Save Our Sonics By Oscar McPhee

The American Journal of Sporting Opinion
15 April 2008
Vol. 13, pg. 13

"Save Our Sonics"
by Oscar McPhee

Last night the Seattle SuperSonics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 99-95. Seattle started the night 32 games behind Dallas. What, other than freak luck, propelled these vagabonds to what would normally be a stunning victory?

After 41 years, it was likely the very last basketball game to be played by the Sonics in Seattle.

Owner Clay Bennett, an Oklahoma yahoo who's almost certainly a rival of our dear zine's owner and proprietor, bought the team a few years back with the sole purpose of moving it to Oklahoma City. He pretended to work with Seattle to build a new stadium or make whatever other crazy demands owners make of cities (luxury boxes?? How about Lunchable boxes for all the players' kids!). But all along, Bennett was e-mailing all over the place about how cool it will be to move to a place where his whole team will probably get lynched.

Non-sports fan may wonder why this could possibly matter. After all, aren't we still playing shoot-em-up with the Osama Iraqis and all? My answer to that is; wake up! Sports is people too!

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but this writer believes very strongly that in order to be a well-rounded, well-adjusted, well-butrin individual, a person needs to go through certain emotional experiences, such as anger, fear, disgust, denial, acceptance, and tuna on toast. No matter how many tomatoes you put on that tuna, you can't hide from real human feeling; it is the stuff of dreams, the stuff that keeps us up at night and makes us realize our flaws and makes us change and become better people! And sports is a good way to go through all this shit.

Come on, wouldn't you rather be crying your little eyes out because A-Rod choked away another playoff game than because your girlfriend is a lying whore who said it's not you it's me but really she just met some other guy who's probably just like you and it's like she's just jumping from rock to rock and when is she gonna get a clue? How about the choice between a crucial missed field goal or your best friend's murder-suicide? Sports makes it easier to go through all that emotional stuff! Because even though it doesn't matter as much, it sometimes feels like it does! And then you realize it doesn't and you feel happy!

So I hope for Seattle's sake that they can save their Sonics. I hope that Seattleans are able to grow into mature adults because Kevin Durant breaks his scrawny little femur rather than some kind of apocalyptic race riot. Leave that kind of nonsense to Oklahoma. They're bored anyway!