posted 2007/07/08 at 14:40
Not that I have anything against that big hot dog eating contest in New York every fourth of July, but I had a hard enough time last week fathoming why ESPN, of all networks, would be carrying this event live at lunch-time this past Wednesday. I really couldn't figure out why nearly all the family was gathered around the living room television watching the event life. It just so happened that things timed themselves so that I had to stick down there for a couple of minutes waiting for my lunch to finish cooking, so I did watch the end of this competition. As it drew to a close and it looked like the American was going to beat the reigning Japanese champion, one of the ESPN announcers actually had the chutzpah to claim that the American's victory, if it happened, would be "the greatest moment in the history of American sports," or words to that effect. Now, I understand that sports announcers are, by nature, given to the odd bout of hyperbole, but given that I still don't understand how people can consider driving in a circle for hours on end a "sport" (I'm not saying it doesn't take skill, I'm just questioning the athletic value of motor racing), for someone to claim that an American eating more hot dogs in a given span of time than a Japanese person is somehow one of this country's greatest athletic achievements ever just completely boggles my mind.
Although I question competitive eating's worth as a "sport," I might as well turn this into a sports-related entry since I haven't done one in a while. I didn't wind up watching much of the Pistons' playoff run because I just got so busy with other things, but I think that the resurgent popularity of the Pistons in Detroit is about to take a huge hit, first with all the big names being traded away and now the spectre that the Age of Lebron has already arrived. I don't think Detroiters ever stopped loving basketball, but once Michael Jordan and the Bulls started winning championships left and right, the spirit of basketball in Detroit kind of died out there. Although the Detroit-Chicago rivalry is a bit more tangible in basketball still, the close proximity of Detroit and Cleveland means that there will always be a rivalry in all sports between the two cities; no one thought to pay it much mind in basketball until recently, though, since the Cavaliers were never that good. Now it looks like Lebron and the Cavs will take the place of Jordan and the Bulls in terms of squashing Detroiters' hopes of championships.
On the hockey front, I might have been wrong about who they'd get, but sure enough the team that knocked the Red Wings out of the playoffs yet again went on a raid of the Wings' players after the season ended. I can't say that I was ever all that attached to Schneider, and of course I never thought Bertuzzi had any business putting on the Wing Wheel, but these post-playoff talent raids that every team that knocks the Wings out of the playoffs seems to go on after the playoffs are over are the proverbial insult added on top of injury. I can only hope that with Bertuzzi gone the Red Wings will have enough sense to go out and get an enforcer-type who isn't the worst cheap-shot artist in the history of the league in order to both toughen the Wings up and to hopefully spark interest in the team again after the debacle of last year's attendance at the Joe.
FWIW, ESPN played up the hot dog eating contest with tongues lodged firmly in their cheeks for at least a week leading up to the event. I'm guessing that their live coverage continued in that vein.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon