  You know the writer. You know the talk-show host. You know the TV personality. You know the co-worker. Something tragic happens that, either directly or indirectly, involves the world of sports. Something like, for example, the untimely death of a well-known sports figure (Derrick Thomas would be an easy example).
Or a tragedy so deep and overwhelming that it causes the cancellation or postponement of one or more sporting events (9/11 would be an example, but so would any number of landfalling hurricanes and other weather calamaties). "Wow. This really puts sports in perspective," the person says. "This is real life. Sports mean nothing at a time like this," they go on to say. "It changes how I look at the things in life I prioritize.
" And you just want to smack the guy in the head every time the words are said or written. Sports are what they are: Entertainment. A diversion from real life. A way to wind down after a long day of work. Fun. No one who follows sports for a living or is truly devoted to sports would dare think any more of sports.
I get sick and tired of people who make the "This puts sports in perspective" comment after something bad happens. I heard no fewer than a dozen people, some of them actually involved in sports, make the comment after word was received of Pat Tillman's death on Friday. No one wants to diminish what Tillman did or what his sacrifice means to all of us. But it does nothing to "put sports in perspective". They're already in perspective. You don't see Yankees-Red Sox highlights leading the national news over people getting ambushed in Fallujah.
You don't hear the call of Calgary's overtime game-winning goal before you hear about deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma. I don't need to be told about the meaning of sports in this real-life world of ours. Sports has a place for me, and for a lot of people, and we're not stupid enough to think they're more important than war...or anything else. They're our way of forgetting, even if it's for three hours, about all the bad things happening around the world. 
