The sport has been touted as something-like the sine qua non (mayhap by the comparo applied in another 'sport': "all the rest are recreations"?)

As I stumbled upon Forever Pure ... about an Israeli team, indistinguishable from antebellum Rednecks who put the R in Racism. It chronicles the experiences of a couple new Boffo players who happened to be Muslim. (I abandoned the flic partway through as the drift was so much a reprise of pre- and during- the tale of Jackie Robinson et seq. And that's too odious to burden the little gray-cells with (especially during a local-meltdown of any topic wherein the word, honor appears.)

Unsurprising though was the equivalence of Murican and Israeli full-Racists--ya can't tell the Nationalities apart--at the extremes. So then, whatever are the merits of batting that round-ball around -vs- our even more overtly-violent antics with the squashed-shape one: neither "$$-sport" appears to merit ecstatic paeans (just those pains produced chemically via testosterone-overdose (which you can find in any plain-old riot) over ..whatever.) If this be "sportsmanship"? ... that would explain a Lot (and another dead-word).

tl;dr--apologies to Star-Kist™--whose product doesn't claim 'good taste' but must simply 'taste good'.
(I admit that I'm unable to discern any difference at all 'twixt: any modrin Pop-'sport' and.. the goings-on within the most odious unPopular
Corporate Board-at-$$$-work in committing Capitalism. None. Guess I never acquired the taste-for-Koolaid (or flag-waving, its ~equivalent.)

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Carrion, as with us Com-symps who shall never be President because we won't join any Org which would accept people like us.
{Thanks, Groucho!}

Ed:PS Equal scorn for Racist-fans ... always in-the-mix ... maybe with AI-robots we could? ... never mind.