The Most "Now" Athlete (An Excerpt from the N&UR Sports Page)

We've been very busy over the past couple days, but things should be returning to normal. While we settle back in, here's a recent post from our new blog - The N&UR Sports Page. It's a bit of a sports pop culture blog if you will.

Sportscenter has been running a little bracket poll to determine the athlete that is the most "now" (seriously Sportscenter is totally transforming into Entertainment Weekly). That is, the athlete who best exemplifies "sports" in these times. So who would it be?

Barry Bonds? Now, Bonds is utterly fascinating - in fact, I may call him the most fascinating athlete ever. But while he may be the first (and only?) postmodern athlete, he is not "now." Bonds is completely undefinable in these terms. In a sense, he is classic - Bonds is linked to baseball history through his father and godfather, and seems to have a great appreciation for baseball records. In fact, achieving stats never before achieved in history seems to be his driving force. At the same time, he does not act like a classic athlete. But he also doesn't act like a modern athlete. The party with Jay-Z wasn't a bad start, but Bonds steps through his celebrity status a bit awkwardly. He is not image-conscious whatsoever, and becoming a media target has not made baseball fans as a whole sympathetic.

Alex Rodriguez? Well Alex Rodriguez shares Bonds love for chasing records, but seems to cherish celebrity status a bit more. Even recent media criticism - strip clubs, a "fuck you" on his wife's t-shirt - equate him more with, say, Brad Pitt, than Barry Bonds. "A-Rod is simply more interesting than Bonds," writes Gene Wojciechowski. He may be 31 but A-Rod still seems like the athlete for the MTV crowd. Soon he'll be the youngest to reach 500 homers, and there's nothing like being the youngest to reach something to endear yourself to the young people. A-Rod's also charming and charismatic - and, yeah, it was fun to joke about his poor performance in last year's division series, but we still felt bad for him too.

Lebron James? Let's face it - I love baseball above all sports, but baseball is still catching up to professional sports in terms of "now"-ness. Basketball players were celebrities long before the baseball guys took notice (and most of them are still pretty clueless). Sports fans are more attracted to individual basketball players than they are teams, and it really doesn't matter what somebody's stats are. James was a star long before he reached the NBA, and a horde of endorsements ensure that he'll remain in the public eye. James is a kid who grew up idolizing the modern, image conscious basketball player - that one whose off court actions were just as important as his on court ones. He can learn from Kobe's mistakes and instead make himself both endearing and cool. Who doesn't love those Nike commercials?

So, yeah, James probably is the most now, but I wonnder if sports will just go the way of all forms of entertainment, with fans and audiences just looking for the next hot thing.