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Reflections of a Weak Society?
Monday night, with a little over five minutes remaining in the 1st Quarter of the Bills-Bengals game, Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest. He was attended by both teams’ trainers and EMTs and was transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where he remains in critical condition.
The overwhelming opinion of the media and everyone connected with the game is that it could not continue and the the NFL suspended play.
Is it a sign of respect or sign of weakness?
On March 22, 1989, Steve Tuttle of the St. Louis Blues and Uwe Krupp of the Buffalo Sabres crashed into the nets and, in a freak accident, one of Tuttle’s skates cut open the neck of Sabres’ goal tender Clint Malarchuk, severing his carotid artery and partially cutting his jugular vein. Malarchuck lost a liter and half of blood. The Blues resurfaced the ice and the game was finished.
In 1940, Cincinnati Reds backup catcher Willard Herschberger committed suicide in the team’s hotel in Boston. (I wrote about his story here.) After a team meeting the Reds played the next day and completed the road trip to Brooklyn to take on the Dodgers.
The only player to die on the field during a National Football League game was Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions. With 1:02 left in an October 1971 game at Tiger Stadium vs the Chicago Bears, the 28-year-old wide receiver collapsed on his way back to the huddle. He was pronounced dead at Henry Ford Hospital.
Were we tougher back then or were we just terrible people?
Published in General
I don’t understand what you’re criticizing my original comment about then. You start with “Well, of course life goes on. No one is going to spend the rest of their life in bed”. I wasn’t saying that, which is why I made my next comment which you referred to as a straw man. So now what?
Could it be cavalier to simply go back to work when the immediate hubbub subsides? It could be, but not necessarily so. In fact I think that going back should be the default, with some exceptions.
I was inspired to reply to your comment based upon the following, because I have personal experience with the exact situation you describe:
Don’t know if this changes any opinions. It changed mine after my initial reaction which I described as mixed with my first comment (#13). From what I understand the NFL had planned to continue playing but it was the players themselves that said no, players from both teams.
Look, they’re playing a game and a teammate and fellow athlete for all intents and purposes dies in front of their eyes. They watch a fury of events to resuscitate him, and you expect them to continue afterwards as if nothing happened? No way. It’s a game.
Just replied to your points.
Punts? Points? Pouts? I’ll freely cop to the first two plus any number of shortcomings, but I tend not to pout. ;D
This is the appropriate response. It’s a game that has to be played at the highest level, and these guys need to be at the peak of their mental and physical abilities to perform properly and avoid mistakes and additional injuries. They’re not just going back to their desks to update some spreadsheets or call customers.
I think I’ve read all the comments … there’s an elephant in the room that hasn’t been mentioned (or I missed it)
Heart inflammation in young men is a known side effect of the jabs. In fact, it was known at the time of the trials. How common and how much of a threat will be determined if and when we get honest people in enough of a position of authority to make those important determinations. I see no indication that that is going to happen anytime soon.
Until then, we have thousands and thousands of young men in the NFL who got jabbed as a condition of remaining on their team. And they, along with millions of spectators, witnessed a young, healthy player drop like a stone in front of their eyes.
Hopefully, there won’t be an autopsy. Hopefully, an accurate diagnosis will be made. Hopefully, people will believe it.
Under normal circumstances, it’s appropriate for these young men to feel somewhat immortal. They’re young, and at the pinnacle of physical fitness.
I wonder what is going through those young men’s minds right now …
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/03/football/christian-eriksen-cardiac-arrest-return-spt-intl/index.html
I know my American friends love to diss soccer, but when something similar happened to a famous player in an international game, the match was rearranged for later the same day!
Also it DOES NOT MATTER. Not like spreadsheets do, man. Not like spreadsheets do.
Then we agree, it’s just a game?
Yes, that’s kind of what I was suggesting with the national “trauma” explanation.
Under normal circumstances they might all have wanted to continue playing. But how many of them are thinking “I might be next”?
Because just like everything else in soccer, nobody cared.
In my mind, when someone at the next cubicle drops dead, there’s an immediacy that hits you. I can see why people might take off work for the rest of the day. That guy was just poking away at his keyboard and CLUNK!
But in a football game, there are frequently injuries. It kind of comes with the territory. Not this severe, but it happens. So . . . it would seem less likely that other players would “take off work” for the rest of the day. Especially players on the other team. Or the whole league.
There’s some other psychology at work here, and the severity of the injury doesn’t seem to explain it.
Oh, absolutely. I’ve said that here.
CarolJoy- please try to get any, really any, basic facts correct in your posts……Dr McC is not “an exceptionally skillful cardiac surgeon” by any measure- mainly b/c he isn’t a cardiac surgeon….
addendum- you have made the same incorrect claim elsewhere on Ricochet and back then I let you know he wasn’t a surgeon, but for some reason you like to repeat incorrect information….
Swedish, ja?
Hey! I resemble that! Updating spreadsheets and calling customers (or vendors) takes concentration too. It’s important work. It’s meaningful work. As is football.
This isn’t Brett Favre playing a game a day after his father died – I think most would have understood him sitting that one out, but the fact that he didn’t sit it out made him admirable. Admirable, not heartless. This Hamlin accident isn’t even that, though. These are coworkers and friends – who still have an important job to do. Doing that job doesn’t preclude mourning or reverence or direct aid.
As far as not being able to perform in the face of a jarring accident? Well I think that’s the point at hand. I expect people to be able to perform in these circumstances, with some exceptions. Sounds like that isn’t the consensus more broadly. Has something changed? I think it has. Is that change for the better? I don’t know.
I have no problem with suspending the game and if individual players need time, so be it. Closing down the whole league is another story.
But what is being asked and of whom? Don’t mourn? Don’t revere? Don’t aid? None of that is being asked.
I might respond, “dude, it’s just a game” if someone were to ask me to risk death to score the next touchdown in my backyard goof off game with my kids as if scoring the touchdown had any impact on anything. Except that professional touchdowns do have impact from financial to emotional. Which is why these guys are well aware of the real physical risks they face yet they do it anyway for appropriate compensation.
There’s something bugging me about the “it’s just a game” argument, but I can’t quite articulate what it is and I have some work I have to get done. Maybe I’ll come back after I’ve updated my spreadsheet in my cubicle and try to sort it out with all of your help.
I’ll bet it’s the fact that while the “game” aspect is relevant to this specific example, it’s not informative in the larger question about pansification.
Fighting is rare these days and with helmets+visors and untaped hands, it is really just an exercise in breaking fingers. When a player gets $100,000 per game, the owners demand the players are protected by rules.
At the independent living retirement community where I once lived, the dining room was located in an atrium open to the third floor. One day at lunch, paramedics wheeled a deceased resident in a body bag along the second floor to the elevator and then past the dining room to the exit.
Everyone continued eating lunch while discussing who the late resident might be.
At my age, we come to expect such things… but not for twenty-somethings.
You must be a reincarnation of a Roman Senator who liked to frequent the gladiatorial games. Distant memory of when fans weren’t weaklings? :-P
Great point, Drew. I saw patients that day, at least those who came in.
I’ll bow out of this discussion now, because I’ve completely lost track of the issue and of who’s arguing for which position. See you elsewhere . . .
Hair too dark, legs too short.
Maybe that too, but I think it’s something more along the lines of what is meaningful in life, or about what the limitations of that kind of argument are. Do most things mean not much in the scheme of things? Sure, a game which doesn’t produce much isn’t worth any real risk of death; a game which generates millions of dollars for players, owners, support industries? What about a game that brings joy and meaning (whether or not it should) to millions? What about the duty
I think I’m also thinking about it in relation to all we see happening politically. “It’s just politics” so it’s not worth fretting or even talking about it if it causes social discomfort to do so. Yet the Founders risked their lives, their fortunes, and their honor for seemingly far less than the abuses we’ve seen. Economic disaster, plundering the public fisc, growing authoritarianism, attacks on free and fair elections. I don’t believe J6 was insurrection and I argued against using that terminology starting on 1/6/2021. However, when do things become important enough? When the house is burning and coming down around us?
It’s just x, it’s not important enough to risk y. Or, it’s x, so just y doesn’t matter. In this particular case I think the second sentence is the operable one. I don’t think it works without adding terms which are not actually applicable in this case.
I don’t know, there’s many things swirling around the old noggin, and I really do have a spreadsheet to update. I’ll keep noodling though.
Well, I care so little about sports that I’m not going to debate whether they matter — they certainly don’t to me, and certainly not any particular match.
Even so, peoples’ right to enjoy sports or reading a book or going to church is certainly worth fighting for.
I’ve even been known to read a book in church while watching a game on my phone. I will definitely fight for that.