Sports: the opiate of the masses? Especially
the masses of middle-aged, overweight, |
It doesn't matter.
I like sports regardless of the deep sociological and metaphysical implications...
And I like sports despite being a poor athlete myself.
I like recreational sports, and I especially like spectator sports.
These interests, along with my love of analysis and
the joy I get from performing, led me, inexorably, to sportscasting. From
1989 - 93, I was "Doc Palmer", Then in the summers of 1999 and 2000, I did play-by-play on CHRW-FM and for Rogers Community Television for the London Werewolves of the Frontier League, an independent minor baseball league. In August, 1999, the
London Free Press did a big feature on my broadcasting. |
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It is really fun meeting the players and
coaches, learning more about the game of baseball, and having access to so much more
information than I had when I was just a bleacher-spectator. And I love trashing clichéd
notions such as "RBIs are a good measure of a player's contribution to the team's
winning percentage." I thought my foray into the exploration of career alternatives (I was invited to apply for an announcing job with the AAA Ottawa Lynx, but declined) ended when the London Tigers left town. But then the Werewolves came to town. And who knows if or when I'll take another visit to Fantasy Island .... |
Also in the realm of baseball, for four years I ran the JAckPAC on the internet: the Jim Acker Pitch-Alike Contest. It involved predicting which pitcher would give up the most home runs per 9 innings pitched, and still get at least 80 innings pitched at the major-league level during the season.
Speaking of pitchers, my cousin's son, Jared Moon, was a Spring '97 high draft pick pitcher for the Dodgers. He pitched for the Yakima Bears in 1997 and the Great Falls Dodgers in 1998. His 1998 season wasn't particularly good, because he had developed a serious shoulder injury near the end of that season and which kept him out of action for the entire 1999 season. But before his injury, his fastball was in the upper 80s, which is pretty good for a 19-year old. Unfortunately, his shoulder never really healed to the point that he was able to pitch again professionally; fortunately, part of his signing bonus involved massive amounts for a scholarship to attend university. |
"But what about other
sports?"
you might ask (if you have masochistic tendencies).
I like sports analysis so much, I started a course on the Economics of Sports at UWO in 1995, and in the fall of 1997 I appeared on CBC's Face-Off to debate the pros and cons of local funding for professional sports facilities [I was con]. In December, 1999, I wrote a huge piece entitled "Owners Deke the Taxpayers" for the forum section of the London Free Press criticizing federal subsidies for professional sports teams. And in 2001 I did a piece for the C.D.Howe Institute about the impact of sports and culture on local finances. |
August 11, 2001