Man-Soaps?
Don't Talk To Me During Sports Center
Is Watching Sports Center The Same As Watching 'Soaps' on the Soap Channel?
November 7, 2004
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By: O. J. Cunningham
ESPN's Sportscenter -- The Ultimate Man-Soap
I hate it when my wife (Donna) is right! I hate it even more when she finds out that I admit she's right. (I definitely shouldn't be writing this column . . . hopefully, she won't ever read it.)
Here's the scoop . . .
I was minding my own business on Sunday morning. You know . . . the usual manly stuff like drinking coffee, reading the Sunday Paper, watching the
Sports Reporters on Cable Channel 32 . . .
My wife (Donna) walks through the living room, eyes my perfectly contented nest in front of the television, and announces (quite unceremoniously, I might add) that "
Sports are man-soaps."
Whoaaaaaaaaa Nellie . . .
If you're not a sports-person, I should explain that there are certain un-written rules that pertain to conversational exchange between men and women during televised sporting events.
I hope I'm not breaking any
man-rules here but generally speaking, a man should never acknowledge anything said by a woman when the man is watching sports on television. (We boys learn about these kind of
man-rules in Little League when we're eight years old).
But it's no big secret. The girls know about the
man-rules. I know they do. That's why they always talk to men about shopping and children when the men are watching sports on television. (The girls learn stuff like that during tap and ballet dancing classes when they're eight years old.)
So normally, I wouldn't have paid muchattention to a passing comment during the
Sports Reporters. But the wifely comment kinda got into my ear and then stuck there all day.
See . . . Here's the problem.
I watch SOAPS.
Now don't get the wrong idea. I don't watch every SOAP. In fact, I only watch one particular SOAP - Port Charles.
It happened like this: I was sick in bed for almost a week. Really Sick! Nothing to do but whine and moan, drink plenty of fluids, down hundreds of dollars worth ofprescription drugs and watch television. I'm mindlessly flipping through the channels when I come across some really nice looking, well-dressed young women. One is blind. One is black. And the third one is sobbing uncontrollably
And get this . . . They're angels. Not like Charlie's Angels but more in the realm of Gabriel and that kind of heavenly creature. And this gets even better, the longer I watch. Here's the plot: These angels are back on earth (now pay attention) to take someone back upto heaven . . . but they don't know who they're supposed to take. Can you believe it?
I'm hooked immediately. And I've been watching ever since.
So . . . now you're probably wondering how this gets back around to my wife's commentabout
man-soaps. If my wife is right, then each sport (NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA) is probably its own Soap.
I guess the NFL with its hiring and firing of coaches, the on-going battle between Randy Moss and Terrell Owens and the recent head-banging between "T. O." and QB Donovan McNabb might be compared to the antics of a Sunday Soap Opera.
The baseball World Series had its share of "Soapy" undercurrents. We had "The Curse," Schilling's bloody ankle, and other assorted plot lines.
The NBA has that Kobe-Shaq thing going on every day. And of course, we can't be allowed to forget about the Colorado trial involving Kobe and some soon-to-be-rich victim.
If sports are man-soaps, then
the Man-Soap of all Man-Soaps has to Sports Center. Every day, the stars are paraded hour after hour in their glory and in their failures. The Bonds, the Kobes, the Shaqs, the TOs, the Wally Bachmans and the list goes on and on.
We (men) watch highlight after highlight. We consume statistic after statistic. We wait for the standings. We wait for the results amongst our competition to see if our guys are now better off than they were yesterday.
And we can't live without knowing. We can't or won't miss an episode. "What time's the Michigan game on Saturday," we ask? "How'd the Lions do?" "What's the latest in the Kobe trial?" "Is Pedro going to stay with the Red Sox?" "Any progress in the hockey talks?" "Did you see the BCS standings yet?" "Did you see Tiger choke on Sunday?"
That's exactly how I feel about Livvie, Karen, Kevin, Lucy, Allison, Rafe, Jamaal and Marissa on Port Charles.
I think my wife may be be right.
I
definitely have to stop listening to her when I'm watching Man-Soaps.
O. J. Cunningham
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O. J. Cunningham is the Publisher of MyBayCity.com. Cunningham previously published Sports Page & Bay City Enterprise. He is the President/CEO of OJ Advertising, Inc.
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