Why Politics and Sports are the Same

...Especially When it Comes to Women

Perhaps one of my favorite sports movies was 1992's "A League of Their Own." Staring Tom Hanks, this sports classic explored the history of women's baseball during WWII. The women went from being unpopular cheap entertainment to major league contenders in the span of the season - with national attention diverted to them and commonplace capacity crowds.

Today, even after the feminism movements, women's sports have once again taken a back seat to men's sports. But the problem doesn't just apply to sports - it applies to almost every aspect of society, including politics. However, one woman seems to want this to change, her name is Hillary Clinton.

Whether somebody likes her politically, personally, or doesn't like her at all, there is no debate that she is defiantly a contender for the presidency. I recently had the pleasure of watching former President Bill Clinton speak on her behalf in Canton. After the rally I joined the other hundred or so Bill fans in crowding around the stage to try and get a handshake. We pushed and shoved, some got rude, some got nice, but in the end he took the time to shake the hands of each one of us - just like a true politician.

And after I shook his hand, I couldn't help thinking back to when I was 8 and crowding around the locker room of local AA baseball team, the Akron Aeros, trying to get an autograph. Back when I was 8, this was something that mattered to me - and now that I am 18, Clinton's handshake meant something just as important.

Politics and sports have always been intertwined. Whether used for publicity or lawmaking - from the first pitch to the Roger Clemens hearings - politicians and sports stars are interdependent of one or another. This begs my theory that politics is possibly the most complicated sport of them all . . . Certainly politics fits the dictionary definition of "sport":

Sport n

1. An individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally (often used in the plural)

(Encarta World English Dictionary, 1999 Microsoft Corporation)