arthur solomonBring out the beer, hard liquor, soft drinks, smokes and all those artery-clogging foods and settle down to watch the game. No, it’s not a Super Bowl party, the grand daddy of unhealthy ingesting. It’s even worse: It’s almost time for the first of a possible seven games of a so-called World Series (if you limit the world to the east and west coasts and the north and south borders of the United States and Canada).

The excuse for fanatics to use sporting events as a reason to eat and drink, swear, assault opposing fans and disregard rational behavior has always baffled me. But there are also other reasons about the thinking of sports fanatics that I don’t comprehend. (Writer’s Note: Before entering the PR business, my first job at newspapers was covering sporting events. The majority of my PR career was creating new publicity approaches for stale sports and nonsports programs and playing key roles or managing national and international sports marketing events. I like sports and marvel at the performances of individual athletes. I am not anti-sports, just disturbed about the hypocritical elements of the sports business and what it has become, the opiate of fanatics.)

Here are a few actions of sports fanatics that I don’t understand:

Whenever there is a money dispute between players and management most fans come down on the side of management.

I don’t understand why because:

-Management doesn’t really care about fans, only their money. (That’s why they raise ticket prices out of the reach of most fans.)

-Management shows its disdain for fan loyalty by moving the franchise if they get a better financial deal from another city.

-Management treats players as chattels, releasing them or trading them to another team almost at will.

Fanatics treat athletes as gods.

I don’t understand why because:

-Many athletes treat fans with disrespect or ignore them; others participate in marketing products that make used car salesmen seem righteous.

-Athletes endorse products even though they might not know the working of the products or don’t use them.

-Despite fan’s idolization, athletes will opt for free agency in order to get a better contract.

Fanatics will spend money on inane items.

I don’t understand why because:

-They purchase an autographed ball, maybe, signed by an athlete they never met.

- They purchase expensive jerseys with an athlete’s name on it even though they have no personal connection to the athlete.

-They purchase dirt just because an athlete supposedly stepped on it. (Athlete’s spit included at no extra charge.)

They purchase “game worn” jerseys, which are changed by athletes between innings or at halftime, to make certain there are enough for the fanatics.

Fanatic’s acts often are ill advised.

I don’t understand why because:

They take young school-age youngsters, who need 8 to 9 hours of sleep to remain alert at school, to mid-week night games.

-They “live or die” on the outcome of a game, even though the result has no effect on their lives.

-They celebrate championships by rioting.

-They mourn their team’s losing by attacking supporters of the opposing team, (the latest incident after the initial playoff game, Oct, 9, between the Mets and Dodgers in Los Angeles), often resulting in serious injuries or worse.

-On Oct. 19, the Toronto Blue Jays said that they will stop selling beer in cans in the upper deck because fans threw them on the field, potentially causing injuries, and will pour the beer into plastic cups.

-They use vile language, regardless of young children and women sitting nearby.

It’s understandable that youngsters, with lesser understanding of reality than supposedly mature adults, become enthralled with athletes and teams. But adults going ga-ga over athletes that they have no personal relationship with, or with teams that have no allegiance to their fans, is beyond my comprehension

As a youngster, I also “lived and died” specific teams. As I grew older, I began to realize that whether my team won or lost had no bearing on the reality of life. And I became disillusioned by witnessing the dark side of sports as a reporter.

As a young journalist, I was assigned to cover high school football and heard a teacher/coach instruct his linemen to blind the opposition by throwing dirt into the eyes of the opposing linemen. When I questioned the coach about his instructions, he chased me around the locker room until some of the players held him back, warning me to make a hasty exit.

Then, when interviewing a university sports director, I made a hurried exit from his office when he angrily approached me because I asked how he could campaign for more sports scholarships when tuition for non-athletes working their way through college kept increasing.

Occasionally, because of a few athletes – not team owners, TV networks or sponsors – there is a glimmer of sunshine penetrating the dark side of sports. These athletes talk about the harm that comes to youngsters when their baseball coaches let them throw curveballs; pro players publicly say they will not let their children play football because of the games’ dangers These are athletes who made a handsome living by playing these sports but they are not afraid of being truth tellers, not wanting to injure the game, but interested in preventing injuries. They are not blindsided by the dark side of sports.

In my opinion, these truth tellers are the true sports heroes, not shortstops like Derek Jeter, who was willing to let dirt be sold in his name; or Peyton Manning, LeBron James and Serena Williams, who were cited as being the most influential U.S. athletes promoting and marketing unhealthy foods, according to a research study published in a 2013 issue of Pediatrics, originated and designed by Marie Bragg of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

Unfortunately, society's standards have changed, and not for the better, in my opinion. Athletes, movie stars, and CEOs' unsavory doings are now quickly forgotten by the public and apparently also by the media in their quest for juicy stories or to feed the 24/7 news cycle beast.

So parents, hope your children aren’t fanatics. They might never outgrow it and live in a world of false idols and little importance for the rest of their lives.

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Arthur Solomon, a former journalist and senior vice president/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, is a frequent contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].