Best in Sports

Almost all sport fans insist they want sports to be designed so the best team wins or the best players reap the highest awards and applause.  But that is simply some esoteric babble. What we really want from sports is a lot of excitement and drama. 

The best teams are obviously the ones who rack up the most wins during the regular season. There is luck in almost all sports, some more than others. It would be difficult to seriously insist the the Superbowl proves who was the best team for that season.  Any team with a good enough season record to be in the playoffs has a chance to win the Superbowl---a break here, an injury there, an untimely missed tackle, catch, field goal, etc. and the game goes the other way. So why playoffs?  Because they are exciting and get all the fans worked up.   We all argue strenuously about which teams are better than the others each week. The 'best' (if i can use the term very loosely) football analysts are assembled and will vigorously argue before every game about which team will win and why.  The opinions are often rendered with the same conviction we get from a preacher on Sundays.  While one is absolutely sure about the path to Heaven and the other as to who will win the game, in one case we will never know and in the other case those who are best at predicting football games will manage---sometimes, but never consistently, to predict around 60% of the games correct.  So much for expertise. I am in a football pool with devoted fans and---we include internet 'football experts' in the pool and this year I damn near won the whole thing. How much of an expert am I?  Please, spare me the admission. 

Hell, I can do better than 60% in a two horse race and we all know how unpredictable horses are in a particular race.  We will argue about which player is the best, like maybe the best receiver.  Maybe we can reasonably put receivers in the poor, good, and excellent category---but after that the stats are hardly any reflection of better or best.  It depends on the quarterback, the teams played, injuries, the weather conditions, who the other receivers are on the team, the coaches, whether on a passing or a running team, the quality of the pass defenders, and so it goes, on and on, seemingly forever. Such fine tuning receivers in an accurate list from best to worst is simply a bit silly. 

We all have favorite players, players we like the best.  And we like a team the best. But why we like a player or team best is often more personal bias then being attracted to the best players and teams.  In most cases we like the home team or players the best. Why?  Almost all the players are from someplace else.  And the team is owned by a wealthy owner who had the most money to buy the team and is tied to the state in no other way except they own the team.  The product on the field is hardly any locally collected group of  talent by a local owner.  The 'best' fans are the ones who shout the loudest, are most emotionally involved in the games, never miss a game, and feel the worst when "their team" loses and the most excited when 'their' team wins.  Ironically, the excitement over a win doesn't match the reward in any personal way: we don't get any money from the victory; rather we may have spent a small fortune to attend or buy drinks, whatever. And we ourselves do not gain any more personal respect from others because our team won, or get our names in the headlines, or get a job promotion, or have a greater ability to attract sexual partners---no, we are left with the hangover, and a transient feeling of elation.  HOWEVER, the periods of disappointment will always outnumber the feelings of elation. There are 32 team in the NFL and only one team can win the Super Bowl. We can do the math, most have no final elation over the season. Some just get their disappointment earlier in the season than other fans. In fact, to lose early on is mild disappointment, taken in stride. But to lose the Superbowl, now there is disappointment big time.  So, in some sense, sports is for those who can manage to handle losing more often than winning. 

Personalities play a big role in which athletes we like.  And why not, since there is no accurate way to precisely designate a player's rank among his peers, why not choose one whose personality we like best.  BUT WAIT, like most everything else in professional football, personalities are programmed.  Every athlete has been trained ad nausea how to behave, what to say in public, and the appropriate way to feel about any hot button issues with the public.  Why such an effort to control the personalities of the players?  Simple, to do otherwise attracts attention to the athlete instead of the team and can upset a good number of team fans.  So 'just stifle yourselves', players are admonished.  Seeking athletes to interview after the game, for the most part, is a dumb exercise. "First of all I want to thank (in some sort of order) God, my teammates, my parents, my homies, the fans, etc.). Sometimes they quickly form prayer circles before or after the game to be sure people know how connected they are to God. I really don't want to cheer against a team or player God might be for, but often there are prayer circles on both sides of the field.  That kind of leaves me stymied.  I mean, we always feel pressure to support OUR God, OUR nation, OUR family, OUR friends, and OUR home team. It seems everyone, everywhere does the same thing, and so, will the real chosen ones by God please come forward.  Does God really choose his chosen favorites via genetic cabals?  While this fits well in my own personal situation, all these others---the religious heathens, foreigners, diverse ethnics, and cultural deviates seem to have gotten the short end of the stick. It seems somehow so many people are really lying about the chemistry they have with God. 

Sports give us something to root for, to entertain us, to engage socially with others, and to give us something to root for without any personal responsibility for the outcomes.  If our team loses it certainly isn't our fault.  I personally prefer to pick individual players or coaches whose persona interests me. I probably read more biographies than any other kind of books and I have read thousands of books. 

To be able to understand why some people behave the way they do is satisfying to me. Some people like to take gadgets apart to see how they work, and I like to examine someone's past or circumstances to figure out why they behave the way they do. I have spent a good deal of my life wandering around alone, hither and thither, observing other people and experiencing the marvels of nature---the substrate upon which God's evolutionary process is played out. 

When it is not which team or coach or player is the best it is which sport is the best. 

How this is determined is a mystery but some sports are simply unethical. The sole purpose in boxing is to batter a person's head to various points of unconsciousness and there is always brain damage to varied degrees.  How is that ethical?  Football is rapidly approaching  the unethical point.  Human evolution has evolved to the point where athletes get ever bigger, stronger, and faster than in earlier times. 

Any record involving speed and strength always gets better with time.  At what point in time will someone no longer be able to run a faster mile?  Beats me. In the grander scheme of things I wonder if humans are the end point of the evolutionary process? There is not reason to think there is going to be any end point species, but it is impossible, at least for me, to imagine where all this is heading.  At any rate, to get back to point, the best sport for everyone is the one they like the best.  HOWEVER, to me a sport is different from a un-athletic skill.   Billiards is a skill, bowling is a skill, golf is a skill, and so on----no real athletic talent needed.  And of course some 'sports' are phony and there is no need to waste any time here on them. If we ever need proof that sports are in large part entertainment, these phony sports are proof. 

I guess there is a purpose to a Hall of Fame for each sport but the selection committee needs to be more carefully selected. I am not sure how, but certainly putting on the selection committee sport columnists who have spent a lifetime peddling their own personal biases about players of their own liking is hardly an impartial jury. Their is always some talk about whether certain players should be denied entrance for their personality or behavior off the field, or their attitude, and so on, with issues that have nothing to do with their play on the field. The most absurd one is this non definable vague gut feeling about team chemistry. If someone is disqualified for consideration because of any such purported notion it should only be if their coaches and teammates vote them as unacceptable as a teammate.  This nonsense is nicely put by a teammate of Terrell Owens who was asked if Owens was a good teammate, or too much of a locker room disturbance:  (Laugh) "Look, T.O. doesn't even barely speak to me or most teammates, he's too absorbed in his own training and performance. But when the game starts, do we want him on the field with us?  You bet we do. That's what we are here to do, win games, and T.O. has an energy and focus that we all admire. So what if he's not my buddy?  He's a great teammate and a good role model. He can project any personality he wants, what the hell do we care?  It's you guys who fuss about it."  

Maybe the best thing about sports is the eternal hope we can have about vicarious success. There are plenty of people out there, for one reason or another, who never get the chance to feel they won, but with sports they can have chance to feel good about winning, even if it is a vicarious sort of victory.  I was at an off track betting facility one day and this kind of down and out chap was next to me betting on the horses, obviously with money he could ill afford to waste. He kept chatting to me and got real excited about the races, even though he mostly lost like everyone else.  I asked him, "Don't you get tired of losing money on these ponies?"  He said to me, and I have to paraphrase this because I can't duplicate his dialect: "I know you think me a fool, but what else in life makes me feel like a winner once in a while?  If I don't bet on the nags, I's always going to be a loser with a bit more money. I come here to be a winner once in a while.  If I was smarter and more successful I wouldn't have to come here to feel like a winner now and then. Some of these fools spend a lot of money on booze, and booze never makes you feel like a winner, just dulls the pain of being a loser."  I often think of people like him, they outnumber those with better circumstances, and since then I think many of the affluent who drink so much are doing so for the same reason---their financial affluence hasn't really made them feel contented about their life. Why else do they need to drink themselves into a stupor except to get their mental state dulled from how they really feel about themselves and the 'rat race' into which they are so entrenched?  Life is always good theatre and most of it is sad.  Contentedness seems to come to those who are contented with what they have opposed to those for whom enough is never enough. 

Beyond Reason

Beyond Reason

Why are there some things in life that seem beyond rational resolution?  I can understand why some people like broccoli and others despise it. There must be a genetic variation in their taste buds.  Mystery solved.  Other unresolvable issues are less clear.  Take hunting.  Some people will spend a fortune to buy all kinds of gear and guns to traipse through the woods hoping to find a deer to shoot, preferably one with impressive antlers.  Others, like me, prefer to walk without all kinds of gear and weaponry, and if I come across a deer with impressive antlers, the last thing I care to do is shoot it. Why the difference?  I don't particularly think shooting a deer is cruel in that I understand most deer die a much more agonizing death---being ripped to pieces by a predator, hit by a car, dying slowly from diseases, etc.  If I were starving I would certainly be willing to shoot a deer.  Why is this even classified a sport?  When is the last time a deer bagged a hunter?  A sport to me involves a challenge in which sometimes you win and sometimes your opponent wins.  Nevertheless, essentially there is some kind of basic emotional difference here.  Maybe this, too, is genetic.  It certainly does not seem to be anything which is arrived at by any simple logic.  No one taught me to feel the way I do.  In my own family my brother loved to hunt, my father was sort of ambivalent, and I never wanted to go hunting. 

This whole gun control debate is a classic impasse in human nature. Some fear being in public space where everyone is packing a gun. Others fear being in a public place if they are not packing a gun. I taught university students for years, and I would sure change my teaching style if all the students were packing guns. There are many times in life when someone has to say some pretty harsh things to us before we finally are forced to think through a change in behavior.  But again, logic does not prevail.  Some love guns and are addicted to guns like addicts to heroin. They never change their minds. I guess they never will.  And some think any guns carried outside the home is insanity run amok. I guess they will never change their minds either. Feelings rule. Eventually debate becomes inane and futile. 

Some think as long as it is legal for them to smoke or drink alcohol as their recreational drug of choice it is ok for it be illegal for someone else to smoke pot. 

Toxicity is never decided by science, but by politicians and majority culture.  It makes no difference that many people end up with medical conditions from nicotine or alcohol which kill them, while no one we know dies of medical conditions from the use of marijuana.  It hasn't made any difference for 50 years, although there is some movement these days to legalize marijuana.  Even so, it is not because drug abuse is being turned over to the medical profession instead of the police, it is because the government needs the money from taxing it.  Change for the wrong reason. 

Some absolutely love motorcycles and will always love motorcycles.  Others have no particular interest in motorcycles.  I spotted a motorcycle the other day which made no noise, it just quietly cruised along.  We never see that too often because most who ride motorcycles love that loud noise.  Interestingly, If we were to play music in our car with the windows open or top down with the sound half as high as a motorcycle makes, we would get ticketed for being a public nuisance.  If we let the muffler on our car be that loud we get a ticket.  For those who don't have much interest in motorcycles, just wearing a helmet while riding and having limited opportunity to look around at the scenery along the road would be annoying. Those who love motorcycles will say they love the feel of a helmet as they ride along with wind face whipped expressions damaging their hearing with noise way above the safe level.  If so, I wonder why they don't wear their helmets in the car to get that 'feeling'.  There are not too many days when we can ride motorcycles and not feel uncomfortable from the temp, the wind, rain, etc.  But even then, many enjoy the pain and their tolerance to the pain, much as someone who runs a marathon. The pain is open to all in both cases---the marathon and the motorcyclist---they can be any shape, weight, or physical coordination and still do both.  I reckon the least talented in either get more pain and discomfort to enjoy.  These comments are not made to be sarcastic in any mean sense, because I have already stated these are not activities subject to rational resolution.  We like what we like.  We dislike what we dislike. 

Cars the same way. Some people value cars for a lot more than getting them from place to place. They will spend outrageous amounts of money on an expensive car with an endless thirst for gas.  Others, like myself, could care less about a car.  Every four years I buy a new car, and it takes me about 3 hrs of one day to do so.  I find out what car is relatively inexpensive, gets really good gas mileage and just buy it.  I don't feel any less comfortable in my Prius than I would in a Cadillac.  Outside of my recliner, the car seat is going to be about the most comfortable seat I will be in all day, regardless of the make.  I think the kind of car you drive helps determine social status.  Well that is another thing I rarely give much thought to----social status, which is certainly an understatement.  Except when I went into a classroom to teach, what good is social status?  Some Professors make the egregious mistake of trying to be some sort of 'one of them'---"You can call me Hank" they say as they introduce themselves to the class in rumpled attire. I preferred to set the tone right off the bat, "Let me assure you from the start that I have no prejudice. I hate everyone."   In general, if there is not a good reason to be in charge---DON"T.  It is easier to be yourself, even if that means a rebel at times, and as long as your actions are for a good cause, not just personal gain, there is really little to lose. The key is to have someone or some group somewhere with the power to protect you from those who try to do you harm.  As long as you are not trying to gain personal power or monetary gain for yourself, those involved in such endeavors for power and monetary gain will find you more a nuisance than any serious target for their hostility. They will never like you for forcing them to deal with issues they would rather not, but their real enemies are elsewhere---someone, from some direction, is gaining on them.  

Golf. Now there is a sport that people either become real addicted to, and spend a lot of time and money on, or find it a total bore. I call it a good walk spoiled.  And, they even watch it on TV.  While I find this amazing it is simply another example of an activity which is beyond rationale discussion.  It is not irrational to do something which you really like to do, and if it is not injurious to others, there is no fault to be had. We like what we like. We dislike what we dislike. 

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. The feelings that attend towards each of them are beyond rationality. The detractors of each have irrational emotions. If we dislike Sarah we consider her a mindless scatterbrain who preys on people's prejudices to stir them up. If this is true how would she ever get enough votes to get elected?  If we dislike Obama we consider him the devil incarnate who would would challenge us with changes we fear or hate. How many people ever change their politics that much? Not that many. I am in the minority and have changed my politics and religion a lot since youth. But then, predictability has never been my forte.  My father used to say to my mother, "Let Reid be Reid, he will anyway."

Nutrition. Never in modern American history has anecdotal medicine been so popular.  And it is a good thing this is so. There are precious few American industries which prosper these days outside the military industrial complex, and the nutrition business is one.  Rarely do these 'anecdotal' practitioners do any harm unless they fail to get their patients to legitimate medical personnel for obvious medical problems like heart conditions, cancer, etc.  And sometimes anecdotal medicine can work.  Other times, if we believe something can help us, often it really does. The point is, if someone believes, for example, that a particular herb is good for them, so be it. The worst it can do is waste their money.  Most people seriously into anecdotal medicine eat healthy, watch their weight, and exercise.  So they are not the big problem health wise in this country. It is those who pay no attention to their health, period, who are the problem.  For the record, the U. S. does not lead the way in longevity, health care, healthiness, healthy eating, etc. Then again, we do continue to live longer and longer, mostly because with modern medical equipment and drugs, it is becoming increasingly difficult to die.  What some people want to go through, or are forced to go through in order to die always amazes me. There simply is no logical rationale for it---if we have had enough, we have had enough.  

Smoking.  We all know that nicotine, for some people, can be extremely addictive. 

No amount of reason will usually enable them to stop.  Dying slowly from suffocating to death is not the most pleasant way to go. Many of these people who keep smoking are not dumb. They just can't stop. 

Music tastes.  Whenever someone says "I can't stand _________ (this or that kind of music) I wonder what that is suppose to prove?  Arguing about music is just about the dumbest argument imaginable.  We like what we like.  Now why we like what we like is a bit tricky.  In general, old people rarely like the music young people like. 

And old people will always say, for current music, it is less easy to understand the words. When they hear the good ole "oldies" it is always so much more clear.  Of course the words are clear, we are already familiar with them in our memory bank. My mother used to say, "Why do people mumble so much these days?"  And nothing could convince her it was her hearing, that people were not mumbling. I grew up in the northeast where country music was not popular at all, but it was popular in my rural little neighborhood and while I no longer like modern country music I still love the oldies. I think environment has a lot to do with music tastes. I have a suspicion had I grown up in another neighborhood I would not probably like country music. People say, "How can an educated person as you like country music?"  I have no answer, I just do. And I feel no pressure to pretend otherwise. It is ok to be 'low class' if it doesn't hurt anyone else. 

Gay marriage---This is proving to be a most interesting bias. Interesting in that such a strong bias seems to be melting away at a record pace.  The logic and ethics has always been there. If we want ourselves to choose with whom we marry, then it is illogical and unethical to deny others the same choice as long as we are dealing with adults.  Of course we are entitled to feel or believe that God is opposed to that, but then God is probably capable of meting out any punishment.  It is kind of silly for a  married couple to believe their own marriage is affected by letting gays marry.  I guess the argument is that the 'sanctity of marriage' is being tarnished.  Really, when a preacher says during a marriage ceremony, "Let no man put asunder what God has put together" is kind of farcical. Half of marriages end up in divorces. I don't think God is that bad a match maker. God, by definition, would have a much higher batting average. Some issues are a matter of freedom for all, more so than one of right and wrong. If the government can decide who can marry who, then why can't it decide which sex acts are permissible?  And finally, all of us have unique and strong emotional reactions to varied sex acts. That's just the way it is and it is rare that such feelings were acquired by some pervert luring us into the bushes. The bedroom is probably an excellent place to give up on logic and just make sure it is consensual sex. The best historical comment is still one of the best: "I don't care what they do as long as they don't do it in the streets and scare the horses."

Well the list goes on and on, but even for me this is enough. Life is good circus. Bring on the clowns. Never mind, they're already here.