Destroy sports, destroy America

I touched a nerve with readers on Saturday by stating why I just don't care about the Olympics. Many readers don't. Not this year. Not after watching athletes kneel, disrespect the flag, the national anthem, and otherwise insult the nation itself.

The protests were staged not to get police action but to destroy sports, which have the power to bring communities together. The Kaepernickies wanted to shed conservative fans.

Watching on TV a million people parade through Cleveland after the Cavaliers won the city's first major league championship in any sport in 52 years was inspirational. In other cities, hooligans use such victories as an excuse to riot in celebration. Not Cleveland.

Since then, LeBron James left town again, the Browns kneeled, and the Indians are becoming the Guardians.

I remember staying up late at night following an Indians game by watching the scrolls on CNN. When the score showed that the Indians had won the game on a grand slam by Albert Belle. I flipped to ESPN and sure enough, he did.

Sports brought my family together. I have nice memories of taking my youngest son and my daughter and son-in-law to a couple of Browns games in the last year of my son's life. I thought I was making good memories for him for when I died. Man plans, and God laughs.

My son is with me when I watch the Browns.

But the plan is to break that bond. Bringing people together no longer is the aim of our sports celebrities. They want to divide so we can be conquered.

John Hinderaker wrote, "Time to Convert to Soccer?"

He began his column, "A lifelong baseball fan, I abandoned the game this year after MLB sided with the Democratic Party in its campaign against ballot integrity in Georgia. It wasn’t just that: my home town team has put a Black Lives Matter sign and a memorial to George Floyd in right field. If I can’t escape politics at a baseball game, I’d rather go somewhere else. For the first time in decades, I haven’t seen a major league baseball game this year. Not only that, I haven’t watched or listened to a single pitch on radio or television."

Hinderaker wanted to escape politics. They won't let him.

Escaping to soccer is like an inmate digging a tunnel to solitary confinement. No thank you. Soccer is long and boring. Plus it has that purple-haired lesbian's team. The women players are impolite, obnoxious, and the antithesis of the old sport ethic of humility and respect for others. I don't care what their politics are. You do not mock the British sipping tea at the London Olympics.

But woke is rude because woke is selfish.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Arthur Ashe? Margaret Court? The athlete who is as graceful off the field as he is on the field is gone. 

To be sure, no one ever accused Muhammad Ali of being humble. 

But he had a sense of humor.

I don't believe Ali took himself as seriously as his critics did.

Today's sports figures take themselves more serious than a heart attack. I include the whole sports media. 

Simone Biles may be the only Olympian to get the big endorsement bucks after this Olympics is over because she remains unspoiled by fame. Maybe she will do something foolish and spoil that.

Too many of the rest of the athlete celebrities already fouled their nests.

I wonder if they realize they are killing their industry. I wonder if they realize they are on the path to becoming thousandaires again. I wonder if they realize how little we need them.

The goal of those who promote this politicization of sports is to ruin yet another part of the American tapestry. Sports once unified us. In unity there is strength, which is why the left promotes what it calls diversity.