{"id":1803,"date":"2015-06-19T01:31:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T01:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattralston.net\/?p=1803"},"modified":"2015-06-22T21:12:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T21:12:04","slug":"an-open-letter-to-bros-about-watching-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/politics\/an-open-letter-to-bros-about-watching-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter To Bros About Watching Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GUY\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My Fellow Bros,<\/p>\n

It’s time to stop taking sports so\u00a0seriously. Sports are supposed to be a diversion. Entertainment. Supplementary.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0shouldn’t\u00a0occupy the majority of your knowledge, passion, and interest in life. A true bro\u00a0should be well versed in the fields of cinema, literature, science, politics, fitness, and leisure activities such as sporting events and gaming.<\/p>\n

You’re not supposed to know who the catcher of the Mets is and not the Secretary of State. Don’t watch\u00a0two pompous idiots on First Take bicker every morning as if they’re talking about anything meaningful. Nobody knows who’s going to win, and we all know who won.\u00a0Stop making ESPN your white noise.<\/p>\n

You’re a bro. Watch the news. Find something that\u00a0catches your eye and show up to work incensed about it after doing minimal research. Like a bro.<\/p>\n

“Did you guys know some of these Chipotle locations are under reporting the calorie content on their menus? I’ve been reading about it all morning.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sports aren’t significant on a world scale. There are wars going on. Disease.\u00a0Economic instability. The changing of regimes. The fight for Democracy.<\/p>\n

As the Golden State Warriors were about to clinch the NBA Championship, Mark Jackson uttered that they were:<\/p>\n

“Going down in the history books as the 2015 Champs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In The History Books? Which one? How big is that book that this would possibly make the cut? Be honest bro, do you even know who won the Championship three years ago?<\/p>\n

It’s not that important.<\/p>\n

Contrary to popular belief, none of this will be going down in the history books.<\/p>\n

They’ll have to edit out who won the Stanley Cup next year to cover\u00a0events like the invention of\u00a0a zero emissions fuel source or\u00a0how Monsanto killed off three quarters of the world population.<\/p>\n

There are things happening\u00a0directly related to your life right now bro. Why is your\u00a0cost of living increasing and your paycheck is the same? Where are these firetrucks constantly going with their sirens blaring\u00a0when there hasn’t been a fire in your\u00a0town since the Great Earthquake of 1967?<\/p>\n

Your mom used to tell you to do your homework before you could watch TV.<\/p>\n

Bros, we have to start doing our homework before we watch the game.<\/p>\n

Did your dad know what a Player Efficiency Rating was?\u00a0No. But he knew how to build a house.<\/p>\n

Did your grandpa know any advanced metrics?\u00a0He didn’t bros, because he was busy killing grizzlies with his bare hands.<\/p>\n

By the way bros,\u00a0metrics\u00a0<\/em>is just a really, really stupid and pretentious way to say stats.<\/p>\n

Why are my fellow bros finding themselves so easily distracted by this world of\u00a0men in shiny shirts?<\/p>\n

The answer is twofold.<\/p>\n

Bros are frustrated\u00a0with the state of the world. They find themselves unable to understand the inherent contradictions of American\u00a0society. So they shut it out.<\/p>\n

The media\u00a0stopped reporting facts. Everyone is uninformed and\u00a0just arguing spin from FOX or MSNBC, and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you get in a fistfight with another bro because they want to vote for the guy who wants your grandma’s fate\u00a0decided via death panel.<\/p>\n

Yet bros maintain the need to conquer. To be an authority on something. Bros need to make profound points.<\/p>\n

About things.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t really matter the topic, so long as enough people are into it. Knowing what’s happening in the world is a lot of work.\u00a0Watching football and listening to sports radio?\u00a0That’s more the speed for most bros.<\/p>\n

Bros now have a 24\/7 news cycle of sports minutiae and a Twitter feed full of people they think they know more than who they can routinely slam with insults.<\/p>\n

It’s easier\u00a0in that world than the real one. This way\u00a0the bros\u00a0won’t be vulnerable to their insecurities or vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

Bros know deep within their hearts that Jordan was better than LeBron. But there are no such certainties in death.<\/p>\n

I have been to the mountain top. I have a dream that one day a group of bros may be able to get slobbering drunk while watching the Eagles game and discuss federal interest rate hikes at halftime. That a group of bros might skip one of the 162 Cubs games and take in a foreign film and not keep calling it ‘gay’ in the theater.<\/p>\n

We’re letting ourselves down, but more importantly\u00a0we’re letting down our country.<\/p>\n

Let’s go from bros,<\/p>\n

To men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lates,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matt Ralston<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  My Fellow Bros, It’s time to stop taking sports so\u00a0seriously. Sports are supposed to be a diversion. Entertainment. Supplementary. They\u00a0shouldn’t\u00a0occupy the majority of your knowledge, passion, and interest in life. A true bro\u00a0should be well versed in the fields of cinema, literature, science, politics, fitness, and leisure activities such as sporting events and gaming. …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[839,840,551,838],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1816,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions\/1816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}