I'm a Bears fan, born and raised. I don't have a choice in the matter. When I was a kid, my family had season tickets that were about as high up in Soldier Field as you could go, and I like to think I still follow the sport. But then again, I'm not much into the whole fantasy football thing, I don't have all the players memorized like I used to, and after a few decades, all the plays start to look the same. What's worse, books are ruining all of sports for me.
Against Football is the testimony of one long-time fan's suspicion that professional and collegiate football might be somewhat evil. In-between concussions, sub-concussions, the glorification of violence and militarism, the manipulation of amateur players, the fleecing of taxpayers and a host of other issues, any sound readers are left thinking twice about how to spend their Sundays.
So what about the other football, the vastly more popular one, the one where people kick a ball instead of bashing each other's heads in? Outside of the standard tales of corruption and the wildly entertaining ways the players cheat, what could be wrong with soccer? Oh, right . . . the hooligans. Among the Thugs is one American's journey into the bizarre, violent world of a certain breed of soccer fan, who loves to wreck stuff on behalf of his favorite team.
I can't even ride a bicycle without feeling guilty. For every book about the joys of cycling, there are five more about doping and steroids. Seven Deadly Sins is one journalist's story of tracking down yet another fallen hero through a years-long saga of cheating, lying and eventual comeuppance.
With all the awful things going on in athletics, laziness and obesity doesn't sound quite so bad anymore.
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