Happy Day after the 4^th to all. I hope you all had a great 4^th and had your own little piece of Americana .

We all know this video and we all know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat but there is a line in that intro that got me thinking.  Jim McKay says “ The Human Drama of Athletic Competition” is the line that stands out in my mind. Have we lost this do to technology? Have we become so advanced with apps and replays and stats have we lost the very reason why we watch or got to the games?  That reason is the Human Drama of Athletic Competition meaning we want to see the next Babe Ruth we want to see the next David Tyree catch, We watch sports because you just never know what is going to happen. Human error can decide the next champion. Human excellence can decide that next superstar.

Has athletic ability been lost   in the world of technology? At times it seems the game itself is secondary to the presentation, the apps and the stats. Of course they have to play the game to achieve the stats. We have developed players that are taught to show no emotion and we they do we in the blogasphere and the main stream media seem to read way too much into. We won’t see any Jim Mora outburst post games it has become to scripted and the emotion is gone for an interview. Sometimes these guys express something on a tweet and that gets lost because we can’t see if they are really as stupid as some of the tweets. If they are just sparking a reaction to see who runs with it. If  they are just releasing emotion. We just don’t know.

The NFL complained this week that overall stadium attendenace is down 4% since 2007. One of the factors they  contribute for the decline is one of there own products the Red Zone. The game has become such a television event with the cleaity of High Definition it becomes a major hassle to actually go to the game. As an NFL season ticket holder basically I don’t get the 4 O’clock game because by the time I leave the stadium and get home the game is close to being over. However , I can’t imagine these guys playing and an empty stadium either. Football is a game of emotion as are the other sports playing in empty stadium  just doesn’t get the emotions flowing for some  players ask guys in cities that don’t draw in any sport.

Often times when a new player comes to Boston they often don’t believe the intensity of the crowds especially at Fenway. The patriots bang the stadium out weekly but sometimes and players have said this for whatever reason the crowd doesn’t bring a huge energy with a good team . the point being the crowd has an effect on the player and that is part of the human excellence.

A few missed calls in a baseball game and everybody wants to replace the umpires the fact is they are right somewhere around 97% of the time that other 3% usually won’t have a bearing on a ball game. Yeah every once in a while a blown call by umpire will cost a team a game. But that happens less than a poor managerial decision or a bad performance by a key player in a must produce situation. The game of baseball is designed for failure umpires like players and managers have good days and bad. We don’t hear about it but the league office comes down hard on these guys as they should for sloppy mistakes, It is also the human part of the game . Instead of having every pitch be a strike in a perfect strike x zone. I think I like having a book on a particular umpire it helps both the hitter on the pitcher. Maybe it helps the pitch that he calls the low strike on the outside corner or just a little outside. Perhaps he never calls the inside strike to help the hitter.  I think consistency is key call it the same for both teams and they won’t be an issue. A missed call and expanded strike zone is all the human part of the game.

I ask you once a gain is the Human Drama of Athletic Competition disappearing?