I Need A New Sport

My father used to say that Rodeo was the only sport. That no one was tougher than a Cowboy. He himself used to “bulldog” back in his day. Though those days were short lived after having seen a man have his head stomped in and spend the rest of his days talking to himself. Dear old Dad wore cowboy boots, snap button shirts and had a license plate that read RODEO: Everything Else Is Just A Game!

I have to say that with all that is going on in the seemingly unwatchable professional sports world that I must agree. Parity in football sucks. The last ten Superbowl champs just do not measure up to those before them. Baseball is a mockery now. The commissioner is coward. The players union is run by a s group of arrogant jackasses empowered by lazy good for nothing drug addict ball players. Even the government is standing on ceremony now in their day late and dollar short effort to rectify the situation. NBA basketball is a disgrace. Between what they allow on and off the court coupled with the FACT that they have a gambling problem how could anyone take it seriously? Hockey lost me when the Sabres lost to the Stars on a goal that should not have counted in a game that decided the Stanley Cup Champ. I would still rather be playing NHL Hockey on Sega. And don’t bother with any other sport. You are lucky I felt generous enough to include Hockey in the conversation. Next you will want to whine about soccer and tell me it is “so popular”. Yeah well not here in the real world United Stated where its biggest star bailed to go back over seas and play for less money. Soccer is a baby sitting service for terrible parents who do not love their kids and are afraid they might get hurt playing a real sport.

Which brings me to Rodeo. Beer drinking, tobacco chewing, jeans and denim shirt wearing men atop 1200lbs of raw power! Even the advertisements at these events are manly. You will not see advertisements (at least not yet) for weenie girlie men and their “E.D.” or hair loss. You see ads for trucks, guns, hunting, beer, sponsor tags for tobacco and even some good old fashioned down home Americana:  www.borderpatrol.gov. It is amazing. I love it. I can not get enough. I am sure one day ESPN and the advertising industry will ruin it like they have ruined every other sport worth watching. For now it really is the only thing worth watching.

The last three weeks, at work behind the bar, I have turned off both college and pro basketball, ESPN’s Sportscenter, MLB network and all three New York area hockey teams in favor of VS coverage of bull riding. At first I get “what the hell are doing?” or “Whoa, what the..” “Hey put that back”. Yet every time I put on the rodeo after the first bull comes out from the chute it gets very quiet as the entire bar is focused on the one tv that is showing the bull riding. The only noise you hear from the crowd is when a cowboy gets “throwed” from his horse. Absolutely no one is watching the other 5 tv’s that are all showing basketball, hockey etc.  And when I turn it off the whole place erupts with an emphatic “WHOAAAA, PUT IT BACK!”

Rodeo: Everything Else IS just a game.