Home: Run!

NY baseball fan killed mother as team lost

I've never subscribed to "it's only a game" - sport is much more important than that. Perhaps not more important than Life & Death, as Bill Shankly famously opined, but as the extension of a collective ego and a means of non-lethal warfare, it clearly matters.

I'm supposed to be a New York Mets fan - although my loyalty barely extends beyond checking if they're winning or losing. When they lose - if I notice at all - my reaction is usually limited to "Oh, pooh!" Contrasted with this guy, I could be said to lack passion.

But I'm not sure it's fair, or wise, to report what is clearly an incidental fact of the case - that he was watching baseball - in a way that implies some culpability by the sport. I don't believe that Reuters seriously intends to float the notion that watching one's team lose can spontaneously transform any random individual into a matricidal maniac. Nevertheless, that's what comes across. There must have been other contributing factors heard in court, but we aren't told them. The fact that he was 25 and still living at home surely says more, for a start? It's lazy, sensationalist reporting, especially troubling as it comes from Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Rugby World Cup approaches, so perhaps I'd better stay away from my parents, just in case...