Sporting the Zeitgeist

"But this suggests that there is some future in which the sport can return to its earlier cultural dominance—some series of decisions that will rewire the contemporary American fan’s brain to prefer its intermittent grace to football’s dynamic cruelty."  So writes Ian Crouch in the New Yorker, as MLB gets a new commissioner.  Good piece, but that sentence in particular (and I'm even more a fan of sentences than of baseball) really describes the difference : baseball's "intermittent grace" versus football's "dynamic cruelty," at least as it is played today.  This popular preference in turns says a lot about the American Zeitgeist.

Which reminds me, may as well add to this blog a link to the best basketball piece I've read in awhile, by Bill Simmons on the occasion of LeBron James returning to Cleveland, but it's about basketball genius, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird etc. as well as James.  Haven't read a better piece about basketball since one I flagged here several years ago, about Phil Jackson.  It's also by Bill Simmons.