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yo
climber
NOT Fresno
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 26, 2005 - 10:52pm PT
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Ball sports, I mean.
Why is it most climbers not only dislike traditional ball sports but throw a hissy fit at the first mention of last night's box score or the Superbowl?
And don't even think about bringing up that goddamn Hemingway quote. Motor racing and bull fighting are both stupid. If I hear that quote again I'll pour gasoline on myself.
PS: Broncos 28, Eagles 17
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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Oct 26, 2005 - 11:00pm PT
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"Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing
are the only real sports... all others are games."
Ernest Hemingway.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Oct 26, 2005 - 11:02pm PT
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Anyone seen 'Dragon with Matches' lately?
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yo
climber
NOT Fresno
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2005 - 11:12pm PT
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Zing!
Probably an Indians fan. Hanged himself in his closet.
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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Oct 26, 2005 - 11:14pm PT
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much worse.....Yankees.....
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Oct 26, 2005 - 11:55pm PT
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the broncos won a game? Now I have heard it all.
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Hurricane
Trad climber
Eldorado Springs
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Oct 27, 2005 - 12:02am PT
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Largo said it best, I believe, in the last chapter of one of his "How To Rock Climb Series" books. Don't have it anymore, but I think there is a picture of a climber on the Shield Headwall with the caption that says something like, "a half-mile high a climber clips a piece of gear on El Cap. It is here in the vertical plain where the climber belongs neither to heaven or earth and lives only in the focus of the moment like a granite astronaut having feelings and experiences that no other sport could hope to match" Anyhow, since I just butchered this quote maybe someone who has the book could write it correctly, as JL says it much better then my paraphase. Cheers, AK!
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mingleefu
climber
Champaign, IL --> Denver, CO
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Oct 27, 2005 - 12:32am PT
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"the broncos won a game? Now I have heard it all."
they're 6-2. Coulda been 7-1 if Eli Manning didn't connect for a touchdown to tie at 23 with 6 seconds left on Saturday. Extra point gave New York the 'W'. Broncos locker room was deathly silent.
Anyone watch the 5 hour Sox-Astros game yesterday? I was singing "nah-nah naaah nah.." to my roomate, the Houston fan, in the top of the 14th when Astacio pitched to the unassuming Blum for the spirit crushing homerun. But even I was dumbfounded when the future minors pitcher promptly loaded the bases and walked in another run.
I'm only bummed that soccer isn't broadcast on network TV. But I understand that the demand for it isn't there, so that's the way it goes.
Some of us do like ball sports. But, there is something to the concept from that paraphrased quote from Largo. You can understand it to mean that climbing is a unique experiential activity, and thus better than other sports. Or you can read it to say that climbing is an elitist activity that makes the climber lose touch with reality. Is the activity actually superior, or is the climber so caught up in his tiny little world that he is fooled into thinking it a nobler pursuit?
It depends on the climber, I suppose.
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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Oct 27, 2005 - 01:13am PT
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I think JL wrote somewhere that his first passion was playing baseball.
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malabarista
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Oct 27, 2005 - 01:26am PT
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Baseball... one ball, nine guys. Lame.
Juggling... one guy, nine balls. Cool.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 27, 2005 - 02:07am PT
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throughing a ball hurts my shoulder...an old climbing injury....and I never could catc one to save my life. I was the guy no team captin wanted...
that said, I enjoy a game or two each sason on the old tele with some cold ones...
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Oct 27, 2005 - 02:18am PT
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My mother is visiting me. We've been Seahawk fans since day one (1975). We went out to a bar last weekend to watch the Seattle/Dallas game. Oh my!
I have now decided that that was the most exicing finish the 'hawks have ever delivered. Heck, first I watched the Vikings win the game with a field goal as time expired. Then I watched the 'hawks steal the game from the cowboys with time expired (if any of ya'll america's team fans gimme a hard time well.. just suck it), then I watch the sox win it later that day with a walk off homer. Three in a row - walk of wins. It does not get any better than that.
When I ain't got enought to sack up I ball up. errr... armchair it... yeah. that.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Oct 27, 2005 - 07:15am PT
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Not much on baseball, as boring as cricket, which I am told is a very sophisticated game (according to Peter O'Toole, originally an Irish game that the English 'stole').
Of course, my brother says that basketball is sophisticated, but it seems to me that only the last five minutes or so of most basketball games is what matters. But at 5'6", it always seemed that my nose was around the same height as other players' elbows when I played. Might explain why I don't think much of it.
Now give me a cold keg or ice chest of beer, a sunny day, and put me in outfield and there isn't much to beat softball for fun.
American football is okay, especially if the 49ers or Raiders win. Aussie Rules football shades Gaelic football, but Gaelic hurling is fast paced and high scoring. If it had been introduced to the States 100 years ago or so, then I’d believe it’d be as popular as any sport in the US.
Rugby, especially international rugby, is quite a game to watch. Lacrosse is just as exciting as hurling.
But what is called ‘the beautiful game’, football/soccer, is indeed beautiful if played right. But since it tends to be low scoring, not a lot of Americans watch it. Plus the level of play in the States still needs working on. But it is a free flowing game, arguably more than others, and while a team sport, it can lend itself to individual brilliance.
I tried my hand at the game professionally in the States and in Europe at the age of 26 – when most professional players sign apprenticeships by the age of 16. After a number of years trying, it didn’t work out, much to the loss of my climbing. In hindsight, I should have spent the 1980s climbing. Oh well, c’est la vie.
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Hootervillian
climber
Rob Field, OB
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Oct 27, 2005 - 10:03am PT
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..."Plus the level of play in the States still needs working on..."
Ven aqui, huero...
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Oct 27, 2005 - 11:03am PT
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Not really on the ball sports topic Dingus, but in his tome for actors, True and False, David Mamet says that acting teachers and coaches are the worst thing for thespians.
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Landgolier
climber
the flatness
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Oct 27, 2005 - 11:24am PT
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Baseball is like chess; there are only so many moves, and you are constantly weighing the probabilities of the other side's various actions. Like chess, there is often a long wait and a whole lot of routine play before anything interesting happens, but for the patient the moments of drama are transcendent. I actually got a lot better at racquet sports (mainly squash and racquetball, never got very good at tennis) once I began to think of serving as being like pitching. You have a certain number of tricks up your sleeve, and you prevail through a combination of perfect execution, subversion of your opponent's expectations, and luck.
I have no doubt that if you erased the concept of soccer from the human mind, taught us the rules again, and turned us loose at it without the burden of knowing "how the game is played," you would see an exciting, merciless, and brilliantly athletic sport develop. The average scoring total would be about 20 rather than 2, and it would be like watching a napoleonic campaign rather than a cold war where everything is in complete balance and stasis at all times, and nothing happens unless one side screws up. I think everyone who finds soccer frustrating to watch senses this intuitively.
Americans have an advantage here, as we grow up watching players put a 9" ball through an 18" hole hung 10 feet off the ground almost 100 times in less than an hour, so something just strikes us as wrong when people can't figure out how to put a lighter ball through a hole the size of a barn door more than a couple times in an hour and a half, even if you are stuck using your feet. People play volleyball with their feet, for chrissakes. But "everyone knows" that soccer consists of farting around in the middle two quarters of the field for hours on end trying to maintain ball control, field position, and defensive impenetrability and waiting for an opportunity to open up, and that's how the game is played. Meanwhile the fans get to cheer for "brilliant play" rather than anything that is going to matter in 2 minutes when everything is scrambled again.
It's like pre-shot clock basketball, which consisted of throwing the ball around until something opened up. Enter the shot clock, and all of a sudden people figure out, hey, wait a second, what if instead of hucking it around and looking for tiny opportunities, what if we just drove the damn lane and MADE some opportunities? I'm not saying soccer needs a shot clock, just that it would benefit from the kind of thinking that it forced on basketball. Put a team playing pre-shot clock ball against a 90's type team and let them play without a shot clock, and I guarantee the guys who know how to take it to the hole and see that as objective #1 would obliterate the guys whose strategy is based on defensive stasis. Same for soccer. Start with the proposition that we have 90 minutes out there to score as many goals as possible without the other team scoring more, and you will steamroller teams whose strategy is to maintain an unflagging defense and have an offense that can exploit the other team's defensive failures.
Defense in soccer has been refined to a transcendent art, and if you like watching that kind of subtle stasis it is a beautiful thing. Offense, however, is light years behind, and it's time for somebody to reconceptualize the game and take offense to that same level. And yes, I know of what I speak. I played soccer for years, often with europeans and in a european style, I watch world cup when I can get up enough of a crowd to make it fun, and I was in france a few days after the world cup '98 victory.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Ca
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Oct 27, 2005 - 11:41am PT
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I don't think it is the sport(s) that we actually despise, it is sitting on your ass watching the sport(s) that we despise. In that the only way to get excited about a ball game is to be intimate and connected to a team, and the only way to get that way is to sit and watch ALL the time, we despise those that are watchers rather than doers like ourselves.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 27, 2005 - 11:42am PT
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DMT: a fat, 40-something bald assed loser
Will you leave me outta this, please?
I don't have time for this. I have to sort gear now, getting ready to back off ANOTHER Josh 5.4. I swear, some day I will be able to do the crux on Penelope's Walk. No fooling.
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Hootervillian
climber
Rob Field, OB
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Oct 27, 2005 - 11:50am PT
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"Put a team playing pre-shot clock ball against a 90's type team and let them play without a shot clock, and I guarantee the guys who know how to take it to the hole and see that as objective #1 would obliterate the guys whose strategy is based on defensive stasis."
Yeah..., those take it to the 'holers' showed those spread and shooters at the olympics.
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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Oct 27, 2005 - 12:00pm PT
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Langolier: I'm sorry, the fact that you have played football, or soccer as you call it, for some years with europeans and all, doesn't make you an authority on the matter.
If you would have been BORN in any other part of the western world outside the States (namely Europe or Latin America) you would have grown up as a child kicking this ball around, almost at the same time you started walking, then your views would probably be completely different.
Football (yes, i mean soccer) is for sure the real WORLD'S SPORT, and I laugh at what we call "world series", when we just play each other!!! ....lol
Not to diss baseball (which after years of being in this country i've learned to love and be passionate about), but things like what we call here football, bunch of guys running around in armors, makes no sense to me. Ok, i'll watch the superbowl for the beer/friends/chips, and so on, but please, take all the padding away, and we might actually have something going here!!! I might even go to the stadium!!!
Cheers,
darod.
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