There's no stars in racing? Is that right?

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by Kasept

As was discussed yesterday on ATR, the 'past year's relation' is a seperate discussion. It's not a matter of valuating the current elite runners versus the elite runners of yesteryear, because this is today and that was yesterday.

Constantly harping that so and so pales in comparison to the Skip Aways of halcyon days of yore only serves to diminish the enjoyment of what we have right now. I don't get the eagerness to do that. And more importantly, it quells newer, younger fans enthusiasm if they constantly hear that the game sucks now by comparison to when "it was great and I was there".

No matter how good they look in their era, Derek Jeter ain't Al Kaline, Miguel Cabrera ain't Roberto Clemente and no one pitching is Bob Gibson, but that doesn't diminish the respective player's current roles as 'stars'.

We're doing ourselves a diservice if we go out of our way to pedestal salad day stars for what we have now.

This is tremendously misguided. The supposed " stars " aren't bringing people to the track anyway. Now, if you want to argue if there were actually some good horses around, and they raced more than occasionally ( how exactly should anyone be excited by Kip Deville when he actually deviated from last year's ambitious three race schedule to make a rare fourth appearance in the Poker? ), as well as against each other, maybe we could generate some enthusiasm. However, the bottom line is that the appeal of substance is the game and that is what generates excitement....and what can make the game healthy. This is what we need to promote. What we don't need to do is promote by lying and pretending.