Walter Benjamin notes that the film actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audience during a performance. In turn, the audience member takes the role of detached critic, identifying with the camera rather than directly with actor. Though the professional athlete is capable of adjusting to audience members during a performance, this only assumes significance for the athlete's uncertainty-of-outcome identity or orientation.

As a direct result of Marvin Miller and free agency in professional sport, however, abstractions of past performance — in the form of statistics — have assumed central significance in any athlete's quest for labour mobility. Thus, an identity charged with "putting up numbers" has become a necessity for those looking to improve their financial standing (particularly in sports with a high cyborg ratio).

So in much the same way that the audience member identifies with the camera to criticize a film actor's performance, the sports videogamer identifies with the statistics kept by the league — the tools that allows for the manufacture of the videogame — to criticize an athlete's performance. Indeed, to paraphrase Benjamin, sports simulations need not respect the performance of the athlete as a whole. And the resulting disembodiment caused by the simulation's creation suggests that the athlete's body is not respected as a whole, either.

Jake Garnatz, a student at Northern Illinois University, referenced sportsBabel for his end-of-term hypertext project: "Fantasy Football: A Postmodern Trend in Sports Participation."

I think that Jake's project could have benefited from an analysis of the violence done to the athlete during the objectification process that produces the statistics required for fantasy sports to operate. Overall, though, an interesting introductory work.

A case of permeable membrane and turntablism from CBS's coverage of last week's MCI Heritage Classic (via SportsFilter, emphasis mine):

The television coverage ended as controversy swirled regarding a possible Rules infraction by Cink. For the next half hour, PGA Tour officials received numerous phone calls from television viewers who were stunned when Cink brushed aside lose pebbles behind his ball. Because the hazard was a waste area and not a sand bunker, Cink was allowed to move loose impediments. However, some thought he had improved his lie. Tour official Slugger White disagreed. After reviewing the videotape, White ruled that it wasn't a penalty, thus giving Cink the championship title after an anxious 30-minute wait.