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Referees: Sacrificial Lambs Of The Sports World

Flickr Creative Commons, hectorir

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2007-11-2011.mp3

New York magazine's often caustic Will Leitch thinks we should feel sorry for "umpires — lonely, underpaid men who spend their whole adult lives on the road, being called horrible names by strangers — are our sacrifice, roasted on a spit as we pray to the instant-replay gods. We understand that outrage is building so that its momentum will bring us the robot umps we all want and deserve. But you still feel bad for the men in blue who find a new reason to be screamed at every night."

I think he's right. But there's a kind of rage that boils up inside a sports fan when the blown call really hurts your team. And there are wounds that never heal. As a Phoenix Suns fan, I could still make myself mad about the fishy-looking suspension of Stoudemire and Diaw in the 2007. Presumably those guys are over it. They play for other teams now. 
 
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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