(TPJ 179)

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – February 14, 2008

This space has been filled with some pretty heavy stuff over the last several weeks.  In politics, unless something totally unforeseeable happens (like his age suddenly catches up with him in way or another, and by the way, he and I are the same age so I am not wishing anything untoward upon him) John McCain has the Republican nomination locked up.  Next week I’ll be dealing a bit with “Gentleman Johnny McCain,” and how whoever the Democratic Candidate is could go about beating him in the general election.  If it’s Hillary she probably wouldn’t follow my advice, because Mark Penn (see “Hillary’s List by Michael Carmichael, The Planetary Movement, Feb. 5, 2008, http://www.planetarymovement.org/2008/02/05/hillarys-list/#more-521) wouldn’t let her.  Obama might take off the gloves, and let’s hope that if he is the nominee he will.  For if he doesn’t he will lose too, no matter how much “Hope” he projects.  But you will forgive me if in this column I don’t do my favorite subject, politics (at least until the very end of the column).  I want instead to talk with you about the Super Bowl and what it means, and does not mean, for our beloved country. 

I am a long-time fan of the New York Football Giants.  When after the game one of the team’s owners, Steve Tisch, said on TV that this win was for all of the Giants’ fans who have been with the team for its 30 years at Giants Stadium (in New Jersey, although happily for me the team is still called the New York Giants), and before that at Yankee Stadium, and before that at the Polo Grounds, he was referring to me.  (He did forget the two years that the team actually played at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, back in 1974-75.)  I saw my first Giants’ game at the old Polo Grounds on Upper Manhattan. 

When its primary tenant, baseball’s New York Giants, fled to the West Coast along with the Brooklyn Dodgers after that 1957, the glorious old stadium, the oddest shape of a place that baseball was ever played in, was torn down.  Since the 1960s the site has been devoted to public housing.  I saw many a baseball game at that stadium and it was the site of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” Bobby Thomson’s dramatic ninth inning homerun that won the 1951 National League Pennant for the Giants over the Dodgers.  (I did not see the game live, but I did hear the Giants’ broadcaster Russ Hodges’ famous call over the radio, as the event occurred: “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant, oh my golly, they’re going crazy --- the Giants’ win the pennant.”)  And I did see my first professional football game there too, against the original Cleveland Browns, coached by Paul Brown and quarterbacked by the legendary Otto Graham, in either 1950 or 1951. 

So the Big Game on February 3, 2008 was a big game for me.  As many of you know, the Giants’ opponent, the New England Patriots, were riding an 18 game winning streak and were heavily favored to win this game too.  If they did, they would become the first pro football team ever to go 19 and 0, surpassing the 17 and 0 Miami Dolphins of 1972.  However, being a long-time sports fan I knew that they play the game, rather than just throwing their jerseys out on the field, for a reason.  Based on the Giants’ performance in the first three games of the National Football League playoffs before the Super Bowl, their performance against the same opponent, the New England Patriots in the last game of the regular season, and their greatest strength as a team, their pass-rush defense that could possibly get to the great quarterback of the Pats, Tom Brady, I felt that they had a legitimate chance to win.  Few others, other than us so-called “die-hard” Giants’ fans did.  But “we,” as fans refer to their teams for no apparent logical reason, in this case the Giants, did do just that. 

One of my closest friends, both personally and politically, is a total non-sports fan.  Nevertheless, when he and his wife were invited to a “Super Bowl party” with some good friends of theirs in the part of the country in which they live, they went.  My friend dutifully rooted for the Giants.  (I don’t know for whom his wife rooted; she’s from New England.)  After the game, he sent me the following comment: 

“Well, I guess even I was almost excited by that last few seconds finish and the Giant win.  Just how technically perfect the game was, that's for others to say.  But there were only a few Patriot fans at the dinner and game-watch we attended.  What did irk/anger me was the horrendous violence and ugliness of the ads --- absolutely horrendous --- this is America?”  I sent him the following reply (edited and expanded for this writing). 

Thanks so much. The win was, and still is, very exciting for those of us who are fans.  There are some of us who can put it in context, of what's happening in our country and the world, and I count myself fortunate to be among them. For a fan it is still fun to be able to celebrate a win, and a most improbable one.  Knowing something about sports history and what events are remembered and talked about and how, this game will very likely be talked about 100 years from now (that is if there is a civilization still left in which such things could be talked about --- there, there’s some politics).  It was exciting to have seen it live on TV.  I have been fortunate to have also witnessed or heard a few other such “miraculous” sports occurrences while they happened, such as the “Bobby Thomson home run” and the game-ending jumper sunk by the 6’6” Julius Irving (my “Dr. J.” namesake) over the outstretched arms of the 7’2” Artis Gilmore of the Kentucky Colonels that sent the New York Nets to the championship series in the old American Basketball Association, which they won in 1974.  But then reality does loom in.  What can we learn about our society? 

Football itself is described by words like “the blitz” and “the bomb.”  Perfect for John “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain.  As for the ads, my friend was right, in referring to the movie ads.  Violence is a major feature of American cinema and given the demographics of the Super Bowl viewers, it was no wonder that the movies advertised during game were as violent as they come.   Then on the subject of “excitement,” and what for many folks counts for “exciting” in our culture.  To my dismay, on the Monday morning after the game I heard on the radio voices saying that the Giants’ win was for them the most exciting event they have ever experienced in their lives, or at least the most exciting sports experience they have ever had.  This to me is a reflection of a vacant country.   

Watching “your team” win is the most exciting experience you have ever had?  Or at least the most exciting sports experience you have ever had, sitting there on the couch with food and for many (not I, for I would fall asleep no matter how exciting the game) alcohol.   I indeed felt sorry for them.  In my own life with my family, my friends, and my profession, there are many more exciting things that have happened to me.  As for sports, I’m not particularly good technically at either of my sports I do myself, triathlon and skiing.  But believe me, I have had experiences in both (close to 50 years in skiing, starting my 26^th season in triathlon), in terms of personal achievement, that outweigh in excitement anything I have ever watched.  But we have become a nation of non-participants.  That for some fans that Giants’ win was the most exciting experience in their lives speaks sad volumes about what goes, and doesn’t, go on in the rest of their lives.   

And how sad that it is this wide-ranging non-participation that feeds right into Georgitism and its relentless drive for non-participatory politics so that they can continue their drive to the establishment their dream of American Theocratic Fascism.  Now a truly happy day would be a November 5, 2008 on which a Democratic win actually showed up in the reported results, not just in the reality.  More on that anon, of course.   

All this being said, I am still going to enjoy the Giants’ win, at least until baseball season starts in less than two months (and I am hoping that with their new pitcher, Johan Santana, aboard, my team, the New York Mets, will have a better season this year than last).  But I am fortunate as well that I understand the context of that win, and its relative importance in the overall scheme of things.