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The Sports Gospel
January 30, 2007
The Sports Gospel: Barbaro
LIVES!
It is a sad week for planet Earth. Barbaro has been
euthanized. I know what you’re thinking, so save the classless glue jokes. I
don’t want to hear about Barbaro’s inability to outrun death with only 2.5 good
legs or about how his future is now in scrap booking supplies. There are too
many people hurting for cruel jokes. Fortunately, I have good news for his
legions of fans. Wipe away your tears, because…Barbaro is alive!
Why would I share this with the legions of Barbaro fans?
After all, they have chimed in with their thoughts of me, ranging from someone
praying I get hit and killed by a semi-truck to a flight attendant who
insinuated I was the worst person she’s heard of since 9/11. Here’s a brief
sampling-
Go f*ck yourself you
heartless bastard!-John
You are pathetic. Your
parents raised an idiot, which says a lot about them. -Tim
How do you dare call
Barbaro a media whore. Your a pitiful human, and have a mean hearted
attitude. Get out of media business. You should get a job working as a
janitor at Burger King. Maybe they would accept you, but I doubt it. Your a
first class asshole, and I hope whatever you try to achieve fails. –Karen
Yet,
during my time on the Barbaro beat (this is now my 3rd column on it),
I’ve softened somewhat. I learned that this is a horse that people really,
really, REALLY care about. Their obsession isn’t something to poke fun at or to
ridicule. I could’ve kept this to myself and left them to grieve, but that’s
just not who I am. Rejoice, animal fans- Barbaro lives.
How do
I know this? Because I saw him this afternoon, with my very own eyes. I am 100%
certain it was him. I was driving on a highway in SE Ohio and, in the distance,
I saw Barbaro. He was trotting around a fenced-in field with several of his new
friends, enjoying life away from the spotlight. He was completely healed and
running without even a slight limp. It was truly miraculous.
Now,
this stunning revelation does beg the question- why did he fake his own death? I
have two theories. The first is that he merely longed to escape his lunatic
fans. Anytime he so much as sneezed, thousands of supporters would rain their
prayers, well-wishes and ballads on him via his message board. At this point, he
had more crayon drawings by 3-year-old artists and poems from lonely,
55-year-old women than he knew what to do with. He couldn’t even sell them on
Ebay (given the fact that he’s a horse and, as we all know, regrettably, horses
aren’t afforded the same purchasing power that humans are so he couldn’t buy a
computer).
My
second theory is that the expectations would’ve been too much for him to handle
if he fully recovered. He knew that if he was able to run again that he would
draw non-stop comparisons to planet Earth’s other great runner, Lance Armstrong.
The only problem is that Barbaro knew he could never win another Kentucky Derby,
let alone three or four more. He could never reach the bar that Lance set and
probably didn’t want to live the rest of his life in that shadow. After all,
Armstrong came back from cancer to dominate the Tour de France, so it was easier
for Barbaro to let the world know he had “died” from a broken leg
(when in reality the only
problem a broken leg presents is being too selective when letting admirers sign
your cast). He had
peaked athletically, so it made sense for him to step out of the spotlight.
You
may not believe me now, but you will someday. Maybe you will see Barbaro
frolicking in a pasture near you or with a smile on his face riding a Jet-ski in
the Caribbean. Maybe you will encounter him at a mid-western diner, accompanied
by Elvis, and you will just know that he has fooled us all.
Regardless, rest comfortably tonight knowing that the greatest horse that ever
lived is still out there… somewhere.
It’s either that or the alternative- God got so annoyed by
all the prayers for Barbaro that he decided to intervene. You can make up your
own mind, but I know what I saw.
Selected Archived Columns
Mark Chalifoux is a
columnist for SportzNutz.com and SportsFan Magazine. He has written for ESPN and hosts
Unabated Sports on Cincinnati’s ESPN Radio.
You can reach him at
Rockne48@und.com |
