Irony and Sports

Irony can be defined as an incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity (see Koko's guide to the English language second edition). In particular cultural and political events seem ripe with irony. Now irony can be seen in a comedic light but it does not necessarily have to be. Irony can range from the comedic (Jon Stewart) to the dark comedy (Catch 22) to the tragically ironic (Donald Rumsfeld). This week irony seemed to abound in the sports world and commentary is as such needed:

College Baseball: There seems to be unexpected divide between one of the more popular professional sports in America and the college world. On Saturday in between World Cup Games (between celebrating an English victory and a Caribbean fiesta) I saw a 9 pitch top of the second inning between South Carolina and Georgia for what I think is the quarterfinals of the NCAA baseball Championship (I think. In truth I get confused by the regional, super-regional, jumbo sized regional, etc). What made this inning unique was that South Carolina hit 5 home runs, by my count on 6 pitches. That’s back to back to back to back to back home runs. Yet it was barely a blimp in the sports news. College baseball isn’t just less popular in some areas it's not even on the radar and there is the incongruity. With the other major sports - college and professional sports have some overlap but not baseball. Maybe it's because a lot of the great players bypass college and head directly the professionals. College basketball has arguably had a hit to its own prestige when high school players left for the NBA directly. However I believe it may be more of cultural divide between the big urban areas that focus on their beloved professional team while the rural college towns (mainly of the South and Southwest) eschew the professional variety and care for their own brand. Nowhere is college baseball bigger than Louisiana and nowhere does MLB resonate so little.

Mexico v. Iran - Irony was overflowing in this match although the political undertow was the reason for this irony. Mexico has been embroiled in an immigration controversy. The irony is that is has nothing to do with the Northern border. Instead it’s a question being debated of if non-native citizens of Mexico should play on Mexico's World Cup team. Yes, should those born in countries other than Mexico be allowed to represent the country is a question being waged in public. Furthering the irony was that arguably the hero of the game for Mexico was a Brazilian born player who had only recently gained citizenship.

The darker irony was that Iran and Mexico played in Nuremburg stadium. The same stadium one would see in the grainy videos of Nazi rallies. The same stadium that has Nazi architecture and symbols still embedded in it. Yet there was team Iran, whose government has recently courted controversy with what in Germany would be an arrestable offense via Holocaust denial, in Nuremburg. The irony in this case was anything but comedic.