Oh, the joys of press box life...
I actually already posted today (so this would be my second post in about half an hour, let alone a single day), and the gravity of the previous post was such that I'm going to delay this one for the time being. I simply don't want to forget any of the things I'm thinking about right now, because they are actually pretty reasonable for blog content.
The past couple weeks I've worked at four total basketball games as a member of the Sports Information department at RPI (I'm a workstudy there, for those who don't know this already). My prior game experiences included soccer, field hockey, ice hockey, and football, but basketball was new for me. Obviously I've watched basketball games before; it is a sad individual who has never seen a basketball game, let me tell you. Ever since working this particular job, though, I take sports a lot more analytically, as more of a defined art than just an object of entertainment. As a result, my appreciation for football has been greatly broadened, and for soccer greatly shallowed. For the record, I never liked soccer, but taken analytically it becomes all too painfully apparent that the skills required for soccer cannot be mastered by any human. No matter how quick, agile, nimble, coordinated, or skilled any human being is, the fact remains that feet are not designed to be used to control objects such as soccer balls. This makes soccer the most painfully clumsy sport ever, impossible to control and rather uninteresting to watch. It's plenty easy to kick a ball and dislodge it from someone else's control, but unfortunately most of the other skills demanded by soccer are not so easy. As a result, soccer games consist primarily of, not surprisingly, kicking a ball and dislodging it from someone else's control. As far as football goes, my prior understanding of the game was just that eleven people from each team lined up, crashed into each other, and tried to move the ball through the wreckage some 100 yards to a touchdown. It appeared to me the most futile effort a human being can undertake. While watching football games this past fall, I discovered there are distinctive patters of behavior, strategies (including clever time-out management, which I personally think is really bush league), and methods that can get the job done with varying degrees of efficiency, depending on a multitude of factors. Naturally this makes every single play somewhat predictable but ultimately unique. It's a very cool sport to understand, I'll tell you that much.
What I was specifically thinking of (and as usual, I've gotten sidetracked) was basketball. I always accepted basketball as one of the better sports, the ones that were actually entertaining, but now basketball has been cemented in my mind as one of the top three sports (baseball, hockey, and basketball). The amazing thing is, in basketball the players manage to score astronomically higher totals than in soccer with less people in play at a given time and a significantly smaller scoring area (a basket slightly larger than the ball, as opposed to a huge goal). Why? Well, because basketball can be mastered. Hands are so much more effective devices for play than feet, which are intended to be utilized for walking or running or pushing the pedals on a car. Basketball is fast and exciting, and it makes sense. It's a good, solid sport.
What's weird, though, is how much men's basketball differs from women's. I've heard the line "it's almost like a completely different sport" very many times, but only from women. I don't really expect them to take my exact position, simply because they have a female bias. The fact is, though, it's not that it's like a different sport. It's that it's the same sport, but women aren't as good at it. I'm sorry, women, but on the whole you aren't as physically capable as men. That's just the gosh darned truth of it. Women's basketball is slower and more tentative than men's. The first RPI basketball game that I worked last weekend was a women's game, followed immediately by a men's game. I was entertained enough by the women, but I was appalled to note the difference when the men began playing. It was ridiculously fast. The ball moved around without hesitation, snapped rapidly from one player to the next. Contact between players was a necessity. The men weren't afraid to block the basket, nor were they afraid to shove past such blockages in order to make a shot. They didn't think, they moved. The reflexes were intense. This sort of thing just wasn't the case with the women. The game moved slower, the fouls were more deliberate, and it ultimately just wasn't as good. It's sort of like the difference in Little League baseball (where I have literally tons and tons of experience) between Pee Wee's and Majors. It's the same sport; the fundamentals are all the same, but the younger players just can't meet up to the same standard as the older ones.
The difference between men's and women's hockey isn't as apparent, although I've never watched them back-to-back, so I can't really say that with any kind of definite authority. The only difference I've noted is the atmosphere. People care so much more about men's hockey at RPI, and the screaming, jeering, and tormenting of the opposing team creates such a different feeling. There aren't many fans at the women's games, and I've only ever been there working in the press box, so the experience is a little different, but the overall quality of play doesn't seem to be, at least not drastically. The difference between basketball and hockey is absurd though. Today I observed how incredibly sluggish the hockey seemed to be, after having watched four basketball games. At first I thought to myself "wow, why are they so slow?" but then I realized that it was all my perception. Through the course of the game I readjusted to hockey, and it's still an awesome sport, fast-paced in its own way. I suppose it could be said that hockey is like the illegitimate love child of basketball and soccer, because it borrows a slightly awkward playing style (sticks rather than hands), the goal shape, and the goalie from soccer, but the pacing, skill level (i.e. it can be mastered for the most part), and median size of the goal come from the influence of basketball. The ice is a result of recessive traits, similar to parents of a blond, blue-eyed child who themselves have brown hair and eyes.
I sure can't wait until baseball season. Baseball is the only real sport. The orderedness of it all is just perfect. It's the only sport in which offense and defense are completely and shockingly distinct. It's the only turn-based sport, which gives it a set of properties that are fully unique. It is, in fact, the only sport in which a scorebook can be kept that actually gives a reasonable level of detail as to the course of events through the entire game, rather than who scored what goal when, and who incurred what penalty. The baseball scorebook operates on the progression of the game, inning by inning, hit by hit, pitch by pitch, while other sports produce merely a basically mishmoshed compilation of recorded scores and the like. Suffice it to say I love baseball and the scorekeeping thereof. The prospect of working in the press box for college baseball (even Division III) is pretty exciting.
I realized just now that I never write those kind of stupid one- or two-line blogs that everyone else writes that consist of "so i went 2 the mall today and bought stuff." My blogs contain substance. That excites the crap out of me. I hope everyone else enjoys my enthusiasm at this. That's all for now.
The End
The past couple weeks I've worked at four total basketball games as a member of the Sports Information department at RPI (I'm a workstudy there, for those who don't know this already). My prior game experiences included soccer, field hockey, ice hockey, and football, but basketball was new for me. Obviously I've watched basketball games before; it is a sad individual who has never seen a basketball game, let me tell you. Ever since working this particular job, though, I take sports a lot more analytically, as more of a defined art than just an object of entertainment. As a result, my appreciation for football has been greatly broadened, and for soccer greatly shallowed. For the record, I never liked soccer, but taken analytically it becomes all too painfully apparent that the skills required for soccer cannot be mastered by any human. No matter how quick, agile, nimble, coordinated, or skilled any human being is, the fact remains that feet are not designed to be used to control objects such as soccer balls. This makes soccer the most painfully clumsy sport ever, impossible to control and rather uninteresting to watch. It's plenty easy to kick a ball and dislodge it from someone else's control, but unfortunately most of the other skills demanded by soccer are not so easy. As a result, soccer games consist primarily of, not surprisingly, kicking a ball and dislodging it from someone else's control. As far as football goes, my prior understanding of the game was just that eleven people from each team lined up, crashed into each other, and tried to move the ball through the wreckage some 100 yards to a touchdown. It appeared to me the most futile effort a human being can undertake. While watching football games this past fall, I discovered there are distinctive patters of behavior, strategies (including clever time-out management, which I personally think is really bush league), and methods that can get the job done with varying degrees of efficiency, depending on a multitude of factors. Naturally this makes every single play somewhat predictable but ultimately unique. It's a very cool sport to understand, I'll tell you that much.
What I was specifically thinking of (and as usual, I've gotten sidetracked) was basketball. I always accepted basketball as one of the better sports, the ones that were actually entertaining, but now basketball has been cemented in my mind as one of the top three sports (baseball, hockey, and basketball). The amazing thing is, in basketball the players manage to score astronomically higher totals than in soccer with less people in play at a given time and a significantly smaller scoring area (a basket slightly larger than the ball, as opposed to a huge goal). Why? Well, because basketball can be mastered. Hands are so much more effective devices for play than feet, which are intended to be utilized for walking or running or pushing the pedals on a car. Basketball is fast and exciting, and it makes sense. It's a good, solid sport.
What's weird, though, is how much men's basketball differs from women's. I've heard the line "it's almost like a completely different sport" very many times, but only from women. I don't really expect them to take my exact position, simply because they have a female bias. The fact is, though, it's not that it's like a different sport. It's that it's the same sport, but women aren't as good at it. I'm sorry, women, but on the whole you aren't as physically capable as men. That's just the gosh darned truth of it. Women's basketball is slower and more tentative than men's. The first RPI basketball game that I worked last weekend was a women's game, followed immediately by a men's game. I was entertained enough by the women, but I was appalled to note the difference when the men began playing. It was ridiculously fast. The ball moved around without hesitation, snapped rapidly from one player to the next. Contact between players was a necessity. The men weren't afraid to block the basket, nor were they afraid to shove past such blockages in order to make a shot. They didn't think, they moved. The reflexes were intense. This sort of thing just wasn't the case with the women. The game moved slower, the fouls were more deliberate, and it ultimately just wasn't as good. It's sort of like the difference in Little League baseball (where I have literally tons and tons of experience) between Pee Wee's and Majors. It's the same sport; the fundamentals are all the same, but the younger players just can't meet up to the same standard as the older ones.
The difference between men's and women's hockey isn't as apparent, although I've never watched them back-to-back, so I can't really say that with any kind of definite authority. The only difference I've noted is the atmosphere. People care so much more about men's hockey at RPI, and the screaming, jeering, and tormenting of the opposing team creates such a different feeling. There aren't many fans at the women's games, and I've only ever been there working in the press box, so the experience is a little different, but the overall quality of play doesn't seem to be, at least not drastically. The difference between basketball and hockey is absurd though. Today I observed how incredibly sluggish the hockey seemed to be, after having watched four basketball games. At first I thought to myself "wow, why are they so slow?" but then I realized that it was all my perception. Through the course of the game I readjusted to hockey, and it's still an awesome sport, fast-paced in its own way. I suppose it could be said that hockey is like the illegitimate love child of basketball and soccer, because it borrows a slightly awkward playing style (sticks rather than hands), the goal shape, and the goalie from soccer, but the pacing, skill level (i.e. it can be mastered for the most part), and median size of the goal come from the influence of basketball. The ice is a result of recessive traits, similar to parents of a blond, blue-eyed child who themselves have brown hair and eyes.
I sure can't wait until baseball season. Baseball is the only real sport. The orderedness of it all is just perfect. It's the only sport in which offense and defense are completely and shockingly distinct. It's the only turn-based sport, which gives it a set of properties that are fully unique. It is, in fact, the only sport in which a scorebook can be kept that actually gives a reasonable level of detail as to the course of events through the entire game, rather than who scored what goal when, and who incurred what penalty. The baseball scorebook operates on the progression of the game, inning by inning, hit by hit, pitch by pitch, while other sports produce merely a basically mishmoshed compilation of recorded scores and the like. Suffice it to say I love baseball and the scorekeeping thereof. The prospect of working in the press box for college baseball (even Division III) is pretty exciting.
I realized just now that I never write those kind of stupid one- or two-line blogs that everyone else writes that consist of "so i went 2 the mall today and bought stuff." My blogs contain substance. That excites the crap out of me. I hope everyone else enjoys my enthusiasm at this. That's all for now.
The End
posted by The Chris at 9:36 PM
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