I typically have little appreciation for sporting events that are subjectively decided upon. One of the elements I respect in a competitive athletic match-up is that the outcome is conclusively determined. I don't watch sports to better appreciate the ambiguity of life. I watch them to see which combatant will be able to defeat the other. There is a world of difference between a beauty pageant and a sports contest for a wide variety of obvious reasons. One of them is what I have just discussed. Baseball or football or basketball games, much like tennis or soccer matches, are all decided by which participant has put the most points on the scoreboard. These points are not intangible things. There are concrete definitions for what constitutes a point, or run, or goal, or whatever the measurement of achievement is called in a particular sport. They are not awarded based on a third party's interpretation of what has been seen, but rather, on legitimate, definitive, tangible accomplishment. A runner does not win a race because he ran it more gracefully than the competition, but because he ran it in less time, because he was first to reach the finish line. Sometimes a result is so close that it takes slow motion replay of the filmed footage to decipher who the winner was. If it is determined that one runner reached the finish line 1/100 of a second earlier than another, a decision is made on this fact and nothing else. No judge or jury can be bribed to declare that the camera and the timer are liars and will not be paid attention to. The race is not given to the more popular runner, but to the one who ran it fastest. Victory is not automatically given in a tennis match to the more attractive player, or else Anna Kournikova would have far more tournament victories under her lovely belt. In sports, the matter of who the winner is, who the loser is, or if the contest is a draw, is supposed to be a matter of fact, not opinion. There may be some judgment calls made throughout a contest, but victory is ultimately to be earned by one of the competitors, not decided on a whim by someone with good seats. This is how I prefer sports to transpire. After all, opinion can be influenced, it can be biased, it can be ridiculously misguided by innumerable factors. Facts are what they are, take them or leave them, like them or not.
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