Unsportsmanlike

[DesertFox]

Jonah Goldberg

... Ambrose Bierce, a great cynic, defined “reverence” as “the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.”

This helps us understand why finding joy in cruelty to animals is horrific. Torturing a dog or a cat for sport is not disgusting because animals have rights, it is repugnant because human beings have obligations. If animals look to us as gods, and we in turn torture them for our amusement, have we not willingly made ourselves into devils?

Dogfighting in particular is grotesque because in it we reject all that is lovable about dogs in favor of all that is animalistic. We exploit canine loyalty and trust, stripping away the joy like so much bark in order to make dogs more fearsome than even wild animals. No wolf or coyote could stand up to one of Michael Vick’s pit bulls, nor do wolves and coyotes have anything like that kind of bloodlust.

More (http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==)

[Wolfcounsel]

Well, yes. Did I miss something? Myself, I don't look up to any asshole in the sports field as someone to emulate. And any person who considers animals creatures to be teased, tormented, and otherwise made sport of, deserves a severe ass kicking every single day of what's left of his miserable life.

[Timberwolf]

When these men make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, we are told that it’s because such men are special, super even. They are heroes and community leaders, not to mention role models and brand names. But when these same Ubermenschen hit the skids, the lawyers, p.r. flacks, and front-office men suddenly decry holding these mere mortals to a double standard. Vick’s defenders say he wouldn’t be banned-for-life from any other profession, so why, they ask, should he banned from his career as a ball-thrower?

Well, if football were like ditch-digging and if we treated quarterbacks like ditch-diggers, this complaint would ring more true. But we treat quarterbacks like gods and sports like the highest form of human expression.
Therein lies the problem...and further exascerbating that problem is America (in general) allowing these pompous, over-paid, prima donnas to take the place of dad as "heroes" to our boys.

[DesertFox]

I don't look up to any asshole in the sports field as someone to emulate.I don't, either -- not anymore. But when I's 10 and 11 and playing baseball, I read every baseball book there was to read and dreamed of pitching in the World Serious. When I's 9 I's sick during the (1958) World Serious and as Lou Burdette wound up, I'd wind up and throw my fastball into the sofa -- til my ma beat my ass for it. But Lou Burdette won three games that Series and he was my hero all year long, until next year when Ernie Banks hit, like, 40 homers and him just a little guy, and me dreaming of playing short like Ernie Banks.

And Rocky Colavito in Cleveland, where Municipal Stadium was gigantic. To straight away center it was, like, 440 feet from home. Rocky'd come out to loosen up and the kids would say, "Do it, Rocky! Do it!" The Rock would grin, stride over to the plate and throw a baseball over the center field wall.

Heroes. Doing heroic things.