By Kenneth Kowald
For many years, I used to say I had two forms of exercise: walking and jumping to conclusions.
As the years have passed, I have done much less of the former — I used to walk from Union Square to Lincoln Center or Times Square to meet Elaine for dinner and an opera, a concert or play — and much more of the latter, although even that is going by the boards in some instances.
In my young days in Borough Park, Brooklyn, I played a lot of stickball. There were not so many cars on our street, so we could play for quite awhile. We did not live near a playground, but we could play Chinese handball against the wall of a local building.
When we moved to Elmhurst, I played many games of softball on Nassau Heights, now the site of the Long Island Expressway. Stickball was out of the question on 57th Avenue, a shortcut between Queens Boulevard and Grand Avenue in Maspeth. At Newtown field, I played handball and some softball.
I have played golf twice in my life, both times in the same week when my friend Bill Butler — later editor of the Bayside Times — and I went upstate for a week.
I have enjoyed watching tennis, but that was long ago at the West Side Tennis Club, when an aura of sportsmanship was observed. If the patrons were even a bit loud, the match was stopped.
I always loved baseball and my father, a die-hard New York Giants fan, taught me a lot about the game. He and I enjoyed those days at the Polo Grounds. I like the New York Mets, but root for them and the Yankees, because I would like to have a New York champion.
My interest in basketball waned after the great teams at my alma mater, City College, were found to be corrupt. I find the game today to be the essence of “entertainment” and not sport — with the salaries to match. Much too physical, too.
I feel the same way about ice hockey. Soccer is something I’ve never taken to. I think I could be happy watching a cricket match in Queens these days.
My interest in football was in evidence in my graduate years at Columbia University. A Saturday afternoon at Baker Field was a delight. It made no difference that Columbia was not a winner. The sport was all. The ambience of the stadium, overlooking the Hudson River, was great.
I find professional football and much of college football to be a business, not a sport.
In too many cases, universities build huge stadiums to make money. Players are recruited to make the plays that patrons want to see. Their academic standing frequently takes a back seat to their “sporting” prowess. Their futures are of no regard. The idea is to play and make money.
Is this what a university is all about? Are physical and mental damages to professional players and others of no concern to the institutions and businesses that run them?
Do we try to protect our children from early on about possible damages? Do we care if they understand that sport is not about winning but playing?
It may be time, given the scandals and near-scandals that seem to pop up with regularity in the world of sports, to take a hard look at what sports are doing not only to our children but to the adults who seem to cheer them on with only one objective: win.
Consider this: Of the 447,000 sports-related head injuries treated in emergency rooms in 2009, football accounted for 47,000 and baseball for 38,394, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
You do not have to look far to see this. Check a local emergency room sometime after a rough game.
Sorry, Vince Lombardi fans, winning is not the only thing. Playing the game for enjoyment is the only thing, unless we want to end the charade which seems to rule sports in our lives and call it what is: big business.
The choice is overdue everywhere for every age and in every place.
Read my blog No Holds Barred at timesledger.com.
