What Am I Doing With My Life?
Summer is a funny time. With little to do and no meaningful distinctions to differentiate weekdays from weekends, time slows down and I start forgetting what day it is and how long it's been since I last bathed. In this strange state of existence, I've discovered that I'll watch most anything on TV to divert my mind from the research I'm not doing, including four full days of US Open golf and about three passes through Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
So imagine my interest when I stumbled across polo on ESPN2. I consider myself a knowledgable sports fan, well-versed in the various sports disciplines which which people amuse themselves around the globe. I've spent time with curling, short-track speed skating, cycling, lacrosse, baseball, soccer, basketball, table tennis, badminton, croquet, boxing, MMA, cricket, rugby, NASCAR, tennis, as well as the American, Canadian, and international versions of football. When it comes to polo, I've both watched it on TV and played a crude version with my friends-though only the water versions.
But what I'm currently watching is the real, honest-to-goodness, horsey version of polo, the kind that until recently I knew only from dress shirts and bad cologne.
The Triple Crown of Polo apparently consists of several matches, each containing six periods, known as (I'm not making this up) chuckers. Despite a valiant effort from the quicker Alazana team the juggernaut Rude Boy Polo just won the first round by a score of 12-10. Apparently polo is a coed sport, and despite her team's sizeable second half lead, Rude Boy's captain Cecilia Cochran felt the need to hack at the other team's horses' legs and even (once) their faces. She then apolgized profusely (while the commentators explained that polo was a "gentlemen's sport") and returned to hacking away. When the action on the field dipped into a lull, ESPN took time to visit the event's sponsor, Lexus, whose spokesman took the oppurtunity to promote its newest luxury hybrid and extol the virtues both of polo and polo fans, refering to them as "our perfect demographic."
All in all, the spectacle was not as bizarre as, say, the cliff diving or arm wrestling championships I've seen ESPN cover in the past, and the action on the field, while difficult to follow, certainly was entertaining. But I couldn't stop asking myself, "Why in the world do people still play polo?" Surely there's some other, more humane way to spend an afternoon then riding around on horses, hacking at their legs and occasionally bopping them in the face. Surely even the wealthy and powerful must feel that, once the British Empire fell, polo should have gone the way of fox hunting. I don't know, maybe I'm just bitter because it took me nearly 20 years to find it, or because no one ever invited me to play.
So imagine my interest when I stumbled across polo on ESPN2. I consider myself a knowledgable sports fan, well-versed in the various sports disciplines which which people amuse themselves around the globe. I've spent time with curling, short-track speed skating, cycling, lacrosse, baseball, soccer, basketball, table tennis, badminton, croquet, boxing, MMA, cricket, rugby, NASCAR, tennis, as well as the American, Canadian, and international versions of football. When it comes to polo, I've both watched it on TV and played a crude version with my friends-though only the water versions.
But what I'm currently watching is the real, honest-to-goodness, horsey version of polo, the kind that until recently I knew only from dress shirts and bad cologne.
The Triple Crown of Polo apparently consists of several matches, each containing six periods, known as (I'm not making this up) chuckers. Despite a valiant effort from the quicker Alazana team the juggernaut Rude Boy Polo just won the first round by a score of 12-10. Apparently polo is a coed sport, and despite her team's sizeable second half lead, Rude Boy's captain Cecilia Cochran felt the need to hack at the other team's horses' legs and even (once) their faces. She then apolgized profusely (while the commentators explained that polo was a "gentlemen's sport") and returned to hacking away. When the action on the field dipped into a lull, ESPN took time to visit the event's sponsor, Lexus, whose spokesman took the oppurtunity to promote its newest luxury hybrid and extol the virtues both of polo and polo fans, refering to them as "our perfect demographic."
All in all, the spectacle was not as bizarre as, say, the cliff diving or arm wrestling championships I've seen ESPN cover in the past, and the action on the field, while difficult to follow, certainly was entertaining. But I couldn't stop asking myself, "Why in the world do people still play polo?" Surely there's some other, more humane way to spend an afternoon then riding around on horses, hacking at their legs and occasionally bopping them in the face. Surely even the wealthy and powerful must feel that, once the British Empire fell, polo should have gone the way of fox hunting. I don't know, maybe I'm just bitter because it took me nearly 20 years to find it, or because no one ever invited me to play.
posted by Nialator at 1:33 PM
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