc=AUTO_OTHER

mattyice0916

December 13th, 2021 at 7:09 PM ^

My lovely fiancé does not care about football at all. But I took her to the Washington game and she has been hooked on Michigan since. It’s made this season that much sweeter

Joined: 09/24/2019

MGoPoints: 1731

1VaBlue1

December 14th, 2021 at 8:29 AM ^

I'll say that organized religion is a great, big pot of mythical stew upon which most of humanities greatest tragedies are based.  I'll also say that a very large part of what religion teaches us would be a significant boost to humanities efforts to get along - if we could separate the whole 'almighty God' thing from it all...

I grew up in a Lutheran household, went to Lutheran grade school, graduated from a Lutheran high school.  It wasn't until my parents were buried that I was finally able to see it for what it is - a myth to believe in, for hope in something 'beyond'.  If you can separate from a life-long belief structure and accept evidence based science for what it is, then you'll find you don't need the almighty one to guide you.  All of the important words about morality, kindness, hope, et all that religion teaches are still true, still viable, and still relevant.

You can believe the God part if you like, or not - I don't care.  But either way what XM said is very true - love those around you and be kind/helpful to everyone else.  You'll find yourself much more relaxed...

Joined: 01/31/2016

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treetown

December 13th, 2021 at 8:32 PM ^

Four small comments - New Yorker maybe worth your time if like longer form non-fiction. 

1. While the New Yorker today is often misconstrued as a defender of the status quo and of the Montgomery Burns view of life, it started out in 1925 very much as way of poking fun at the old money rich of New York and their offspring.

2. In recent years when their focus shifted more to solid non-fiction reporting they have produced some great articles including this one that sadly hits very close to home in Ann Arbor. It concerns one of the biggest hedge fund scandals, UM medical research prof and a future owner of the Mets, and a story worthy of a Grisham or Turow novel. The Empire of Edge from 2014.

  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/empire-edge 

3. One of the mainstays of the New Yorker was EB White who wrote the children's classic Charlotte's Web as wells Stuart Little, both still in print to this day. He was also the step father to Roger Angell who wrote about the New York city baseball teams

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/20/deathly-numbers

4. Finally, they had pieces that are known and quoted but never with full attestation. The quote about Ted Williams last game at Fenway was by John Updike. Williams hit a homer at his last at bat before the hometown fans:

"He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn’t tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted “We want Ted” for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1960/10/22/hub-fans-bid-kid-adieu

Joined: 11/10/2010

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DennisFranklinDaMan

December 13th, 2021 at 8:41 PM ^

It depends on what you mean by "recent," I guess. I'm in my mid-50s, and the New Yorker has been consistently excellent throughout my lifetime in non-fiction reporting. Famously, John Hersey's Hiroshima was published in 1946 as an entire issue of the magazine. And Wes Anderson's 2021 homage to the New Yorker, The French Dispatch, is entirely about its history and tradition of non-fiction reporting.

So I think their focus on non-fiction reporting can only be described as "recent" if that word is expanded to include ... almost all of the magazine's history. :-)

(But I'm just nit-picking. Another fine New Yorker tradition). 

Joined: 01/23/2021

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Don

December 13th, 2021 at 10:02 PM ^

A multi-comment thread on the country’s pre-eminent college sports blog about The New Yorker with knowledgeable and informed observations: the MGBlog/Michigan difference.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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Blue Vet

December 14th, 2021 at 7:10 AM ^

Usually when I add something to the Message Board, it gets down-votes. I guess it's some combination of our cantankerous blogosphere and my not reading the room right, so to speak.

So posting a piece from the New Yorker, I expected more of the same. But—at the risk of attracting down-votes—this may be the first time I've posted something that has not gotten any.

As you astutely observe: it's the Michigan difference.

Joined: 05/08/2012

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