The Greatest Sports Story Ever Told

I was watching the Yankees-Red Sox pregame today on FOX, when Jeanie Zelasko uttered something along the lines of "Now we send you out to Fenway for the greatest sports story ever told." I don't see how one team constantly beating the shit out of another team is even a good story, much less the greatest one ever told. A story needs emotion, conflict, and above all, a hero. The Red Sox and Yankees have the first two, but they are superficial. The emotion is a great as any rivalry, both cities desperately want to win. But the conflict is unimportant. It is, at its very core, just a game, no matter which way you slice it. No one will die, society will not undergo radical change depending on who wins or loses. And most of all, a hero is not to be found. Who to root for: a team run my a money spending felon or a team full of a bunch of whiney men who blame losing every time on a dead guy? There is no hero here. The true greatest sports story ever is that with a real hero, that of Jackie Robinson.

Jackie Robinson had tremendous courage to do what he did. Jackie's story is one that changed society radically. While baseball was racially segregated, he came along and helped start the change that allows us to enjoy anyone with the talent to make it. I'm not saying society is perfect because of Jackie Robinson alone, or that society is perfect anyway. What I am saying is that Jackie Robinson played the game with talent and courage, and the world is better for him having done so. No one since or ever again will impact sports and society in the manner or magnitued that Jackie Robinson did. This is why Jackie Robinson's is the greatest sports story ever told.