As you likely already know, tragedy struck the Boston Marathon earlier today. A couple bombs went off close to the finish line. Three confirmed dead, including an 8 year-old boy, and over a hundred injured, many seriously. There's been wall-to-wall coverage of it every which way you look, or perhaps more appropriately -- click.
No doubt, the hounds are already beating the bushes trying to discover who the culprit or culprits are that would perpetuate such an atrocity. Even the President has chimed in and said, make no mistake, we will find out who did this, why they did it, and they will be brought to justice.
Of course, it didn't take long for the usual buzz phrases to creep into the conversation. "It looked like a war zone". "Possible Al-Qaeda involvement?" etc., etc. And the usual overreaction. Major cities and their police forces the world over went to a heightened state of alert. And hey -- who knows what may become of all this? With a little luck, maybe those happy-go-lucky folks in the Pentagon will get the green light to -- whoopee -- invade another country somewhere.
Don't get me wrong. What happened in Boston was indeed a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the innocent victims and their families that have been so terribly affected by it.
Yet the world of sports goes on -- sort of. Even a conglomerate of cable channels normally dedicated to nothing BUT sports -- bless their 4-lettered little hearts -- eventually seemed to figure that out too. After a while of interrupting all their other regularly scheduled programs to jump in with nothing but mirror image co-coverage news on the bombings, they finally got back around to what they were supposed to be doing in the first place. Cover sports. Let the news people handle the disasters.
Turns out, the Red Sox, Boston Bruins, and the Celtics were all in town. The Bosox had completed their contest earlier in the day against Tampa, so the game was unaffected. The Bruins understandably postponed their night game against Ottawa. And the Celtics/Pacers game set to go on Tuesday night was cancelled, because regardless of the potential outcome, it wouldn't have affected either team's playoff seedings.
Well OK, then. Everything is back in order, right?
Not quite. Despite all the tumultuous events of the day, one small detail seems to have been overlooked.
It all started off as the Boston Marathon, one of best known road races in the world. Athletes train for years and come from all over the globe to compete in it annually. Some 27,000+ entrants (that had to qualify), both men and women, from world-class long distance runners, to everyday folks trying to prove they can do it, to wheelchairs and seniors, made their way to Beantown to participate in the grueling 26.2 mile affair. Not discounting the various "categories" of other participants, the top finishers had crossed the finish line hours before the pandemonium broke out. Winning the Boston Marathon is a big deal.
So at the end of the day, I just have one question. Who won the damn race? Is that too much to ask? Maybe they'll eventually get around to that too.
There were too many losers to have a winner
ReplyDeleteIn the race there was too many losses not losers to have a winner I spoke in correctly.jd
ReplyDeletejd. I get what you're saying about the bigger picture, and it was certainly not my intention to minimize or disrespect the tragedy that affected so many. However, it WAS a race, and I merely tried to point out that with all the media coverage -- nobody bothered to mention which man and woman had actually won it. Sure, I understand the priorities -- but offer this for your consideration.... the various games need to go on. They HAVE to go on, and be reported just like they always were. Because if the actions of occasional evil-doers ever make us dwell on them so much that we forget the games themselves -- then they have won -- and we all lose. Just a thought.
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