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From: melissa@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU (Melissa Silvestre)
Newsgroups: net.social,net.women
Subject: Team Sports, an observation (and a plug for bridge)
Message-ID: <1127@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10-Sep-86 21:35:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-tril.1127
Posted: Wed Sep 10 21:35:25 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Sep-86 04:46:43 EDT
Reply-To: melissa@mit-athena.UUCP (Melissa Silvestre)
Organization: MIT Project Athena
Lines: 29
Xref: watmath net.social:1388 net.women:12752

I thought of this when watching the NFL games last Sunday, then reading
the discussion on team sports in net.women:

There was one point in one of the NFL games, in which the receiver stopped
running after he stepped out of bounds, even though the referree had not
whistled the ball dead yet. The commentators said they figured the runner
just assumed the ref saw it, and they said something to the effect that
he should just keep on running because you never know what the refs might
miss.

If there's one morality pro sports teaches, it seems to be that "it's
only wrong if you get caught." I don't watch college sports, so I don't 
know if it is similar at that level.

I'm not a radical wanting pro sports banned or anything. I am a big NFL and
NBA fan. I was just wondering if anyone else noticed this anti-social
bent in the attitudes of some of the commentators and probably the fans
and players as well. The concept of penalties as punishment for doing 
something against the spirit of the game has been lost. Especially in
basketball, penalties are used as just another strategy tool.

If you want your children, boys and girls, to learn about t