Yet one more post on sports and relevance and how uplifting it can be: Rick Reilly found an interesting tale relating to the Arizona Diamondbacks:
"The Diamondbacks are flagrantly violating MLB rules. They're a pro team, and yet they're giving out full-ride scholarships. Been doing it for two years now! Not to their players. To their fans. It's an idea D-backs CEO Derrick Hall came up with at one game when a season ticket-holder who'd lost everything, even her car, introduced herself. She told him a fan in her section had bought her two season tickets for the rest of the year, even picked her up every game and took her home. And Hall thought, Why don't we do this for our fans? So he asked fans to send in 'applications' for scholarships. Soon, his e-mail in-box was swamped."
Most of the in-box requests were for tickets for those down on their luck. Really down on their luck. And the Diamondbacks were generous in giving out these tickets. Most everyone who wrote stated how important it would be to a particular person to get to a baseball game, which does show sports matter.
This is the kind of action, too, that shows sports can make a difference, but the difference comes through every-day kindness rather than through false claims (like the Final Four making such a difference to Detroit). A simple act of generosity by the Diamondbacks helped people. The Browns have hosted many children who have lost parents, and to see every member of the team break a huddle after practice and go greet the kids would make anyone melt. The Indians and Cavs have responded very kindly and quickly to fans when I've forwarded letters from folks in special circumstances. These kinds of actions from sports folks matter. It's just nice to keep it in perspective.