Thursday, October 15, 2015

When do the Lynx get their own (new) arena?

If you read this blog with any regularity, you may have figured out that I'm not a huge sports fan. Very recently, however, several sports related events have occurred that overlap with some of the topics that interest me, topics like equity and development. First, let me congratulate the Lynx on their third championship in the past five years. Here's some background on how that compares:
World Championships
  • Twins: two (1991, 1987)
  • Vikings: zero for four
  • Wild: zero for one
  • Timberwolves: zero for one
  • Lynx: three out of five
Minneapolis, home to the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and Lynx
Minneapolis, home to the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and Lynx
Photo by J. Harrington
New Stadium / Arena
Far be it from me to suggest that professional sports are sexist to the point of being misogynistic (hah!) but with all the comparative losers on the men's teams, it seems that Title IX needs to be expanded to cover public financing / subsidies for stadia and arenas. [UPDATE: we should be able to do better than this for our only real winners!]

Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers

By John Updike
Distance brings proportion. From here
the populated tiers
as much as players seem part of the show:
a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante’s rose,
or a Chinese military hat
cunningly chased with bodies.
“Falling from his chariot, a drunk man is unhurt
because his soul is intact. Not knowing his fall,
he is unastonished, he is invulnerable.”
So, too, the “pure man”—“pure”
in the sense of undisturbed water.

“It is not necessary to seek out
a wasteland, swamp, or thicket.”
The opposing pitcher’s pertinent hesitations,
the sky, this meadow, Mantle’s thick baked neck,
the old men who in the changing rosters see
a personal mutability,
green slats, wet stone are all to me
as when an emperor commands
a performance with a gesture of his eyes.

“No king on his throne has the joy of the dead,”
the skull told Chuang-tzu.
The thought of death is peppermint to you
when games begin with patriotic song
and a democratic sun beats broadly down.
The Inner Journey seems unjudgeably long
when small boys purchase cups of ice
and, distant as a paradise,
experts, passionate and deft,
hold motionless while Berra flies to left.


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