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5 Tips for Successful Bird Watching
5 Tips for Successful Bird Watching Chuck Fitzgerald ©2004. All Rights Reserved. Can you name the number one spectator sport in North America? It’s not baseball, figure skating or racing. It’s bird watching. That’s right, more people are watching...
Home Run Baseball Photography Tips
Strike one! Strike two! Strike three! Baseball! America's Pastime, and a sport growing in popularity throughout the world, where the Boys of Summer slug it out. A baseball game is the perfect way to spend a lazy summer afternoon, plus it provides...
Ice Hockey Fights Will Always Bring Fans to the NHL Games
However, if you look at it from a hockey fan’s point of view it is ice hockey fights that make hockey and the NHL what it is. Our sport is different than any other sport and that is also the reason why we are such huge hockey fans. Fights bring...
Power Personified – With Massive Arms
Power Personified – With Massive Arms Remember when you were in High School. So many characters and personalities. Here’s one I think you’ll relate to. Gillie was the Paul Bunyon of my neighborhood. He had 20-22 biceps, and a neck almost as...
The Origins of Baseball.
No one knows for sure where baseball exacted originated. However, most baseball buffs will concur that the sport is based on the English game of rounders. In the United States, baseball became popular in the early 1800's, originally known as...
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ALL SPORTS ARE GAMES! ALL GAMES ARE NOT SPORTS!
From backgammon to the 3,000 year old Royal Game of Ur., from Oriental kite contests to the universal tit-tat-toe and baseball, games have been, and are played throughout every culture and society known to man.
Where is the line drawn between a game and a sport? What are the vital missing elements which preclude most games from being a sport?
By comparison, all games and sports are taken up for fun or pleasure. Winning a game or sport always makes an individual or team happy. Winners are always rewarded. All
rewards fall within three categories: Material (IE . . . trophy or ribbon), Monetary (IE . . . cashes or check), and Emotional(IE . . . jubilation or triumph).
Swimming, baseball, and hockey are well-known games which are recognized as sports.
Chess, cards, and marbles are well-known games which are not recognized as sports.
On close examination, we find a trend amid sports which is not an element of common games. That key element is the number one thing that draws the line between sports and games.
Exercise!
All games and sports are mentally demanding. Individuals or an individual have to plan and think to be competitive against an opponent.
However, only in sports are significant physical demands placed on the body that result in extensive exercise.
A secondary, key element found in sports, which generally is not found amid common games is Profession.
Football, boxing,
golf, and bowling, are examples of sports which many people take up as a paid (very handsomely paid)profession.
One final element of a sport, which is generally not found amid common games is Risk. In every sport, there is always the risk of bodily injury. There is no element of risk involved playing a game of backgammon or Old Maid.
Games, once learned, can be played by the average, and not so average person without giving a second thought to risk or injury.
Sports, however, require continual learning, mental, and physical
conditioning with constant risk of bodily injury and liability on the part of someone or some entity.
Give a thought to these elements the next time you plop down in your favorite chair to watch an activity on the tube, or set out to participate in your favorite game activity.
Thus, two questions which have plagued many generations have now been answered. What makes a game a sport?; and why athletes are paid so much.
About the author:
Terry Davis is publisher of http://southernliving.blogsome.com/
and http://newsunheralded.blogspot.com/You will find his publishings to be informative, helpful, entertaining, sometimes shocking and provocative. Whenever you visit his unique sites,
prepare to have your emotions and senses stirred.
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