Leave Sports Alone; Gish Jen’s Controversial Take on Sox

The reason I love sports is the combination of competitive spirit it bring out in people while also allowing friends and even strangers to come together and work and cheer alongside each other.  Sports can bring emotions like joy and sadness, and it is something that can break your heart one day, but you know it will be there tomorrow.  Sports, after all, are there for entertainment and play.  Sure, some people take them more seriously than others, and it may make you begin to believe your friend that is a die hard Notre Dame Fighting Irish fan is legitimately crazy, but at the end of the day we all know it’s just a game ( And I know he’s not crazy, he just loves his Irish!).

So when I see articles like Boston Globe’s opinion writer Gish Jen’s piece on the Boston Red Sox World Series Championship, it frustrates me to see someone take sports for more than what they are.

Jen takes an interesting approach in writing to say the least.  I’m not a qualified writer just yet, certainly not as successful as Jen, but this isn’t the way most sports writers deliver their content.  The obscure vocabulary and the “artistic” and “unique” sentence structure leaves me thinking this is some parody article to get me laughing or irritated.

Then comes the unnecessary questioning of the treatment of the Boston Marathon terrorists, even after the horrific tragedy they brought upon the Boston community. Why on Earth would someone take their time to recollect on the Red Sox season and then bring up controversial content as to questioning our treatment of the Tsarnaev brothers?  Why would you pour this filth of Boston’s past of discrimination against minorities in a time of celebration and enjoyment?

If Jen was looking for web hits on her article, she got them.  But really?  This has to be one of my most infuriating peeves.  Sports are a way for people to escape the real world and enter a place where your emotions are light-hearted and at the end of the game or season you can appreciate the sport and what it brings to you.  Jen certainly pissed me off, and I hope articles like this find a different folder to be filed in.  Conspiracy and questioning on tragedies has no right to tarnish what the Boston Red Sox did this year for the proud and resilient city of Boston.

Ryan Jackson

About Ryan Jackson

My name is Ryan Jackson and I love fantasy sports. I graduated from the University of Maine in 2014 with a degree in Journalism, and I am now a graduate student at Quinnipiac University working on a sports journalism degree.