02-19-2023, 05:30 AM
Sports tend to go from spectacle to civic ritual in a 4T. Of course much of the nagging quality of this 4T is our collective inability to abandon spectacle for civic virtue.
One suggestion would be for small cities to take pride in minor-league teams. Figure that these teams are in operation only from April to early September and that there are far more players capable of playing AAA than AA ball. Comparatively few minor-league players are shooting their way through the minors... well, that is the business. Some people play AAA ball for a few years because they somehow fall short of the majors. Maybe their fastball isn't fast enough, they have only one pitch, they are too slow to play an outfield position, or they have big gaping holes in their swing. But they can be good players by AAA standards if they would be goats at major-league play. Pay them well enough and they will stick around.
I can say much the same thing about theater troupes and symphony orchestras.
One suggestion would be for small cities to take pride in minor-league teams. Figure that these teams are in operation only from April to early September and that there are far more players capable of playing AAA than AA ball. Comparatively few minor-league players are shooting their way through the minors... well, that is the business. Some people play AAA ball for a few years because they somehow fall short of the majors. Maybe their fastball isn't fast enough, they have only one pitch, they are too slow to play an outfield position, or they have big gaping holes in their swing. But they can be good players by AAA standards if they would be goats at major-league play. Pay them well enough and they will stick around.
I can say much the same thing about theater troupes and symphony orchestras.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.