Violence Has It's Place

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I like a little violence, in sports that is. I think most people who like sports agree. The biggest reactions from spectators usually occur after a big collision. If someone gets laid out in a football game, we all say, "Wow! Did you see that?! What a hit!". If you look at any hockey team, one of the most popular players is the so called "Goon." These guys practically have a cult following. In Boston, we love Shawn Thornton. Every team has their guy though. One of the most famous images of the Red Sox in recent years is that of Jason Varitek trying to forcibly remove Alex Rodriguez’ face with his catcher’s mitt. I love that photo. I don’t want to see guys get hurt, just hit hard. Obviously illegal acts like those of Todd Bertuzzi or Marty McSorley should never be condoned. What I’m saying is, sports just wouldn’t be as entertaining if we removed all aspects of violence. Just take a look at the NHL if you don’t believe me. It is a very different game now. You don’t see as many big checks or fights as you used to. I know most people say it doesn’t belong in the game, but the game is a lot more interesting when it is there. They say, "this opens up the game more for the pure skaters and finesse players." Oh, is that what it does? Well if I wanted to see pure skaters I would watch figure skating. Even that can have more violent contact, if Tonya Harding is involved anyway. The biggest argument against this, to me, is that fact that the greatest offensive player in history played in a physical league. Wayne Gretzky was a finesse player and he put up ridiculous numbers in a league far more physical than today. Can you imagine what it would be like if we removed all the violence from sports? Baseball would be played with a tee or a wiffle ball and wiffle ball bat to avoid any chance of injury. Hey, there would be plenty of new seats available though because the field would only be 150ft-200ft. In Hockey there wouldn’t be any checking. There would be no more players being checked over the boards or through the plexiglass. There would be no more fighting, all disagreements would be settled with the childhood standard rock, paper, scissors or maybe one potato, two potato. The slap shot would have to be eliminated. Every team would have to use one of those fabric goalies with holes cut in the corners, or maybe they would just lay the net down or turn it around because having someone stand in front of the net while guys shoot frozen rubber pucks at him would be too dangerous. Football would be played with a nerf ball and it would be two hand touch or maybe flag football. There would be no more bone crunching hits. The offensive line would be obsolete because teams would only be rushing one guy who has to count to 5 Mississippi before rushing. Without violence, Boxing wouldn’t even exist. Basketball would . . . well I guess not much would change here, you already have hardly any contact allowed in this game. Maybe we would see fewer of those devastating two minute injuries in soccer. You know, the ones where guys get carried off the field on a stretcher only to return to the field five minutes later. This must be the reason I don’t like Basketball or Soccer that much. Maybe we should increase the violence in these games. If we start having tackling in soccer, I mean real tackles not those little legs tackle things they do, people in the US would watch. As far as Basketball, maybe we should set up hockey boards around the court and allow checking. Who doesn’t want to see Ron Artest or Kobe get smashed against the plexiglass? I guess I’m just saying sports are violent by nature, and I like them that way. Let’s keep the violence out of our schools, not my sports. If you have a problem with that, then lets settle this like men. Ready? One, two, three...shoot!