American (Sporting) Life

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I've seen Engel make this point - well, write this exact same column - a few times. It's a pretty frivolous point, I grant you, but do you think it reflects any sort of real difference between American and European attitudes to sport...?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 9 May 2003 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Revive!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 May 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

My least successful thread evah!

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 9 May 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

yeegads - this is 'post a daft article from the Guardian' day on ILx

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 9 May 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The barriers to access to the institutions that really matter in America are absurdly high but once you get in them it's essentially a socialist culture: the Department of Defense, university, professional sports.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 9 May 2003 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Hm he starts off strong but he ends up exaggerating the regimentation in baseball and basketball. American football is at least as dictatorial as he says, I'm surprised he didn't talk about it more. But basketball has roughly the same fluidity and player spontanaeity as soccer, and almost every baseball player has the green light to swing away, but there's a strategy to things—if he knew anything about baseball he'd know that if the guy on first is going to steal, a swing can be counterproductive, and the batter needs to know that.

Maybe the American system is quintessentially American in that any professional team has the chance to win it all each year, no matter how dire they were the year before. Horatio Alger stuff.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 9 May 2003 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

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