Boundless Apathy

"The instrument has not been invented that can measure my indifference to that remark."

Benjamin F. 'Hawkeye' Pierce, M*A*S*H

Two major sporting events took place over the weekend, and I honestly couldn't care less about either one. Two mesomorph's beating each other up and a horse owned by wealthy people running in a circle for our entertainment. My only happiness comes in the fact that apparently neither the horse nor its jockey were seriously injured. I cannot go through that again.

I do not wager, nor do I pay $54 to watch sports on television, so I missed out on the glory here. If I want to see two people beat each other senseless, I can watch Hannity and Colmes. They're senseless to begin with, so it's just the beating that has appeal.
Besides, I spent two days listening to people call him Merryweather, and another two days listening to people tell me whom was going to win the Kentucky Derby. Do we say 'whom' if it's a horse? In the case of the Derby, it strikes me as a bunch of wealthy people gathering together to watch a bunch of horses run around, and a bunch of non-wealthy people thinking that they will become wealthy by picking the winner. Only one bunch is getting wealthier, trust me.

Meanwhile, we are treated to stories about other owners who purchased their rides for "a mere $8,000", as though we are supposed to identify with them because they achieved so much with so little outlay - making them commoners, supposedly. Do you know how much it costs to keep a horse? I do, and even if I had the space, I couldn't imagine feeding it, stabling it and paying a trainer to run it around so that a midget could sit on it for two minutes and try to earn my money back.
As far as boxing is concerned, there are way too many weight divisions. Besides the fact that there are at least 4 sanctioning bodies, there are 17 weight classes.

Heavyweight, Cruiserweight, Super Featherweight, Middleweight, Bantamweight ... Minimumweight is the least, which makes sense.

Jesusweight, can't you guys just get together and beat each other up like real people? Two guys in a bar get in a fight over which one of them bought that whore a drink. Do you think they have to step on a scale before they hit each other with a chair? No. Get with the program and fight like real idiots. Maybe they're just drain bamanged?

In 1984, R.J. McCunney and P.K. Russo published a study entitled Brain Injuries in Boxing. The study argued that boxing is relatively safe compared to other sports by citing the following figures on U.S. sports fatalities:

Fatality rates per 100,000 participants:
Horse racing: 128
Sky diving: 123
Hang gliding: 56
Mountaineering: 51
Scuba Diving: 11
Motorcycle racing: 7
College Football: 3
Boxing: 1.3

Now, there's something worth betting on.