Just saw a note that Tom Brady is not going to retire if he wins another Super Bowl. He is 43 and wants to play until 45! That’s amazing and a reminder of Nolan Ryan, who was 46 when he retired in 1993. By the way, he was 44 when he pitched his seventh no-hitter.
Frankly, I hope everyone at the NFL office is cheering for Tom Brady to hang around a bit longer. He may be the man who saves the NFL from its own stupidity.
You may remember how Cal Ripken saved baseball in 1995. Back in the summer of 1994, the players and owners couldn’t agree again, and baseball stopped. I don’t know if the players or owners knew they’d be canceling the 1994 World Series and risking the 1995 season as well. The season came back in 1995, but the fans didn’t. It took a while for fans to buy tickets and watch baseball. Many were wondering if baseball would ever come back.
Enter Cal Ripken, who took over the front pages with his consecutive game streak. He finally caught Lou Gehrig and passed him in September. Looking back, Ripken became the face of baseball and made the game great again, to borrow a popular phrase.
I believe that Tom Brady has the same potential as Ripken. Brady connects with traditional fans, and that’s exactly what the NFL needs.
Stick around, Brady. The NFL needs you more than ever.
PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).
To each his own, but I have zero use for very adult men with frequently outrageous attitude problems playing some game for obscene amounts of money, especially if they even begin to presume they’re anything more than entertainers who should stick to their job and be damn grateful they can make so much money at it. Any hint of “I’m a superior being because I’m good at sports, which makes me a VIP” elicits my immediate rejection, not to mention scorn and derision. So thanks, but no, thanks.
Don’t get me wrong, athleticism is admirable, stimulating, and fun. It is, in essence, the healthy channeling of aggression, discipline, and competition among men – the type primal to survival. However, given our current reality, anyone with any intellect has to be disparaging of how sports, as a business, attempt to claim prominence in society.
Let’s not be trivial, all these leagues foment and exploit a false sense of regionalism for the sake of profit and the populace eats it like hotcakes. It is pure stupidity for the passive observers of life, most of whom have no personal connection to the sport nor the slightest care for physical fitness. They rather see other people compete and claim victory for them.
Thus, every time I hear anyone referring to a team as “we”, I recoil in distaste. In that sense I have more respect for the likes of Formula 1 racing, golf, and tennis where “we the (insert cartoonish name)” does not exist.
One can also see how the discussion of sports often takes the place, completely, of sociopolitical, cultural, or academic discourse among adult American men who could not even locate Argentina on a map. Granted, the powers that be have loved said social distraction since Roman times.
Yet, when it comes to real nationalism, as in reality, these leagues insult everyone, do not represent anything worth a damn, and then wonder why the ratings are abysmal. Not that I ever gave a care.
I get it, Tom Brady is not a ghetto ignoramus marching to the beat of social resentment and serving as an obnoxious useful dummy. Hell, he is an open President Trump supporter. Nonetheless, the damage is done and I am glad it is.