Watch CBS News

Baffoe: Sports Are Greater Than A Stupid Royal Baby

By Tim Baffoe-

(CBS) So the media bombshell, the story of the season crossed the wire Monday morning—Kate Middleton is pregnant. Pardon, I meant she's "preggers," because today you're expected to speak in tabloidese because I guess you must embody the giant sack of crap you read and watch.

I hate that baby, and its little mangled-mouthed, hoity-toity self is only in its first trimester. And that's the fault of most of you. Don't think I don't know that many of you reading this are only doing so because you saw that this column mentions the inbred royal spawn. And you who concern yourselves with the child of people you will never meet are truly the worst kind of people. You keep paparazzi in business. You keep Nancy Grace in operation.

So I took to social media as I am wont to do and threw out the sort-of-rhetorical demand of arguing for the relevancy of the future duke or duchess or viceroy or whatever the kid will be called in the life of John or Jane Q. Anglophile. I got the typical sarcastic responses I was expecting (a sarcastic life begets sarcasm) except for one from non-awful person Maggie Hendricks, she of Yahoo! Sports and the Grizzly Detail blog. Hendricks equated someone's concern for the Royal Diamond-Crusted Diaper Filler with concern for the Chicago Bears, saying "It's all diversion."

Agreed, in the sense that sports are an opiate unless you're not right in the head and see your favorite teams and athletes as actual extensions of yourself (using "we" to discuss a team is a tell-tale symptom of such a disorder). I cannot agree, though, that sports are on the same level of diversion as having an interest in the pregnancy of a woman and birth of a non-Messiah in some other country.

Neither a football game nor a celebrity baby has any impact on the life of you or me (any more than I have to write columns about the former in order to hang on to the CBS company car I've received). But where sports ends at entertainment for most of the loyal fans, the obsession with the royal family continues as a pathology for those who as children were obviously not taught that fairy tales serve to impart a moral and not act as a model for society.

It's living vicariously through the lives of rich and famous people is what it is. Hendricks disagrees, contending being happy for someone isn't living vicariously. I agree with her statement, but I don't think that's what applies for most people regarding the future Prince(ss) Turdlington Willoughby of Windsor Knot. First, I'm not happy for Prince William and his wife. And I won't refer to them as Will and Kate or Willkat. These people are not my friends, nor are they yours. That child is going to be an insufferable little louse, both from its family's making and the world at large. The royal family is one big bag of clowns. It serves zero purpose other than to clutch at wisps of what remains of tradition, which for Britain is the "Rule Britannia!" times of telling countries they aren't independent and swinging around some worldwide sense of entitlement. That doesn't exist in sports, at least not for the evolved fan. Those hung up on tradition are lightly pandered to but largely scoffed at. "We need to get back to Bear football!" is dumbassese for "Football should revert to antiquated style of play that produced hardly any success in Chicago for decades." "We always sing songs at Cubs games!" And where has that gotten the team?

The one great thing about sports that has endured for thousands of years is the appreciation of hard work and merit. Nobody is born on the PGA Tour. Your uncle can't get you an NBA roster spot. And if there is any sort of nepotism on a coaching level, a lack of success easily takes care of that. I'm not happy that some kid is going to be born into a life of luxury and privilege and will never have to earn a damn thing in his or her life. I'm not happy that kid will be immersed in a sense of entitlement from its first day on earth. I'm not happy that millions, rich and poor, will champion that. If you're happy for this obscenely and undeservedly wealthy couple bearing the fruits of divine right, where is your joy for the nonfamous babies of strangers?

There is something so absolutely wrong with feeling anything about the personal lives of celebrities, especially people whose celebrity comes from… well… essentially nothing. I care about athletes and coaches and general managers as far as their jobs go. What they do after they throw their car keys on the kitchen counter matters not. Now, if they are doing things away from their jobs that may affect job performance, then I raise an eyebrow. But Kate Middleton doesn't even have a damn job. What does she do? She gets her picture taken at all times when she's outside of her home, consumes expensive goods on a country's dime, and maybe pretends to do some charity work, all because she won the marriage lottery and got hitched to a guy who won the birth lottery just as his son or daughter will. And now she's having a baby that will be largely cared for by an army of royal employees. Oh joy.

At least sports feeds a primal need for competition, and rooting for teams may even be healthy for the psyche. The royal family feeds inferiority complexes. Thanks, but I have plenty of other reasons to dislike myself without needing these people to help. Being a sports fan certainly has its faults, but at least they tend to exist within that literal and figurative arena.

Jeff Pearl
Tim Baffoe

Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.