Sports: Reality TV for Dudes?

It's undeniable that reality television has become a significant part of all of our lives. We all fall into two categories with reality TV: the people who perpetuate the craze by watching and discussing shows like Jersey Shore, the Bachelorette, and any of the Real Housewives franchises at length, and the people who deal with all of the conversation, but are confused by the general public's fascination with all of it. I fall into the latter category. Unfortunately, as other people who fall into this second apathetic category can attest, we can't completely avoid learning about these shows, they're such a huge part of pop culture that we're expected to at least be familiar with the characters and general story lines, the same way people are expected to be aware of the Harry Potter or Twilight franchises, whether we've read the books or not.

Oh Ashley, you can do so much better than Bentley.

These characters, who are especially unique because they have no discernible talent or characteristic other than the willingness to allow their lives to be filmed, pop up everywhere in our lives. Sometimes you might hear Stacey King or the Funkenstein make a reference to Scottie Pippen's wife's participation in the Real Housewives of Miami. Or maybe you're watching a roast of Donald Trump on Comedy Central and you have to endure one of the worst "comedic" flops of all time when, for some inexplicable reason, Jersey Shore's "the Situation" is asked to speak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEx3mYck-2c (Ice T's reaction around the 3:20 mark is priceless). Reality television has become such a integral part of our lives, we've spawned movies like EDtv and the Truman Show which are entirely about characters who's lives are documented in the form of a reality show. As I was "watching" the most recent episode of the Bachelorette with my girlfriend (by "watching" I mean checking baseball box scores on my computer and then glancing at the show when someone starts yelling, cursing, or hooking up), I started thinking about our society, and the type of people that really enjoy these shows, and why.

Of course, the process of analyzing the types of people who like or dislike reality shows went down a road of generalizing and over-simplification, but I still came to some reasonable conclusions that are backed up by the people I know and the experiences I've had. It's a small sample size, I know, but think of it more as my own case study.

Here it goes: I think it's fair to say that the majority of reality shows are geared towards women. This is obvious with the Real Housewives franchise, but I think it's safe to say that most of the dating/relationship reality shows fit this category too; generally speaking, women are more fascinated with romance, and the fact that it's real (or as real or unscripted/edited as anyone can believe reality shows to be) makes it infinitely more interesting than a romantic comedy with a predictable ending. This idea is manifested in shows like The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Blind Date, Cheaters, The Fifth Wheel, and Elimidate (side note: I am an exception to my own generalization, Elimadate was a fantastically trashy show, I absolutely loved it). Sure there are many other reality shows that generally appeal to men and women, like Survivor, or Jersey Shore, and while I haven't done the demographic research or taken any polls, I feel confident that, generally speaking, women are consuming more reality television than men, mostly due to the subject content of the reality shows.

Where the enjoyment comes from with these shows is pretty clear; there's a cast of characters that viewers can identify with, and the more viewers watch them, the more they get used to their characteristics and idiosyncrasies. Viewers can see a little of themselves in certain characters, and a little of their friends or foes through the actions of other, less desirable characters. Viewers root for the characters they like and identify with, and the entertainment value comes from how they interact with the other characters, especially the ones they don't like. Even though viewers of reality shows aren't naive and would never feel like their actions or thoughts truly affect anything happening in the show, the fact that they identify with certain characters allows viewers to really feel like they are a part of the show. Since these programs are (allegedly) unscripted, it creates a different type of tension for the viewer and makes them feel like a part of what's happening, as they can see how the characters that they're familiar with adapt to certain scenarios, and compare that to how they might have reacted.

I'm confused too Carlos. Where's the 20-10s you put up in Utah?

Male sports fans enjoy this kind of entertainment every day; this void in their life is already filled. Read the previous paragraph and replace the word viewer with fan, the word character with player, and the word program or show with game. The enjoyment derived is exactly the same, only the medium is a ballgame instead of a reality TV episode. I watched all 98 Bulls games this year (mostly on DVR, with a lot of fast-forwarding to the 4th quarter), but as the season progressed, it was essentially a reality show for me and the way the players (characters) of the league developed was completely enthralling. The maturation process of league MVP Derrick Rose was incredibly satisfying, as he did it with a combination of humility, while stepping up in the most important moments and oftentimes willing his team to victory during the regular season. Luol Deng stepped up in a big way and played up to his contract value for the first time this year with his newly developed 3pt shot and his suffocating defense, and I could always look forward to some energy plays and craziness from Joakim Noah. The bench mob was always fascinating as they brought an exuberance that you don't see from most benches in the NBA, and the starters fed off of their intensity. I rooted for Boozer to perform the way he did in Utah all year, and whether he was injured or just getting older, his issues throughout the season provided an intriguing (and frustrating) subplot to the season. All of this is without even mentioning the clear cut villains the Bulls were competing against in the Eastern Conference: the mighty Celtics who ousted the Bulls in the greatest first round series in the history of the sport 2 years ago, and obviously the Big 3 in Miami; after both LeBron and Wade turned a cold shoulder to the Bulls in the offseason in order to join forces and try to start a dynasty in South Beach.

The point is, when a fan follows a team, he/she gets familiar with the players, and what happens with that team becomes a part of their life. My girlfriend sets the DVR to record the Bachelorette episodes, and will carve out time every week to sit down and enjoy them, because she looks forward to seeing what Ashley is gonna do next. Will she finally come to her senses and throw Bentley out on his ass? Who knows? But in the exact same way, when the NBA lockout ends and the next Bulls season starts, I'll be sure to set the DVR and sit back, relax, and strap it down while enjoying the sounds of Stacey King and Neil Funkenstein narrating DRose and the Bulls' next chapter. Can Rose win back to back MVPs? Will Chicago be able to find a ball-handling 2 guard who can help them get past Miami? Do the Bulls have a shot to win their first title since Michael Jeffrey Jordan graced the starting lineup? Who knows? All I know is that I can't wait for next season.

Hello Blogosphere!

With my first post on my first blog, I'd like to say hello and thank everyone reading; I can assume that if you're taking the time to peruse a blog currently titled "Chicago Sports Blog" (working title for now) than I'll go out on a limb and assume we have similar interests, and going out on a branch on that limb, I'll assume that I like you already. This blog is mostly acting as my own catharsis as I, like many, invest waaaaaay too much time and emotion into sports, but I, like many, can't help it. Playing sports and following professional sports shaped my life as I grew up, sports created new friendships, and sharing the love of sports with friends and family has served as a bonding experience and has helped foster many of the important relationships in my life, so to those of you who will say "it's silly to invest so much time and energy following athletes who make millions of dollars and don't give a shit about you and your life," I'll say 2 things: 1) you are 100% correct, and 2) fuck off - it matters to me.

Hopefully you, and others out there are like me and love discussing your favorite Chicago sports teams, but don't have the right venue to do so, and you're fully aware that your girlfriend/wife/sibling/parent/dog/friend/co-worker/significant other etc. does not want to hear you bitch about where Adam Dunn should hit in the Sox lineup. If any of that remotely hit home, than this blog is for you, and feel free to utilize the comments section, whether you agree with my ideas or want to give me props, or if you vehemently disagree with me and want to tell me how much I suck. I'm always open to chat/debate, I just ask that you try to not me too disrespectful to anyone, and if you want to make an argument, at least do your homework and back up your thoughts, I'll do my best to do the same.

I'd like to use the rest of my inaugural post to talk a little bit about my background, so you have an idea of where my thoughts are coming from (don't worry, this is a sports blog, and this will be the only time I talk about myself at any length). I'm a 25 year-old professional piano player living in Chicago (surprise), and I was born in Pontiac, IL and grew up in Naperville, a southwest suburb of Chicago. My favorite sports are baseball, basketball, and football (in that order), and while I like hockey and appreciate and respect the players more than any other sport, I never got into it when I was younger because I cannot rollerblade, rollerskate, or ice skate (you might say I was not blessed with foot-eye coordination, and that would be an understatement). The lack of foot-eye coordination is just a grain of sand on the beach of reasons why I hate soccer, and is also why soccer will not be discussed at length on this blog (unless I decide to make a post detailing another reason why soccer is a waste of time).

I played quite a bit of baseball and basketball when I was younger, but when I reached high school, I was in a class of almost 1000s students, so everything was very competitive, and students had to specialize. I knew I wanted to be a musician someday, so that's where my organized baseball and basketball playing stopped. I still miss playing baseball, and try to make up for it by taking advantage of any opportunity to play softball I can (12in or 16in, I'm down either way). High school was probably a good time for me to quit basketball as, well, since I'm 5'10'' on my tippy-toes, and I have what my friends referred to as credit card hops (you can barely slide a credit card under my feet when I jump). I could shoot though, and I'll still challenge anyone to a free-throw shooting contest or 3pt shooting contest (with my ugly set shot), not to mention, like Carlos Boozer I can finish with either hand (that's what she said).

"That's a big man." -Hawk Harrelson

The White Sox are my team. My dad was a Sox fan, yet he was an equal opportunity father, and brought me to both Comiskey and Wrigley when I was young. But I fell in love with the White Sox of the '90s, and who could blame me? I had an irrational love of Bobby Thigpen, who legitimized my feelings with his record setting 57 saves in 1990, and I loved listening to Tom "Wimpy" Paciorek and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson; it's not easy making anything fun for 3 hours when your 7 years old, but Wimpy and Hawk made baseball fun for me. More importantly than any of that, the Sox had '93 and '94 MVP Frank Thomas. Now that I'm older I can look back at his stats and really appreciate what he accomplished in the '90s, but as a 7 year-old it was so fascinating to watch a physical specimen like him (6'5'' 300lbs of pure muscle)  tower over all the other players and dominate the league. Even his awkward throwing motion was frightening (you know, back when he still played 1b and left the DH spot to the likes of Julio Franco). Hawk's nickname of the Big Hurt was perfect, you felt bad for the baseball (and the pitcher's pride) when Frank connected. In his prime you couldn't get him out, there was no way to pitch him. Pitch him away and he'll get to extend his long arms and really cremate the ball to dead center or right center (and he could still pull the ball on the outer half if he wanted, the same way Jose Bautista does today). Pitch him off the plate outside and his ass would fly towards the 3b dugout while reaching out and poking a double down the right field line. Bust him inside and the hips would fly open and you'd be watching a majestic 400 footer sail deep into the left field seats, sometimes approaching the concourse at Comiskey. He was awesome, and a big reason that I'll be a die-hard Sox fan for the rest of my life.

It's not hard to explain where my love for the Bulls came from, we had Michael. If anything, the Bulls of the '90s spoiled sports for me, because when you watch your favorite team, and you know that they're gonna win the championship every year, you learn to develop unrealistic expectations for sports teams, which is bad at a young age. But that's what Michael was, one of the few athletes in the history of sports who had the combination of talent and desire that was absolutely unmatched by anyone, once he got surrounded with Pippen and a few role players, it was all over, and the basketball world got to witness some of the greatest teams of all time (including the greatest team of all-time imo, the 1996 squad that won a record 72 games). They never even had a decent big man; didn't matter. The Bulls to me are the most exciting team in Chicago now, because they have my favorite current athlete in sports: Derrick Rose. Derrick is everything I could ever want out of an athlete, a native Chicago kid with insane eye-popping athleticism and ability, yet the humbleness and desire to work hard and not boast or show up his competition. This kind of combination just doesn't exist in sports today, and I hope Chicago fans are ready to enjoy the next decade with this guy, because win or lose, it's always gonna be fun to root for him.

Like any self-respecting Chicagoan, I love my Bears, and I'm incapable of ever saying a negative word about Ditka or any of the other '86 Bears. Unfortunately I was in the womb when that team won the Super Bowl, so that's the only major Chicago sports team that I haven't actually witnessed win a championship (I don't count seeing the Cubs win, thankfully, for obvious reasons). I get turned off by the stupid machismo of the sport sometimes (fellow players are gonna bash a peer like Cutler for not playing hurt? how does the players union feel about that MJD and Darnell Dockett?) , but I still love a hard hit now and then, and I should also throw out this disclaimer: I'm a Cutler supporter. He's the best QB the Bears have had in my lifetime, and I don't care if he reminds you of a douche you didn't like in college, he's got a monster arm, he's mobile, and I'm confident he can be a top 5 QB in the league if he gets 35% of the protection Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have enjoyed most of their careers, and a legitimate possession receiver (as Jaws Jaworski would say, Earl Bennett, Johnny Knox, and the Devins Aromashodu and Hester are not gonna cut it as primary playmaking options in THE National Football League).

Diabetes has never been so delicious.

As I mentioned earlier, I never played hockey since I can't skate, so my hockey analysis will be fairly rudimentary; I generally defer to friends of mine who understand the sport a bit better. This doesn't mean I don't bring the passion, I have always been a Hawks fan, but then again my favorite Hawks that I can remember from my childhood were Tony Amonte and Bob Probert (RIP), so based on that you can probably take my hockey opinions with a grain of salt. That being said, this Hawks offseason should be pretty exciting with all of the cap space made available due to the departures via trade of Brian Campell (and his Rich Garces-sized contract) and Troy Brouwer, it'll be interesting to see what Stan Bowman does with his first opportunity to spend in free agency. I'm hoping they bring back John Madden for his veteran presence, toughness, and faceoff skills, but mostly I want to be able to shamelessly do my awful John Madden (football announcer) impression while simultaneously giggling to myself at my own mental images of Madden's genetically altered 30-winged turkey/chicken/duck mutant hybrids while watching Hawks games.

Last, but not least, the Cubbies! For the record, I'm not a complete, unabashed Cubs hater like many Sox fans (the same way many Cubs fans are Sox haters). I do think it's important that Chicago baseball fans choose a side though, because this is the only intercity rivalry we have, and rivalries make sports consumption so much more enjoyable because you have a protagonist to love and a villain to hate, and without that balance things would be more boring. So if you're one of those "I root for both teams" people, first off I probably don't like you, and second, we can safely say that you don't care about baseball very much. Not that there's anything wrong with that. My point is that I will never be rooting for the Cubs, but life as a sports fan would be less enjoyable without them. And while I may oftentimes reference the annoying quasi-Cubs fans who make my life significantly worse any time I ride the red line past Addison during a Cubs game, I'm not talking about the die-hard, true Cubs fans, who I have a lot of respect for. And if you're reading this blog, and you've made it this far down the page, it means that you probably are pretty passionate about sports in general, so you likely don't fall into the category of the annoying fans who leave the game early to watch the rest of the game at the Cubbie Bear to avoid last call at Wrigley. Don't get me wrong die-hard Cubs fans, I have a ton of respect for you guys. I don't know if I could tough it out with a franchise that has serious upper-management issues and has been poorly run for a very long time. Sticking with a team that not only hasn't won a championship in over 100 years, but also hasn't been remotely competitive for the vast majority of those years shows true loyalty, and you guys deserve a lot of credit. And I will of course admit that there are crappy Sox fans too (like the rednecks that ran out on the field and beat up Kansas City first base coach Tom Gamboa in 2002). The fact is, I love baseball, and I'm always down to write and discuss any baseball topic, Cubs or White Sox, and I'll try to be as unbiased as I can when analyzing both teams.

I realize this is a very long post, but I figured I should start off with a bang. I can tend to ramble a bit, and you've probably noticed that I like to utilize the parenthesis (I like the concept of footnotes, and while they work great in books, they don't fit a blog format well, and nobody likes to change eye level too much when on a computer, so hopefully the parentheticals don't get too overwhelming). I hope you enjoy the blog, and please utilize the comments, and tell a friend to join in on the conversation, hopefully this blog can act as sports catharsis for you and your Chicago sports loving friends the same way I hope it will for me.