Showboating in Sports, Way out of Hand!!
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by user Alanschech
The other day during the Mets v. Giants game, Lastings Milledge hit his first home run of his career in a very big spot. Afterward, he was running out to his position in right field while slapping hands with the fans down the right field line. It lead me to writing this article. The showboating is too much, and is taking away from the sport, and the beauty of it.
It happens in all sports, not just baseball. Take football, for example. How many times do we see some fat defensive lineman making a sack in the fourth quarter, and doing a big dance? It doesn't appear to matter to this fatso that his team is down 24-3 with 3 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. How many times do we see Terrell Owens showboating, for no particular reason at all except to show off his lack of professionalism? This has changed a lot even over the past 20 years or so.
Take basketball as well. Most of these thugs cannot make a layup or a free throw, but they can spin 40 times in the air and make a dunk, and then trash talk in everyone's face. Aren't players supposed to be role models? Children look up to these people, and the examples that they set these days don't even rise to the level of atrocious.
The media is a big portion of the blame for this. Turn on SportsCenter any day of the week. What are the features? Not big team accomplishments, but the longest homerun, the biggest dunk, the guys that stir up the controversy. Does David Wright, for example, lead off the teaser of Sportscenter with one of his walk off hits? No. Terrell Owens does, saying something stupid. We are already used to him doing this, why do we need to feature it? It gets ratings, that's why. Individual accomplishments get ratings, not team goals.
We need to focus more on the team goals rather than the individuals. Then maybe the games will clean up, and we will actually be able to stomach the attitudes of today's athletes.
Date
Tue 06/06/06, 8:10 pm EST
