Hits, Risk and Brawls

I don’t get gymnastics. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s cool and all. Gymnasts do stuff I don’t dare dreaming of out of fear of injury. Flips in the air, flying around a bar, tricks on hanging circles? Yeah, I’ll pass on that.

I just don’t get how you could stay and watch it. Or how you could pick a winner. How can a judge determine that one move is better than the other. That’s like giving students different questions on a test.

I’m more into watching the physicality of sports. I like one-on-one matchups and brute strength. I’d rather see a pitcher versus hitter conflict that a man/woman doing flips on a map.

I want to see what happens when a defensive end matches up with a left tackle. When a wide receiver and a safety both go up for the football.

I want to see the outcome of a point guard pushing through a center for the layup or slam dunk. To see a perimeter guy slam down a shooting guard’s attempt at a trey.

I like seeing a player lit up along the boards so that the defense can grab the puck. I like seeing a goalie give all he has to stop a little black disk from entering the goal.

I’m the sports fan that likes seeing real scores happen in front of her very eyes. I want to see why a team won and not guess at how an event was scored. I don’t want to have to second guess the winner and loser.

In football, you can see when the ball crosses the goal line. In baseball, you can see a player run over homebase for the run. Or the ball fly into the stands for a homerun. In hockey you can see the puck slide into the goal. And there is nothing like the sound of a ball falling through the net in a basketball game.

So maybe, there should be an event where they throw other gymnasts through bigger rings hanging from the ceiling. Or you race across those parallel bars. Or, better yet, you race through the same routine on the bar. That would be cool. First to land wins the event. We could even install sensors, like the ones in swimming, to make sure of the outcome.

We should really look more into this…