Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

– George Orwell

Oh lighten up, George. Didn’t you ever spend a Sunday afternoon watching a ballgame with your Dad and Grandpa, dozing on the rug with the dogs, getting up at halftime to make a turkey sandwich? Didn’t your mama ever nuke popcorn for you, while you watched the Bears press the ground game, ignoring a stiff cold wind off Lake Michigan? Serious sport is made for television, just like the overwrought personal lives of celebrities, and … usually … politics. It’s just for fun, which is what I doublethink if you doubleask me, Dude.

(If Orwell was still alive, I would definitely call him Dude.)