Justified True Footballblogging
The TMQish preciosity of “Northeast Region Patriots” almost ruins Michael Berubé’s philosophical dialog between Joe Buck and Troy Aikman before it gets going, and it nods at the end when it fails to recognize the relative inferiority of ice hockey, but most of it is quite fine. Excerpt:
AIKMAN: Look, Joe, I hear you. I said this was a tough break. But you remember what Wittgenstein said in aphorism 88 of Philosophical Investigations?
BUCK: I do.
AIKMAN: Well, for the folks at home, let’s put up the Wittgenstein graphic. If we could get number 88 on the screen? Thanks very much, guys.
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Comment by borehole —
February 5, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
Wow. I usually understand at least half of a juxtapositional comedy bit.
Good to know my antipathy toward spectator sports hasn’t made me some sort of fancypants elitist egghead. It also hasn’t impeded my ability to rationalize my ignorance.
Comment by yowsa —
February 5, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
“Relative inferiority of ice hockey”?
Soccer, basketball and hockey allow free-form play creation and improvisation by every member on a team, and all take a rather dim view of super-legalistic rules.
Football is a clockwork mechanism where team participation is as limited as possible and the focus usually falls on one individual.
Makes a lot of sense which is the more popular in the US.
(Wittgenstein says as much in his notes on Philosophy of Mathematics.)
Comment by Jim Henley —
February 5, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
yowsa: You make an excellent point about your complete lack of understanding of American football. <G>
Comment by diana —
February 5, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Somewhat off topic, but I can’t resist….
Andrew Sullivan (who occasionally reads this blog) has a gratuitous swipe against American pro football on his blog, with a supporting quote from another Pommie dickhead, not worth even mangling.
Andrew: if you are reading, I still hate your guts. And you wouldn’t know a football from a milky load.
Comment by Ian —
February 5, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
yowsa, Canadian football is not as rigid as American Football — the unlimited backfield movement helps. The only advantage the NFL football has over the CFL is money.
Mind you, NHL hockey is pretty bad, quite a bit less entertaining than the NFL. Olympic style hockey — now that’s a sport.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
February 5, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
Hockey is a great sport. You people don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
As for football’s legalism, you can have football without the legalism. It’s called rugby. And it’s spectacularly boring. The only thing to recommend it is that an entire game takes two hours from kick-off to final siren.
Baseball is better than either.