Will we still go out to the game?

摘要

Asking a die-hard sports spectator to predict how we will spectate in the future can cause terrible cognitive dissonance. The sports fan is not oriented toward the future; he is the retrospective creature par excellence. He travels forward with his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. His preferred modes of spec-tating are historical—the highlight reel; the classic NFL film with its sonorous, Homeric narration; and, most perfectly, the instant replay, which, of course, instantly historicizes the present. Obviously, the essential need to spectate will endure into the distant future. We can't talk sports unless we watch sports. And talk we must. Sports blather will remain the lingua franca in bars, elevators and doctors' waiting rooms around the world. In 2025, no matter how far-flung or misbegotten a place he finds himself in, man will always be able to strike up a lively conversation with the opening gambit "Livingston Bramble, Boom-Boom Mancini, 1985. That was a fight."