“Have you gone mad,” inquired the shirtless man with the tank-top tan. “Do you have an ounce of shame?”
Brother, I stopped caring a long, long time ago. Hand me my double mint juleps and let me gamble ridiculous amounts of money, for the love of god, this is Kentucky Derby weekend, and I’m fed up with the preaching of the masses. You claim that the seedy underbelly of sports has been tarnished with fat goons and dandruff-covered mullets. You seem to have a problem with Don King, the sport of kings and king Richard Petty? You say that time has passed, we’ve changed, and our Darwinian culture has discarded the meek and lowbrow?
Take a long, hard look into the mirror, brother, and while you’re at it, throw me my autographed Sterling Marlin hat with the Winston logo. It’s time for a little introspection folks — time to get back to our roots. All this flag waving and surge of misplaced jingoism has given us that small inkling of hope that we really value class in our sports as much as we value our other entertainment. It is with a rousing “hell no” that we crudely moon this ideal and pay the kid at the box office another $7.50 to see “The Scorpion King.”
We’re Americans, and no matter how many detailed scouting reports we read and Frank DeFord pieces we ingest, we still want to get ripped to retardation on Saturday afternoon, play our parlays, leer at the cheerleaders and see gosh darn blood.
Don’t cower at the thought; it’s only natural. Accept the shortcomings and revel in them. For the love of our wrangler roots, it’s OK to be keen on auto racing. Heck, we’ve all got a little gasoline running through our veins, no matter if you’ve got the S Class with the CD changer in the trunk or the Camero with a urinating Calvin on the windshield. The inherent adrenaline that comes when shifting into 5th gear with a whooping “yee-haw” is as American as spending $50 at the pump and eating deep-fat fried cheese curds. It’s not provincial either; there are just as many auto-racing fans in New York and Illinois as there are in North Carolina and Tennessee. If sitting in the sun with a cold Pabst, a hawk of Skoal and 100,000 other fun-seekers watching high speed machines filled with guys whose macho fear of death rivals that of the knife-wheel freak at the carnival is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Heck, you’re the same person that says horse racing is as dead as a doorknob. Sure, the majority of the betting patrons are card-carrying members of the AARP who wear golf hats, brassy gold chains, and are always chewing on a stogie. But who in their right mind would sit in the mini-boxes for a Triple Crown race when you could be down on the infield with people so incoherent they belong in the loony bin and can barely stand up straight when slurring the name of the winning pony? You can’t tell me anything more stars and stripes than a large group of intoxicants who will wager a bet that the sun won’t come up just to add a little excitement into their lives.
Well, actually yes I can; it’s the sweet science. Regrettably the biggest bout of the year so far involved two women on the Fox network who could take lessons in class from the neighborhood lap-dancer, but that’s beside the point. No matter how much Don King extorts, no matter how crazy Mike Tyson is or how much of a soft pansy Oscar De La Hoya wants you to think he is, you and the rest of the mindless will empty your coffers and pay the $49.95. Fight night is the greatest spectacle of seediness, garishness and unabashed thuggery that puts a fire in all our bellies. Brother, you’d be hard pressed to find a more flammable situation than 15 salt of the earth types, a couple bottles of some high-octane sauce and a fight that lasts longer than four rounds, and the boys in blue will certainly be paying a visit and breaking out the plastic cuffs.
You can have your high and mighty sports; I’ll take one for the everyman. Sure, brother, wear your lame pink golf shirt, visor and boat shoes without the socks. Have a blast doing your extreme snowboarding and skydiving or whatever sport Mountain Dew thinks the cool kids are doing.
I’ll be placing a bet on the 5th race, a third round knockout, and be impatiently waiting for a fire-filled three-car collision.
