Do Americans Love Underdogs?

The saying goes, “everybody loves an underdog” and it is easy to see examples of this through decades of film and TV shows depicting the small or disadvantaged teams or people going up against the prohibitive favorites and pulling off great upsets.   Every March Madness you can see the country come together to root for the little schools to pull of remarkable upsets against the Duke’s of the world.  It seems that everywhere you go people are always rooting for the upset.  But I have found that there are certain times when people put aside their quest to witness an upset and instead want the favorite to win, and it comes down to greatness.

I realized this watching the Preakness this past weekend.  While Americans love to root for the underdog, they also love absolute greatness.  They revel people or teams who transcend a competition and completely dominate their competition to the point where there is no doubt who is the greatest.

This is why on Saturday with a packed field, everybody I was watching the Preakness with (including those without any money on the race) was pulling for Big Brown to pull away from the field.  They wanted to witness a great horse, not just a good one.  In most situations where there is a favorite, the masses will root against him, hoping that an underdog will emerge from the pack to claim victory, but in rare cases there is a favorite so dominating that people will want to see them dominate their competition.  Secretariat was a horse that many people cried while watching him blow away the field in a record breaking Belmont Stakes – they cried because they were watching something that was so much better at its craft than any other horse.

Here are some other examples of players or teams in my lifetime that I have noticed transcended their sport to the point where people neglected to root against them:

Mike Tyson – as crazy as Iron Mike was, people loved seeing him pummel his opponents.  They expected him to come out in the first round and hit whoever he was fighting so hard that they fell through the canvas.  People loved the idea of a one man wrecking crew that was unbeatable in a fight.  Once he lost to Buster Douglas he lost that allure and was never the same fighter.

Tiger Woods – while you would think that everybody would be rooting against Tiger since he is a huge favorite in every tournament he plays in, people love to watch him win.  They love the idea that he is the greatest golfer of all time and they are getting to witness him do his craft at its highest level.  Why would people collectively root for Tiger to win and the Duke’s of the world to lose?  Because those Duke teams are merely good, not transcendent of the game.

Micheal Jordan – unless he was playing against your favorite team, everybody wanted him to dominate a game.  There is comfort when an athlete is so consistent that they always come through when you think that they will.  As you can read in the last post, Jordan was one of these figures.

 The great Patriots team of this past year was close to falling into this category but the “Spygate” incident put such a negative connotation on them.  There were still pockets of people that wanted to see an undefeated season, to witness an unbeatable football machine, but because of their dicey history they never could truly fall into the category of having the everyman pulling for them.

I am probably missing one or two players or teams that were giants that everybody pulled for, but I cannot think of them now.  Roger Federer is dominant, but he does not command this type of respect from the public.  Maybe it is because he is not American, but I think it is because there is no single facet of his game that is unbelievable.  He is just really good at every part of tennis.  If he had a monster serve than I think people would tune in to watch him play and marvel at his abilities.

There were definitely players that fell into this category (Koufax, Ruth, Secretariat…) in the past, but I was not around to witness it so it is hard for me to quantify.  If you know of any other players/teams that were so good at their craft that people unified behind them rather than rooted for them as an underdog or against an underdog please let me know.

The Art of Winning – Or Why I Miss MJ

Everybody likes to win.  Whether it be a board game, pick up game or professional game the bottom line is that everybody would prefer to win than lose.

The fundamental nature of man is that in any given competition they will compete to win whatever the contest is.  So let’s apply this to the NBA.  When you are in the NBA you play a game every other night against another team with the goal to score more points than them.  So, when playing this game each player on each team wants to win each game and eventually win the NBA Championship because that is the ultimate peak of winning.  And I think that each player truly wants to win because winning is the goal of the game they play.

But, I think, that there are some players that have a different type of motive for winning.  People call this “drive”, or just a “will to win”, but I think it comes down to ego.  Take Michael Jordan.  Do I think that Michael Jordan wanted to win because that was the goal of basketball?  Yes.  But I also think he wanted to win because he felt that he was the best basketball player on the planet and that if anybody beat him then they could claim that they were better than him. 

So, I don’t think Michael Jordan necessarily set out to win the NBA Championship, I think that was just the end result if you kept winning basketball games.  To show the difference I have developed the ultimate test of players who truly take winning to another level – The Next Day Pick Up Game.  I think if they played another pick up basketball game the day after Jordan just won the NBA Championship, and the game meant absolutely nothing, but you stuck MJ in the game – even though he had just reached basketball’s highest summit – I think he would try as hard as he could to win that pick up game that meant nothing just because he wouldn’t want the other team to be able to say that they beat Michael Jordan. 

Think about that.  Think about how many other players fall into that category.  Would Dwayne Wade try to destroy opponents after just winning an NBA title?  I think he would try, but with nothing at stake he would not really try to destroy his opponents.  I think that goes for almost everybody currently in the NBA.  This is what sets the Michael Jordan’s apart from everybody else at a similar talent level.  MJ felt that he was so good at basketball that the mere thought of somebody being able to say that they beat him made him cringe.  He refused to let it happen. 

Now, am I the Michael Jordan of marketing?  No, but this type of ego comes across in every job.  When most of my colleagues put together marketing campaigns they want them to be successful because that is the goal of their job, to put together succesful marketing campaigns and because if their campaigns aren’t succesful their job will be in danger.  I, with my incredible ego, think that I am so much smarter than everybody that there is no way I could engineer a marketing campaign and have it fail.  Having it be succesful is just the proof how smart I am, not my goal.  What drives me to put together fantastic marketing campaigns is proving to everybody that I am, in fact, the smartest person in my office, a successful campaign is just the end result of it.

The same how the NBA Championship is just the end result of MJ proving that he is the best basketball player in the world.  So, while other players in the NBA play to win, it is the rare MJ-type player that play to prove that they are the best in the world and can’t stand to stomach the fact that somebody could beat them and hold that over him.  Losing didn’t bother him because the goal of basketball is to win, it drove him crazy because it meant that somebody could say to him that they beat him and were better than him at basketball.

Now, do I think any players in the NBA currently fall into that role?  Not right now.  I think Kobe Bryant is more of a machine that has been programmed to win and wants to win because that is what he has been trained to win, not because of an ego – but I’m not sure.  When I give him the playing a meaningless pick-up game after just winning an NBA title test, I see him trying to dominate still, so maybe.  I’m just not convinced yet.  I also do not think LeBron is at this point, yet.  I think it is possible to grow into it though and it is possible that in about 2 years he will fully realize how much better he is than anybody else in the league and find that indominable will to win.  He doesn’t have it inheritently though.  Besides Kobe, I think the closest are Manu and Chauncey.  I could see them both playing a game in the middle of nowhere for nothing after winning the title and playing to completely kill the other team and dominate the game. 

I also think that this is why team’s are struggling to win on the road.  No player has that inherit ego where losing even a single game is a slight against them, it means that at some point they were not the best player in the world.  The only goal of these players are to win the NBA Championship, even if that means losing every game on the road to get there.  And I miss that MJ mentallity of not wanting to lose a single game, on the road or at home.

As good as the regular season was this year, these playoffs are getting ridiculous with every team just blowing the other out at home for the past 2 weeks.  I miss MJ – watching him was like watching a movie unfold in front of you.  There was drama, teams battling it out for 4 quarters, but in the end you knew what was going to happen.  You knew that Harrison Ford was going to come out on top in Indiana Jones, you knew Bruce Willis would ultimately be the last one standing in Die Hard, just like you knew that Jordan would be the one who came out with the higher score in the playoffs.  I miss having that reliable person coming through time and time again.

Any thoughts?  Think there are some other players out there that fall into the MJ type mold?  Or do you think I’ve completely missed the boat on this one?

Check Mate on Check Swings

Ah, the check swing.  Is anything more blurilly defined in professional sports than the check swing?  The check swing is similar to pornography in that it can only be described by umpires as, “I know it when I see it.”  But, it is my contention that the half swing in baseball is a completely biased endeavor.  Now, I have no problem with how MLB has refused to put a solid definition of what constitutes a check swing into its rulebook – let ambiguity rule! – that’s always been my motto, and except for a couple of ill-fated haircuts it’s worked out ok.

My problem is how check swings are handled by umpires during the actual games.  So, let’s start from the beginning.  The pitcher winds up and throws the ball to the catcher and at some point while the ball is zipping past him, the batter takes half of a swing.  After the catcher catches the ball the home plate umpire either does nothing (signalling that the batter did not swing at the pitch) or raises his fist (signalling that the batter did swing at the pitch).  So far so good.

But then, here is where the check swing goes off course.  If the umpire does nothing (signalling that the batter did not swing) the catcher can “appeal” to the first or third base umpire and they can overrule the call of no swing and put their own fist up to signal that the batter did, in fact, swing.  However, if the home plate umpire puts his fist up (signalling that the batter did swing) then that ruling is final and the batter cannot appeal to the first or third base umpire to overrule the call.  Why is that?  Why can one side appeal to have the call overturned but not the other?  That makes no sense!

Just because the home plate umpire does nothing when signalling that he thinks the batter did not swing does not mean that he is not making a call.  His act of doing nothing is just as much of a definitive call as his act of making a fist.  When he does nothing he is making the call that the batter did not swing.  When he makes a fist he is making the call that the batter did swing.  So why is one call set in stone and the other one appealable?

If the first/third base umpire can overturn the home plate umpire’s call of no swing then that is already an admission on baseball’s behalf that the first/third base umpire has the best view of the play and should therefore be making every call on the half swings that take place during a baseball game.

So, as far as I can tell, there is no reason why if the home plate umpire rules that the batter did swing why the batter can’t appeal to the first/third base umpire when if the home plate umpire rules that he didn’t swing the catcher can appeal to the first/third base umpire.

Just because the call for a batter not swinging is inaction does not mean that the home plate umpire has not made a call.  It is as much a call as him making a fist and calling that the batter did swing.  It’s only fair that either both sides can appeal or that the first/third base umpire just makes all of the calls. 

Am I missing something?  Or is this definitely something that should be changed by MLB?

 

To Blog, or Not to Blog

Why blog?  Why this blog?  Great questions with not so great answers.

The long and short of it is sometimes when I watch sports I think of interesting things that I would want to share with someone and then I turn to tell somebody (anybody) and realize that nobody is there because I live a sad, sad life with very few friends.  All I want out of it is somebody to listen to what I say and then go, “Hmm, I never thought of that.” or “Oh, yeah..that’s a great idea.”  That’s all.  Then they can leave.  If I could have a bell that I could ring whenever I had an interesting thought on sports and somebody would run in and I could tell them my thought and they would go, “Genius! I can’t believe nobody ever thought of that before!” and then run off – I think I would be 4-6 times happier with my life.

And there would be no need for me to write a blog.  So anyways, baseball is my favorite pastime, but I do enjoy all sports and the science of gambling on all sports so my thoughts will probably concentrate on baseball, but spread throughout the sports world. 

However, you will not find recaps of games or any of those type of posts that you can read on espn.com or any main site that can do that type of article much better than I can – I will try to keep the content (somewhat) original.  And please, if you come across this blog I implore you to please just comment, “Great thought!” or “Really interesting idea, I never would have thought of that.”  That’s all I’m looking for, and it takes 20 seconds of your day, so please, I don’t have much and it will make me oh-so happy.

Enjoy.