In article ,
grizzlieantagonist{at}earthlink.net says...
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:05:58 -0800, Mark Borgerson
>  wrote:
>
> >In article ,
> >grizzlieantagonist{at}earthlink.net says...
> >> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:35:35 -0800, Mark Borgerson
> >>  wrote:
> >>
> >> >In article ,
> >> >grizzlieantagonist{at}earthlink.net says...
> >> >> On 25 Feb 2005 13:46:35 -0800, "Hyerdahl"
 wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> >connor_a{at}hotmail.com wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> Hyerdahl3 wrote:
> >> >> >> > >Subject: Re: You Go Girl! pushing
female activity
> >> >> >> > >From: "Jayne
Kulikauskas" momkulio{at}yahoo.ca
> >> >> >> > >Date: 2/2/2005 7:16 AM Pacific Standard Time
> >> >> >> > >Message-id:

> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> > Girls don't really seem to care what
either of you think of their
> >> >> >> sports.  I mean team sports for girls are
growing.  One of my
> >> >> >employees has a> daughter in> soccer and
her daughter is going to some
> >> >> >big game in Salt Lake City this next > weekend.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Female sport is boring unless of course the
gals wear next to
> >> >> >nothing.
> >> >> >> Jump girl, jump, weave, men in raincoats on
warm sunny days!
> >> >> >
> >> >> >Well, the girls and women who participate and
support these sports
> >> >> >don't seem to find it boring, even if you do.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Who's going to pay to support them, Puke if
audiences find them
> >> >> boring?
> >> >>
> >> >> They're playing to empty houses, aren't they?
> >> >>
> >> >> My hometown paper has completely fallen to Title IX fascism,
> >> >> religiously giving the women's team at the local
university the same
> >> >> publicity that they give to the men and THEN some.
> >> >>
> >> >> Doesn't matter.  The girls don't draw.  Nobody cares
to see them.
> >> >
> >> >They must be supporting the wrong sports, then.  Oregon
State women's
> >> >gymnastics regularly draws crowds of 3000 to 4000.
> >>
> >>
> >> Shit, Borgerson, you'd line up some heavy muscular female heavyweight
> >> boxer, put her in a ring with Pee Wee Herman and then claim that the
> >> end result "proved" that women were stronger than men.
> >
> >Nah----I leave it to Clint Eastwood to put women in the boxing ring.
> >(And it won him a number of Oscars tonight.)
>
>
> I don't think that this is the sort of picture that anyone will
> remember 20 years from now.
>
> How many people saw it on this go-around anyway?
>
> I don't think that women's boxing interests all that many people, and
> I don't think that it interests any normal people.
>
> Here is Steve Sailer on the topic:
>
> http://isteve.com/Film_Million_Dollar_Baby.htm
>
> In reality, women's boxing is a pseudo-feminist trashsport that
> briefly flourished in the 1990s when impresario Don King noticed that
> Mike Tyson fans got some kind of weird kick out of preliminary
> catfights between battling babes.
>
> Traditionally, society objected to women brawling because (to
> paraphrase the answer the shady doctor in "Eternal Sunshine of the
> Spotless Mind" gives to the question of whether his memory erasure
> technique can cause brain damage), "Technically speaking, boxing is
> brain damage."
>
> If a man gets his head caved in during some pointless scrap, well,
> some other man will just have to step in and do double duty carrying
> on the species. But, women are the limiting scarce resource in making
> babies, so each woman lost lowers the overall reproductive capacity.
>
> That kind of proto-sociobiological reasoning is unthinkable today, yet
> that hasn't brought about a feminist utopia. Instead, men employ
> gender equality slogans to badger women into doing things guys enjoy.
>
> Still, female fisticuffs have faded recently due to the supply side
> problem of finding enough low-cost opponents for the handful of women
> stars. While the number of male palookas who will fight for next to
> nothing in the hope of becoming Rocky Balboa is ample, managers
> needing fresh meat for their female champs to bash frequently have to
> hire hookers and strippers to take dives -- and working girls don't
> work for free.
>
> "Million Dollar Baby" simply ignores all this and asks you to believe
> that women's boxing today is a thriving duplicate of the men's fight
> game of a half century ago, which allows Eastwood to make a 1955-style
> boxing movie.
>
>
My impression of women's boxing is that it is a lot like women's
professional wrestling (and men's pro wrestling, for that matter).
It is not at all the equivalent of men's professional boxing.
>
>
>
> >> It's that sort of tag-end feminist sucking-up that you engage in that
> >> have caused Andre Lieven and I to name a john mop after you.

LOL!   I guess that's appropriate, since I usually have to clean up
when you get so excited that you miss the target.
> >>
> >> Gymnastics, and in particular, women's gymnastics is not even really a
> >> team sport, so to speak, it's a series of isolated performances by a
> >> number of women/girls that get tallied up and compared to each other.
> >
> >Sort of like men's wrestling or boxing teams---without the weight
> >classes.
>
>
>
> All right.
>
>
> >> Even I don't object to women's gymnastics.  It's a traditionally
> >> feminine pursuit; it glorifies the female form; it isn't instructed in
> >> a lesbianizing masculinizing culture like female team sports such as
> >> soccer and basketball are.
> >>
> >> So gymnastics are not what Title IX feminazis such as Puke have in
> >> mind when using athletics as a means of making war on men and boys.
> >>
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> >That's about
> >> >twice the total seating for the men's baseball team.
> >>
> >>
> >> You may not even know how right you are.  The Oregon State men's
> >> baseball team plays in a stadium that has about 2000 capacity; who
> >> knows how great their attendance would be, if they played in a stadium
> >> with larger capacity?
> >
> >Good point.  I have friend's whose son pitched on the team.  I'll ask
> >them how often the stadium was filled to capacity.
> >>
> >> Are they entitled to relief under Title IX because the gymnasium that
> >> hosts the women's gymnastic team has twice the capacity?
> >>
> >
> >More like 5 times---which it now needs since our men's basketball
> >team clinched their first winning season in a LONG time.
> >>
> >>
> >> >     Granted,
> >> >that's only about half the attendance of your beloved Fresno
> >> >Grizzlies--
> >>
> >>
> >> And let's also grant that attendance figures for the OSU men's
> >> football team dwarf that of female gymnastics.
> >
> >Is that just because the stadium is 3 times larger (soon to
> >be 5 times larger when construction is finished!   Pehaps
> >I'll be able to get tickets then without contributing
> >a couple of grand to the booster club).
> >>
> >>
> >> >but then OSU gymnastics is sharing a 50-year old
> >> >colliseum with basketball and volleyball.
> >>
> >>
> >> Why would that have a depressing effect on attendance for gymnastics?
> >
> >It's an old and fairly dreary coliseum.   Heck I remember it being
> >sort of dreary looking when my dad was refereeing basketball games
> >there in 1953---and it was brand new!
> >>
> >> How about the fact that many of the baseball games played at Oregon
> >> State are played early in the year when damp weather, extremely
> >> prevalent in the Pacific Northwest, would certainly have a depressing
> >> effect on attendance?
> >>
> >> This would not be a factor in a closed-roof gymnasium.  Is that
> >> another basis for giving Title IX relief to the Oregon men?
> >>
> >> I don't watch women's gymnastics, but I don't watch college baseball
> >> either.  I don't like metal bats; I think that the
"ping" sound that
> >> they make when striking the ball is disgusting and completely unlike
> >> the honest CRACK that is made when wooden bats are used.
> >>
> >> I also imagine that the use of metal bats at the NCAA level has
> >> probably ruined the professional prospects of a number of young
> >> hitters, who could not make the difficult adjustment from metal to
> >> wood when drafted by the pros.
> >>
> >>
> >> >How long will it
> >> >be before the Grizzlies pay off their new ballpark at 7000 tickets
> >> >per game?  (Or has attendance risen significantly with the
> >> >new ballpark?)
> >>
> >>
> >> 7000 tickets per game is a very respectable showing.  It is good for
> >> about third or fourth in the Pacific Coast League, and considering
> >> that the Grizzlies have not done well on the field, third or fourth
> >> overall in attendance is something that their owners should be
> >> well-satisfied with.
> >
> >Which reinforces my point that attendance---in any sport--is aided
> >by having a winning team.
>
>
> Yes, but MY point in response to yours was that the Fresno Grizzlies
> draw well IN SPITE OF the fact that they have not been winning on the
> field.
>

How does their attendance compare to the winning teams in the same
league?
>
> >> The stadium isn't just being financed by operations; they are finding
> >> other ways to pay for it too, such as the installation of parking
> >> meters in downtown Fresno.
> >>
> >> The city fathers in Pasadena, California were able to
revitalize "Old
> >> Town" in much the same way - I was there to witness some of it.
> >
> >I hope it works.    In Portland, there have been many debates over
> >the cost/benefit ratio of financing a new baseball park to try to
> >attract a major league team.
>
>
> Too much is made over the economics of such things.
>
> What is the cost-benefit ratio of art museums or opera houses?
>
> Probably not very economical, but such things lend ambience to a
> metropolitan area, though they only generate limited interest (I don't
> remember the last time I myself was in a museum). They would probably
> never be built if analyzed STRICTLY in economic terms.

I guess that's a difference in viewpoints, then.   I've visited at
least half a dozen museums in the last year.  I've attended no
professional sports events.   (But I suppose watching many on
TV has contributed to their revenues.)

I've never attended a professional sports event in Boston,
New York, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, London, Paris,
Rome, or Florence.  But I've visited museums in each of those
cities---some more than once.

How many of these museums were built and maintained with public
funds?   I suspect many  have at least some public funding,
but  many rely on private donations and large endowments.

Public funding of large sports arenas is being questioned in
many cities.   The economic benefits are not always clear
to the taxpayers who back the loans and face the traffic
problems on game day.   Haven't the San Francisco been
49ers been trying to get a replacement for Monster (Candlestick)
Park for some years now?
to get a new

>
> Baseball stadiums should be looked at in the same way.  If a
> metropolitan area can afford to build them, they should in order to
> obtain the intangible benefits.  Otherwise, it shouldn't.
>
> Portland already has a minor league team, the Beavers (I've seen them
> play in Grizzlie Stadium), and if I lived there, I wouldn't be overly
> anxious to replace them with a major league team.  Minor league
> baseball has a coziness and wholesomeness that major league baseball
> doesn't have.
>

I think that argument would go over well in Portland.  The 6200
average attendance at Beavers games (in a stadium that holds
20,000) does indicate  that there may be limits to the ticket
sales income.   And that attendance level was for a team that
had the best W/L record in the PCL last year.
>
>
> >> The construction and the opening of Grizzlie Stadium is but the crown
> >> jewel in the pending revitalization of downtown Fresno, and I imagine
> >> that other sources of revenue will come pouring in.  They are about to
> >> open the new restored Santa Fe railroad station and rent out some
> >> space to private businesses.
> >>
> >> But what the hell do you care anyway?  You don't live here, and it
> >> isn't a concern of yours.
> >>
> >I'm interested in the effects major spending on sports facilities
> >has on city economies.   I also lived a few blocks from a minor-league
> >stadium in Missoula Montana (home of a different group of Grizzlies)
> >and used to return foul balls for free entrance into the stadium.
> >I used to be quite a fan of minor-league baseball.  Unfortunately
> >that ended when we moved to Arcata, California in '57.
> >>
> >>
> >> >Perceived excellence---as reflected by national rankings has a lot
> >> >to do with attendance for all collegiate sports.    The
Connecticutt
> >> >and Tennesee women's basketball teams have average attendances of
> >> >about 14,000.   The unranked Oregon State women's team is lucky to
> >> >draw 1400---even with lots of giveaway tickets.
> >> >> Women write letters to the editor raging over poor
community support
> >> >> and lackluster attendance at female events.
> >> >>
> >> >> Know what?  It STILL doesn't matter.
> >> >
> >> >We get the same kinds of letters about men's baseball
here.  Whether it
> >> >matters depends on whether you are a baseball fan, I suppose.
> >>
> >>
> >> The bottom line is that, as a general rule, men's sports draw a great
> >> deal more spectator interest than women's sports, notwithstanding your
> >> attempt to pick here and pick there for exceptions.
> >
> >It was you who made the statement "Doesn't matter.  The girls
don't draw.
> >Nobody cares to see them."   I'm glad to see that you've acknowledged
> >that there are exceptions.
>
>
> I was speaking specifically with reference to the Fresno State women's
> teams.
OK.  But you didn't say that at the time.   I wasn't sure what you
meant by "the local university".     I don't recall any national
powerhouses in women's sports at Fresno State.  I do recall, with
some chagrin,  the quality of the men's football team.  ;-(
>
> It's no doubt true as a generalized categorical statement, as well,
> but there are exceptions to any generalized categorical statement;
> that's why I used the Pee Wee Herman vs female heavyweight example.
>
> My complaint is that you have been picking and choosing contrary
> examples as a means of attempting to disprove the generalization as a
> whole.

And my complaint is that your statements,  while you may intend them
as generalizations,  sound way to much like absolutes.  You and Andre
seem to suffer same excesses in your writing.

If you had said:

" Doesn't matter. Most girls sports don't draw.  Few people care to see
them."

instead of:

"Doesn't matter.  The girls don't draw.  Nobody cares to see them."

I would have had no objection at all.


>
>
>
> >> Any sport that can't support itself has no inherent
"right" to exist,
> >> and quotas should not be used to mandate its existence.
> >
> >I agree.   Women's gymnastics at OSU probably funds itself---probably
> >the only women's sport to do so.  I doubt that it would do so if it
> >weren't ranked in the top 20 in the US.   TV broadcasts from other
> >schools with whom OSU competes often show only a few hundred fans,  and
> >I doubt they come close to funding the scholarships, equipment and
> >travel.
>
>
>
> Then you're guilty as charged.  You acknowledge now that women's
> gymnastics at OSU are exceptionally popular and not an example of the
> popularity of women's sports as a whole.

Which is the only exception needed to disprove your original statement.
If noting that there are exceptions to your rule makes me guilty of
examining your statements in detail,  I throw myself on the
mercy of the court.   I hope you do better at examining the details
of the prosecutor's statements when you are representing your
clients in court.   ;-)

Mark Borgerson



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