Ray9
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2016
- 2,707
- 4,474
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- Banned
- #1
If you’re scratching your head over the results of the 2019 Kentucky Derby you’re not alone. Ostensibly the horse that won somehow cheated, affecting the outcome of the race. Even if a reasonable observer watches video of the supposed incident, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to see anything other than a horserace.
If the race had taken place in 1875-2018, Maximum Security would have been in the winner’s circle. But as officiating, armed with technology that outstrips its common sense aggrandizes itself by acquiescing to the sour grapes of the losers, the race will live in infamy as a glaring example, not of horse cheating, but human politics and imperfection.
Listening to Red Sox commentators the other day was interesting. They were discussing an umpire’s decision to call a strike on a batter that initiated, but did not complete a swing at a pitch. Apparently there is no plane the bat must pass over the plate; the umpire decides if the batter “intended” to swing.
All who have ever played or viewed baseball know that anyone standing in the batter’s box with a piece of wood “intends” to swing at the ball-it’s the point of the game. So the umpire is granted some kind of clairvoyant power to conclude what is in the batter’s mind? This is officiating taking its place not as a peripheral aspect of sport, but front and center as judge, jury and executioner-and they have surveillance cameras manned by more officials in bat caves watching everything so an outcome produced by microns will be “fair”.
American football is losing viewership at record rates in large part because rules are barging onto the field converting pass receivers into ballet dancers and quarterbacks into players with handicap parking stickers on their helmets. The game is all but ruined but officiating is propagating individual superstars. Didn’t we all like sporting events that were overseen by human perceptions better? Is it an improvement when losers can use spy cameras to alter the outcome?
Those who lost their shirts on the Kentucky Derby had an unfortunate place in line as the arrow of time leads us into a new paradigm of controlled surveillance that steals serendipity and delivers the final word. Horses don’t split hairs and second guess other runners but human officials do.
This is the kind of loser’s order that produces chaos; Look at the last presidential election.
If the race had taken place in 1875-2018, Maximum Security would have been in the winner’s circle. But as officiating, armed with technology that outstrips its common sense aggrandizes itself by acquiescing to the sour grapes of the losers, the race will live in infamy as a glaring example, not of horse cheating, but human politics and imperfection.
Listening to Red Sox commentators the other day was interesting. They were discussing an umpire’s decision to call a strike on a batter that initiated, but did not complete a swing at a pitch. Apparently there is no plane the bat must pass over the plate; the umpire decides if the batter “intended” to swing.
All who have ever played or viewed baseball know that anyone standing in the batter’s box with a piece of wood “intends” to swing at the ball-it’s the point of the game. So the umpire is granted some kind of clairvoyant power to conclude what is in the batter’s mind? This is officiating taking its place not as a peripheral aspect of sport, but front and center as judge, jury and executioner-and they have surveillance cameras manned by more officials in bat caves watching everything so an outcome produced by microns will be “fair”.
American football is losing viewership at record rates in large part because rules are barging onto the field converting pass receivers into ballet dancers and quarterbacks into players with handicap parking stickers on their helmets. The game is all but ruined but officiating is propagating individual superstars. Didn’t we all like sporting events that were overseen by human perceptions better? Is it an improvement when losers can use spy cameras to alter the outcome?
Those who lost their shirts on the Kentucky Derby had an unfortunate place in line as the arrow of time leads us into a new paradigm of controlled surveillance that steals serendipity and delivers the final word. Horses don’t split hairs and second guess other runners but human officials do.
This is the kind of loser’s order that produces chaos; Look at the last presidential election.
