Unreasonable Olympic Spirit

I get inexplicably excited for the Olympics. The first games I remember are the 1992 Olympics in Spain, though I remember the candy jars my mom bought commemorating that summer more than the events themselves.

SM and I were talking the other day about how I always cheer for the American team. That might seem like a given, but I am rarely a blind fan of anything; all of my allegiances have been thought about (though not necessarily "reasoned") and applied deliberately. Reasons may be little more than gut feelings, but they're feelings nonetheless. I guess what I'm saying is never assume I'm a fan of anything.

The best counterexample is the World Cup. I am rarely going gung ho for the American team. I usually have a good feeling about France. Not that they'll win, but that I will cheer for them. With gusto.

The best explanation for this I could come up with is that the World Cup, in my eyes, is a celebration of international vigor and country/team personality. The common ground is already soccer (okay, fine, football), so the variables become the countries themselves. The individual team members, while certainly important and loved by fans and noted by commentators, take a backseat to each country going head to head. And, frankly, I don't care if America comes out on top. America doesn't even care if America comes out on top. I'm rare enough in America that I even care about and watch the Cup itself, which I do. With gusto.v The Olympics, on the other hand, is all about the individual. Amateurs from all over the United States, Americans as young as 14 years old, are chosen for their superior skill to join Team USA, and around the world other athletes do the same for their countries. They all come together to compete as representatives of their homelands in a ridiculous number of niche sports. It's beautiful. So, in my eyes, it becomes less about rooting for skeet shooting or badminton, and more about supporting this random American who comes from who knows where but who is really good at skeet shooting or badminton for some reason. And when it comes to some random American with a heartwarming story going up against some other rando from Country X in some crazy sport, I'm going to choose the American because that individual amateur got to the Olympics to represent America and is therefore awesome. Every four years the Olympics remind me that the United States is made up of some pretty talented people who excel at their activity because they love it and they work for it, not because they're getting paid millions of dollars.

I'm going to leave it at that, but I will say that the obvious exception is basketball. I have to admit the fact that our professional basketball players from the NBA can play sucks a little of the fun out of it. Basketball is not my favorite sport by a long shot, but I already know these guys. I know who all of them are, and not even by the random nicknames I give them to remember who they are when SM talks about them. That's lame. I would much rather watch some kids come out of nowhere to represent America on the court. It's a lot more dramatic, and a whole lot more fun.

It's how you f***ing play the game

I love sports. More specifically, I love baseball, football, tennis (admittedly the only sport I play semi-regularly), and hockey. And every four years, I love soccer.

I don't get it when people say they don't get soccer. What's not to get? It's pretty much one of the simplest games in the world: ball, your side, my side, keep away. You either do, or you don't. But rules aside, one of the things I like about soccer, especially the World Cup, is that it's a game for the whole world. I think it's really cool that there's this simple game that doesn't take a lot of money, that kids all over the world with whatever quality of equipment are playing right now, and are pretty kick-ass at it. But, I suppose it's that high school-era socialist in me that's talking.

Really, though, what I love about World Cup soccer along with most of my other favorite sports is that there's always room for surprises. I'm one of those fans who most of the time ends up cheering for the underdog. But it's not just the principle of the thing. Sure-fire wins always seem so boring to me. Blowouts hold none of my interest. Of course, I can always get into the excitement of an individual game. A game in and of itself of any kind can almost always be interesting. But in the scheme of things, there's a little less heart, and it leaves me a little more bored than I would have been otherwise.

This World Cup, I was cheering for the underdog the whole way. First I cheered for the post-colonial teams (and America, of course, which I'm not counting as "post-colonial" because we held colonies of our own at one point) in celebration of the equality of the sport, that they, too, have their own superstars and hopefuls and achievers. After they all died out I rooted for the New World over the Old. Sure, my teams have lost, but they all put up a commendably good fight, and it was totally worth it. I thought all of the teams played quite well, and I really enjoyed the heart-wrenching matches, especially when it came to Uruguay vs. Ghana. What a game. I hope the Netherlands wins over Germany. (So I guess that means I'm temporarily cheering for Germany. Just one game. For you, DG.)

Anyway, to broaden my point, as I told SM today, I think that's one thing I love about my Minnesota Twins. Sometimes it's annoying that they're often inconsistent, and that their first and second halves of seasons often differ, but even in their good years, they're rarely dominant. In their good years, they're solid. In baseball, you've got to be solid. That's what wins. I don't want a dominant team. They would bore me.* Fortunately, baseball itself is rarely boring in that way: there will always be surprises in baseball. Fuck the perfect season.** It doesn't exist. As S pointed out, the 2001 Mariners had the best record in history (46 losses), but they lost in the playoffs to the Yankees. Even the Yankees, the most winningest franchise in baseball history (besides the Giants), have had one some of the best seasons in the AL and have lost in the playoffs a bunch of times.*** Lastly, think of all the wild-card teams that have gotten to or won the World Series: nothing is certain. And it's beautiful.

As S and I agreed today, evenly-matched teams are always going to be the most exciting to watch. But don't just depend on those stats. Sure, sometimes it's the superstars who make the difference; sometimes, though, it's the who's on the field against whom, in what order, to what rhythm; and sometimes it's just how badly the players want it. But the best part is that we never quite know until the end just how all of that is going to play out.

*I hate the Yankees.
**Obviously, American football's 16-game season can be impressively perfect, and I still love it. Having fewer games definitely puts more on the line during each game, but surprises still make for the Best Games Ever. See Super Bowl XLII, 2008, Giants vs. Patriots. OMFG.
***Muahahahaha.