The ESPN3 Chronicles: We watched another snuff film, but this time we enjoyed it

There’s something splendid about international sports competitions that instills this wonderful sense of pride and joy in one’s country over something completely unrelated to everything about that country. Chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” as America scored during the World Cup was not endorsement of America’s foreign policies, it was simply taking a moment to love the place you are from.

There’s also something horrid about international sports competitions that instills this awful sense of hatred. Most in someone else’s country over something completely related to everything about that country. We should have been able to root against Germany without talking about a horrific war and genocide engendered by German people several decades before a different group of German people played soccer against the United States. A lot of people were not able to do that.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: I watched this yesterday on ESPN3:

There’s an obvious, incredibly uncomfortable juxtaposition here. We don’t need to talk about it.

I’m an American, and so I root for America when we play sports. My father is Cuban, so when I see a Cuban team playing sports, I root for them, even though the team is a symbol of a dictatorship that forced my family to leave that country and allows its citizens to exist in poverty for the sake of a decades-old failed political movement, and even though most of the players on the team are probably thinking about defecting.

I’m Jewish, so when I see Israel playing, I root for Israel. This is not a statement on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which so far as I can tell somewhere in between “two sets of people killing people who they feel deserve to be killed and maybe killing some other people too by accident” and “two sets of people trying to exterminate people who are different.” I am not sure where on that spectrum it falls, I just know that all possible answers are bad. I wish it would stop, because human lives are precious, no matter where that human life was born or what that person believed.

I did not think about this as I watched this game, a game promising a quarterfinal spot in a sport I do not care even a tiny bit about, that I was watching for the express purpose of showing the absurd amount and variety of sports available for instant streaming. I just kinda sat in my bedroom and pumped my fist as the dudes with kickass Star of David helmets on scored again...

And again:

And again:

The other day I wrote about how weird it was that ESPN streamed the lacrosse version of a snuff film. My correction: there are sick weirdos who enjoy watching snuff films, and watching Israel score again and again and again in a random game turned me into one of those sick weirdos.

The Israel lacrosse team is a dominant force the likes of which have never been seen. All teams in their path should tremble in fear. They play Australia today in the quarterfinals, SO WATCH THE HELL OUT, AUSSIES.

Today’s ESPN3 weirdness is the typical stuff: a lot of weird lacrosse games, including some from the 17th-through-20th place consolation bracket and another Washington Kastles matchup, so let’s focus on what’s new and weird:

The Major League Baseball Home Run Derby was a meaningless exhibition that topped its meaninglessness off by being prohibitively long and having a massively confusing format. However, it was still somewhat interesting, because it was the best baseball players in the world slamming dingers like nobody else in the world could.

Those baseball players were better than the best players in the best level of minor league baseball. The best minor league, Triple-A, is better than the second-best level of minor leagues, Double-A, which in turn is better than the third-best level of minor league baseball, Single-A.

The Atlantic League is an independent league not affiliated with Major League Baseball. In fairness, the league’s quality of play is generally considered to be between Double- and Triple-A, but still, these are players who Major League Baseball teams do not think have the potential to make their team better in the present or at any point in the future. Scanning the All-Star roster, I only see a few players whose names I recognize, MLB washouts JR Towles, Lew Ford, and Wilson Valdez.

The MLB Home Run Derby is already meaningless and pointless. This is more meaningless and pointless. And we can watch it on ESPN3.

(And the All-Star Game is afterwards!)