I don’t like to get too controversial on the Bookshelf Battle.
You have your views on the world. I have mine. Someone else has theirs. That guy has his. Put four people in a room, ask them a question, and you might get five different answers. Yes, I said five. One person might be confused.
That being said, this ball inflation story is the dumbest, most blatantly manufactured non-news story I’ve ever seen. You’ve got Isis running amuck. The President and Cabinet of Yemen just resigned rather than face the wrath of rebels. Boko Haram is wondering around Africa kidnapping every school girl they can find. The King of Saudi Arabia just died. What will that mean for the direction of the Middle East?
And what’s on my TV? Detailed reports of the size, color, and consistency of the New England Patriots’ balls.
Ahem, their footballs.
Yes, I made that hacky joke.
WHO CARES?
Look, I’m a nerd and I’m proud of it. I don’t know much about football at all. I don’t really even see the point. One guy throws a ball. Another guy catches it. They run around and try to take the ball from each other. And everyone watches it like its the greatest thing in the world.
And God Bless you if you like it. I’m not knocking it. To each their own.
But with my limited knowledge of football, I have to assume that since the Colts lost against the Patriots 47-7, NO AMOUNT OF BALL INFLATION IN THE WORLD COULD HAVE HELPED THEM!
I’m sorry. This whole story just sounds like sour grapes. The ball has more air. The ball has less air. Who gives a crap? If you’re a football expert, please explain how more or less air can affect ball handling. No, that’s not even a joke. I want to know how air in a ball can affect the handling of a ball. What? Stop laughing!
And I mean, we can all get along. If you think the Patriots are like, Public Enemy #1 now because they allegedly used improperly inflated balls, then please feel free to say so.
It’s not like I really even care one way or the other, but I just feel the press has a duty to report the news, not invent it, and all these talking heads opining about “who knew how much air was in the ball?” and “why wasn’t there enough air in the ball?” and so on, just seems like people talking for the sake of hearing themselves talk.
And people need to stop calling this “Ballgazi.” People actually died in Benghazi. I don’t even like calling it Ballgate. Watergate was a serious criminal operation that greatly dragged down the American people’s faith in government. Meanwhile, this story is about a ball.
A ball! Stop talking about balls!!!
Bookshelf Battle 
it is contact sports and non contact sports. Ball talk. Men prefer contact sports women tend to go non-contact. Personally here the best place is being the ball.
It’s one thing for the sports press to run all day long with this. That’s their job. But people who are supposed to be reporting on other, more substantial news? Yes, they should be doing just that. In terms of sports, which is a huge business with many other businesses, legal and otherwise, spinning out from it, the story itself is big because of the potential ramifications with sponsors and everything else. It’s also just an interesting thing to think about in terms of scandal. We already knew the Patriots cheated. Now we really know.
In lieu of real battles we’re willing to fight, we use sports as a fill-in narrative, or a moral code, or some other third thing. I’m a sports fan, but I’m far more interested in shutting the NFL (and it’s feeder systems) down because I’m fairly sure CTE is real and is killing people.