Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

Amer·i·ca·na
Pro­nun­ci­a­tion: \ə-ˌmer-ə-ˈkä-nə, -ˌmər-, -ˌme-rə-, -ˈka-nə\
Func­tion: noun plural
Date: 1841

1: Mate­ri­als con­cern­ing or char­ac­ter­is­tic of Amer­ica, its civ­i­liza­tion, or its cul­ture ; broadly : things typ­i­cal of Amer­ica
2: Amer­i­can culture

In this series, I’d like to explore var­i­ous aspect of life in North Amer­ica. Each topic will be illus­trated by a black and white picture.

Base­ball Teeshirts In NY State

Sports. Think of it as a reli­gion. Or at the very least, a national pastime.

Fol­low­ers speak a weird lan­guage: home run, end zone, touch­down, pow­er­play, and mostly “scooooooore”. Their Gods? MLB (Major League Base­ball), NFL (National Foot­ball League), NBA (National Base­ball Asso­ci­a­tion) and NHL (National Hockey League). Big days of wor­ship include Super­bowl Sun­day, March Mad­ness, the Stan­ley Cup or the World Series. Drink beer, eats hot dogs and cheer, cheer and sing along. You are in for a “unique moment in sport his­tory” as ESPN would say.

Amer­i­cans are unique when it comes to sport. They love it pas­sion­ately and the coun­try can stop to watch a game. Some world­wide pop­u­lar sports are almost unknown in the U.S.A (think soc­cer) while on the other side, the world ignores, let’s say, Amer­i­can Football.

Sports is part of the pop­u­lar cul­ture. Many Eng­lish idioms are derived from sport terms: “cover all the bases” ; “hit or miss”; “caught off base”; … “It ain’t over till it’s over!” Kids col­lect sports cards, fam­i­lies gather to watch a game, many reg­is­ter for fan­tasy baseball/ hockey/ foot­ball online…

Sports can also be a medium through which issues are addressed: gen­der equity, efforts to com­bat dis­crim­i­na­tion… Some ath­letes used their celebrity to shed light on society’s ills and to pro­mote good­will among the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties in the country.

It’s also all about the money: with tele­vi­sion net­work pay­ing mil­lions of dol­lars for the rights to broad­cast sport­ing events; with play­ers sign­ing huge con­tracts, with extrav­a­gantly expen­sive com­mer­cials, big bucks play the game as well. Sports is also a big source of rev­enue for schools and uni­ver­sity because col­lege sports are fol­lowed with a fer­vor equal­ing that felt for pro­fes­sional sports!

Nev­er­the­less, sports remains a great unity fac­tor in North Amer­ica. And after all… it’s fun to watch!

Pic­ture: Teeshirts for sale at Alexan­dria Bay (NY), 2008

Related posts:

1. 10 Cana­dian Sports
2. Hockey Night
3. Hockey (2÷10)
4. The Hous­ing Bub­ble (1÷10)
5. Stuffs Cana­di­ans Like (Part 2)