I am convinced that there is a gene for sports passion and that I did not inherit it. I know this because my older brother Mark did. While I headed for a career in museums and came to see sports frenzy as strange and puzzling, he found his way first into law and then into sports law. My brother now handles more major league baseball arbitration than any other lawyer in America, representing five teams across the country, including the Atlanta Braves and the Dodgers.
For the Rosenthals, the question of whether there should be stronger public support for the sports or for culture is a regular theme of vigorous discussion. Mark argues that sports provide communities with a sense of identify and focus. He claims they bring people together to bond with pride and hope.
I see his point, but argue otherwise. How could we possibly begin to understand our place in this world if the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other great museums of the world had not saved the expressions of past and current cultures? How could we place ourselves in the broad continuum of human endeavor without our cultural institutions? European nations understand that identity is captured and presented in museums; there, many museums receive significant state support.
Cities around this country, such as St. Louis and Denver, are also beginning to see that both sports and culture are essential for community vitality. They are creating mechanisms for ongoing support for both, not choosing one and letting the other wither. I hope that Indianapolis will become a place for families like mine that include some siblings that inherited the sports gene and some that didn’t. Mark is a sports fanatic, but not one dimensional. The perfect day for him includes a great museum exhibition followed by a great game – or maybe vice versa.