Saturday, August 14, 2004

Olympics

I won't be watching much of the Olympics, but of course, I'll be rooting for the good ol' USA. The other day, I realized that rooting for the USA is like rooting for the Yankees. Do the Yankees have more resources than the other baseball teams? Do they win often because they can spend more? You bet. So does the United States!

Therefore, since rooting for the Yankees in baseball is like rooting for USA in the Olympics, then it is actually unamerican to not root for the Yankees (especially if you're for the Reds or Red Sox!!)

So root for the Yankees. Otherwise you're rooting against America.

Stupid hippies.
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3 comments:

PJ said...

Whoa whoa whoa! What's wrong with the Reds? Why you gotta be hatin' on the 'Nati? You no likee Aaron Boone?

Not sure if I see your Olympic analogy...does the US government provide lots of money to Olympic athletes to help them train for the games? Don't the individual athletes fund their own training, often at great cost to their personal finances? Or are you saying that because Americans are wealthier, the population has more resources to breed better athletes and can afford to fund themselves? (These aren't rhetorical questions--I really don't know what resources are used to make Team USA so "good").

Does America use their enormous resources to get the best foreign athletes to come join Team USA? I guess I'm a little unclear on how Team USA is really like the Yankees.

8/16/2004 03:30:00 PM
Blogman said...

Reds - their name implies communism. That's all I'm saying.

First of all, tons of US corporate money helps to support all the Olympic teams and facilities. Perhaps the individual athletes may need to invest a lot in training, however once they make it to the team, I'm sure the facilities and technology are quite good compared to the rest of the world. A lot of corporate money helps the Yankees too, from box seats or television revenue.

The winter olympics are a better example of how the money can really equalize the playing field for the USA. Medal totals for the USA are going up and up, because we can afford to develop better training facilities and opportunities for our teams.

Team USA will have a ton of medals, partly because we can send more people to compete, and partly because we have some of the better athletes due to facilities. While we may not have foreigners on the teams, did you ever notice that some of the best coaches are from other nations too? I have no problem with this, mind you, but no that's not much different from the Yankees.

In the end, the Yankees are America - he who earns the most money wins.

8/16/2004 08:57:00 PM
PJ said...

First off, Yankees suck.

I understand how money helps American athletes win gold medals, but I'm still not sure the analogy holds. But whatever, I'll concede the point.

The conclusion's a little flawed, though my read is that you wrote it with tongue in cheek. In the end, we root for America, because it's our country, not because we happen to have the most money, and not because we win all the time. Do Canadians and Mexicans root for Team USA? Does a little kid in South Africa have Team USA paraphernelia in his room? I'll go out on a limb here and say...probably not.

I don't fault New Yorkers for rooting for the hated Yankees (though Mets fans might). But to say you should root for the Yankees because you root for America...uuhhh....

A more fitting conclusion would be that if you dislike the Yankees because they spend a lot of money to win, then you should also dislike America for their increased emphasis on corporate sponsorship of the Olympic team...which I do.

8/18/2004 07:55:00 PM

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