Sports & Shakespeare

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Image: http://bit.ly/1obARkP

 (C) 2014 Ray X

 I've always been lousy at conformity.

In a previous post I mentioned that I don't like the works of Shakespeare.  To most writers that's outright heresy.

I also don't like professional sports.  "Did you see the game last night?" No, I have an active independent mind.

I've seen attempts to make sports palatable to sci fi nerds.  One experiment was a 1960s comic book series called Strange Sports Stories.  It featured plots like this: a wimpy kid eats a mysterious berry and becomes a super high school athlete; a man playing golf on Mars who stops an alien invasion; a future society where playing sports is outlawed because it's too dangerous.  That last one involved some rebel athletes who save the day and have sports legalized again.  A very depressing ending.

My anti-pro-sports viewpoint doesn't mean I'm against exercise or anyone going out and playing a friendly game of softball.  The Olympics typify what I hate about pro sports: greed, unbridled capitalism, the push for conformity -- "You catch the Olympics last night?" -- illusions of grandeur, egotistical athletes, taxpayers being screwed when the Olympics chooses their city as a venue and bankrupts the place while the real operators walk away with the Big $...

So don't try to appeal to my SF interest by having a story about future Olympics, aliens competing against each other while the host planet is bankrupted by the event.

I was thinking the other day what other kind of mash-up could be made with sports.  I see it now: pro sports with a Shakespearean theme.

"There's the snap.  Quarterback Julius Caesar has the ball, looking for an opening.  Wait, what's this?  His teammates are surrounding him, taking daggers out from hidden pockets in their togas.  No, it can't be -- they're stabbing Julius!

"Julius falls to his knees.  He looks up at one of his teammates.  Wait, what is he saying?  Listen..."

"Et tu, Butkus?"

Comments

Doug said…
You know, Ray, you'll never make the team with these edified puns.
10:11 AM
X. Dell said…
Um, I can see that you're not familiar with NFL Films. They take a Shakespearean approach to narrative every chance they get.

I have to admit to being a fan of two sports, namely football and baseball. Guess I'm not independent minded.

Let's see if I can think of some more:

"The fault, dear Cassius Clay, is not in the stars but in ourselves" (Julius Caesar, again).

"Some are born sweet, some achieve sweetness, and others have Sweetness thrust upon them." (Twelfth Night)

"If thou wert my fool, Nitschke, I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time." (King Lear),
3:11 PM
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