Taking a pass on sports - Sports Scene

IT STARTED OUT as just quick glances at the newspaper during timeouts. Next, I was reading in between plays--and not wanting to stop once the action resumed. As impossible as it sounds, covering the National Football League had become a real drag--so I just stopped going, and simply turned over the beat to another writer smack dab in the middle of the New York Giants' first Super Bowl season. No guilt, no regrets--just a weekend burden lifted off my shoulders.

Fast-forward 14 years. I have credentials for New York Mets' home games during the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet, I skip Game 4 and, in the subsequent Subway Series--the first all-New York World Series in 44 years--I opt not to attend Game 2 at Yankee Stadium. During last season's Arizona Diamondbacks-Yanks Fall Classic, I stay home from Game 4. This year, after covering seven World Series, I'm overtaken by a been-there, done-that, it's-just-not-worth-the-effort feeling and don't even apply for credentials, despite the fact that (at the deadline for application) a Yankees-San Francisco Giants (my favorite team for 37 years, also a club that hasn't won the World Series in my lifetime) matchup was a real possibility.

Several months earlier, the University of Tennessee Volunteers, my favorite college football team, have a shot at the national championship handed to them through a series of unlikely upsets. All that's left for my Vols to reach the title game against the University of Miami is to win the Southeast Conference crown with a victory over underdog Louisiana State University. However, Tennessee blows a 10-point lead to lose in heartbreaking fashion. True, I'm disappointed, but not interested enough to have watched the game. Four hours seemed like too big an investment.

The following spring, I'm primed for the Stanley Cup playoffs, undoubtedly the best and most-exhilarating time on the athletic calendar. The quest for hockey's holy grail, at least in my estimation, is the greatest chase in all of sports. Nothing can compare; nothing comes close--not even remotely. Yet, when the four Eastern Conference clubs I'm covering--the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, and Philadelphia Flyers--all take unexpected first-round exits, it means that, for only the fourth time in the last 15 years, I won't be going to the finals. To my surprise, I'm not the least bit disheartened. I even feel ... well ... relieved. I don't have to travel (even a short distance), and can stay home with my wife and three young children. Besides, I can tape the games and fast-forward through the commercials and extraneous nonsense that inevitably clutters championship series broadcasts.

So, what's going on here? It sure sounds like our readers are now saddled with a sportswriter who doesn't like covering or even watching live sporting events anymore. That could be tree; I'm really not sure at this point--thus the soul-searching in print. My distress has not manifested itself from any single incident or complaint; it's multifold. It seems as if our society has devolved into an indelicate, me-first, profit-maximizing, in-your-face, out-of-control glut fest, all the phony blather concerning post-Sept. 11 changes notwithstanding. And sports, which used to serve as an escape from the real world, is an all-too-real reflection of it.

Take style over substance, for instance. In the ongoing battle between the baseball owners and players, it used to be easy to root for the athletes. After all, they were the ones providing the thrills on the field while the greedy executives were responsible for all that was wrong with our National Pastime. Somewhere along the way, though, the players fell into my disfavor, too, and it has nothing to do with their obscene multi-million-dollar contracts or strike threats. Today's jocks--and not just baseball players--are more interested in showing off than giving an all-out effort.

Baseball players routinely turn doubles into singles because they stand at home plate admiring what they think--or hope--is a home run, only to see the ball bounce off the wall or land on the warning track. They will not run out routine ground balls, so infielders can commit bobbles or make errant tosses that no longer result in errors. Many catchers refuse to hustle down the line to back up throws at first. Runners (if you can call them that) rarely round first or second aggressively in hopes of taking an extra base. Instead, they ease in standing. First base coaches (not third base coaches) are the first to congratulate long-ball hitters because players fall into their home run trot (or, more accurately, strut) right out of the batter's box.

Moreover, these are not the lazy antics of a select few whose teams are mired near the bottom of the standings, and so could be forgiven for an occasional misstep, so to speak. No, these are superstars in the middle of pennant races and playoff series who find it beneath them to "bust it" on every play. Is it any wonder viewers had to endure the "styling" antics and one-upsmanship behavior of the kids playing in the 2002 Little League World Series? After all, children only imitate what they see adults do on a daily basis on the ESPN highlights.