After reading Dwyer’s spot-on analysis of football and by the Pats, I feel emboldened to write more about sports. Plus, Nate is into sports, so that’s one more person who will be interested.
So today the Pats and Colts are playing the game of the century. Or the game of the century of the week. I think all the negative hype around the Pats is getting to me, making it less fun to root for them. I loved rooting when they were doing it with smoke and mirrors, when the other teams had all the flashy players and you couldn’t quite figure out how they were doing it. Now we’re the bullies, the team that everyone hates. It’s the coach who cheats, who pushes cameramen and runs up the score, against the classy coach who is nice to everyone and whose son committed suicide, so we have to be nice to him.
We already had the story where the Pats were the good guys. The scrappy underdogs won, won again, and became the champ. We don’t really need the same movie again–it’s like the endless parade of Rocky movies. Maybe a movie where Rocky is suddenly the bad guy would be more interesting than seeing him be the underdog for the 8 millionth time. It’ll never be as good as Rocky 1, but it’s something. Same thing with the Red Sox. 86 years as the “underdogs”, and now they’re the ones with all the advantages. New story line needed.
Maybe the best thing to do is to focus on the game, which works too. But it really only works if it’s a good game. The World Series wasn’t much of a contest, and the Pats games have all been blowouts. So it’s down to appreciating greatness (see Dwyer’s entry). But greatness doesn’t seem so great unless it’s challenged.
These are all minor quibbles, since Boston is suddenly the master of all sports. It’s like a millionaire singing the blues. And after having the greatest sports stories ever (Pats ‘01, Sox ‘04), there’s nowhere else to go but inferior sequels.
And for the non-sports fans, I hope you saw the latest SNL song a few weeks back. Fantastic:
November 6, 2007 at 1:33 am
nice call, andrews…the storyline is completely upside-down. and i think one of those things that i was jealous of back in the Days of Pats Magic (aside from Vinateri who was the real MVP) was that amazing underdog quality. they had a bunch of former underperforming-Steelers, and it was like “how do they do it?” i’m sure pretty much everyone had a similar experience (seeing their dog players playing well in foxboro).
this is my terrible secret: the patriots are STILL more interesting than than the colts. peyton manning’s princely heritage and endorsement bonanza sorta cancels out tony dungee’s personal awesomeness.
November 6, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I’m more interested in the Pats now than I was when they were “scrappy underdogs.” I’ve never been a huge underdog guy, maybe. I like dominance. They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played. They’re precise, intense, and motivated. I love it. Although I think Bill Belechick (I can’t spell his name, either) is a grade-a prick.
Peyton’s my favorite player. I rooted for the Colts on Sunday. They guy’s incredibly talented, focused, and he seems like a really nice guy. And he’s good in commercials. He makes me laugh. He’s going to be on tv for as long as he wants to be.
By the way, fantasy football is one of my favorite things, and I’m offended by your assault on the fantasy community, Dwyer. Us “Fantasy types” happen to be very impressed by the Pats dominance – both from a fantasy perspective (Moss and Brady are the top ranked guys at their positions) and from a football perspective – they do what it takes. Because you don’t play, you figure those of us who do don’t think Montana was better than Marino? Are Pats fans stupid for liking Moss now that he’s a Pat even though he didn’t try hard in Oakland, or is that just us “Fantasy types?” I don’t like Moss or Brady, but they’re both colossally talented. Stat hungry jerk players (T.O., Moss) have been around and glorified in professional sports since Ty Cobb, fantasy didn’t do that.
Your argument is not unreasonable, there is the chance that one might miss great gang-tackling and good gap control when looking only at the stats, but I think it’s a nature thing rather than a ‘best-way-to-enjoy-a-sport’ thing. If you like to play games, you like fantasy football. I love games, to watch and to play them, and fantasy football combines the best of both worlds. I am able to keep my love of my teams (Jets, Bears) separate from my enjoyment of my fantasy team. I never root against my teams for fantasy purposes. All fantasy’s done (and I’ve been playing on and off since ‘90) is make every game enjoyable. Normally I don’t give a crap about Cleveland-Seattle, but I had a few players going in that game, so I’m more likely to enjoy watching it. Many fans of a single team don’t care about football, they just care about their team. If their team’s out of it, they could care less about the sport. How’s that different from the no-affiliation fantasy-fan?
As for stats, people have always loved stats in football – 5 yards per carry, 100 yards receiving, 2.5 sacks, people payed attention to those numbers before fantasy football blew up. Look at how they calculate quartback rating and tell me football isn’t a stat-based game. Sure, only the win really matters, but numbers are fun. Maybe you’re not a numbers person, but I always have been, and I can remember talking to my dad about Blair Thomas’ yards-per-carry and yards-per-game when I was 12.
Ultimately, the best players do have the best numbers. Brady’s been a top-5 fantasy quarterback almost his whole career. I can’t think of any great skill-position players who don’t have great stats. Occasionally a guy’s numbers are better than his talent, but some teams win more games than they deserve to, too. It’s true that a blocking tight end might be the offensive mvp and stink in fantasy, but that’s pretty rare.
You’re right that when the Steelers run for 180 yards, it doesn’t matter to the final score or playoff standings whether Willie Parker had 50 or 150 of them. But there’s a great deal of football-based fun to be had in trying to predict how well Willie Parker will do ahead of time. I check my stats at halftime and after the game, and most of fantasy football is played during the week – that’s when you do your wheeling and dealing and planning. Come Sunday, you just watch it unfold.
I love fantasy football, almost as much as I love Penn State football. Speaking of which, did you ever go to any Penn State games? There was some great football being played there, and we had the chance to enjoy it up close. I’d think anybody who appreciated the beauty of football would have been at every game. But that’s just me.
Anyway, I’m calling it right now – the Colts beat the Pats in Foxboro in the AFC championship game (no, the Stillers won’t be in it, Dwyer, not in my future imaginings, but I’ve been wrong before, and they sure look pretty tough). Marvin Harrison will be the difference. The Pats have been incredible lucky on the injury front this season. What if Brady or Moss gets hurt?
November 6, 2007 at 11:54 pm
last night as ben limped and winced his way off the field, i was actually wondering about brady getting hurt. it just never seems to happen, you know?
i am sorry you were offended by my take on Fantasy-types. the broad generalizations i made were not, i realize now, meant to apply to anyone specifically. today i could write one about how rah-rah types (“Well, of course the Steelers will beat the Pats!”) are ridiculous. and i would probably be basing some of my conclusions on the behavior of someone like my chum marco, but i wouldn’t mean it as an anti-marco entry. it would be more like a pro-owen dwyer/john ebersole (ex father in law) type of entry.
so yeah: sorry. not sure if the legendary tone-doesn’t-come-across-on-the-internet thing is at work here? if not, then that was certainly a grimy and specific potshot at my credibility as a commentator. which in itself, i guess, is kind of funny.
November 7, 2007 at 5:04 am
now now, everyone be nice, don’t you know you’re both right?
I had fun doing fantasy baseball for a season, while always keeping it secondary to my interest in the team, and making sure to stack my team with Red Sox and no Yankees, so as not to confuse or temper my loyalties. I think if you can compartmentalize, then it’s a good thing. And what the heck is sports but entertainment anyway.
Then again, get too focused on stats and you lose the great thing about sports that you can be magnificent on the field and run up a million stats and it doesn’t matter if you lose the game. Like, a few years back when Peyton got the touchdown pass record, and then the Pats schooled him in the playoffs (could there be come-uppance on the part of the stat-happy Pats in the future? Would the glee that the Pats-haters feel if they lose in the playoffs be demeaned by the fantasy footballers who just care if Moss and Brady got their touchdowns in the regular season?)
I think the A-Rod “sweepstakes” is partially a phenomenon that’s exaggerated by the fantasy mentality. People like him because he puts up stats in the regular season, not because he’s a winner. They don’t appreciate the meaninglessness of those stats if you don’t perform in the postseason. And anyone who signs him is thinking, “he’s going to bring people to the park, sell t-shirts, etc.”, not that he’s going to win them a World Series, which is supposedly the idea.
By the way, I so hope that nobody springs for the silly amounts of money he’s demanding, and he’s forced to scale down his demands. If you factor in what he does in the playoffs [unless you figure that's correctable, which is entirely possible], there are at least 15 or 20 people I’d rather have on my team. Actually in my heart there are hundreds I’d rather have, but that’s just due to blind hatred rather than logic.
November 7, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I wasn’t actually offended, I also would like to plead ‘tone-over-the-internet.’ I just love fantasy football (I’m in a league with my brother-in-law, mother, and father – it makes me a better family man). I went over the top because we’re talking about sports, and that’s the way you talk about sports. I can see how annoying an obsession with statistics can be. Your description of Brady’s will is excellent. I hate that fucker.
And Dave, are you on the ‘A-Rod’s a choker’ bandwagon, too? I guess you kinda have to be, as a Red Sox fan, but give the guy a break. He’s probably the best player of our time, and he’s relatively classy. The argument about not being able to win the big one is silly until he finishes his career. They said the same thing about Elway, until he won two in a row. Same for Peyton (and did you ever watch Marino throw? The dude was awesome – he was unsackable with that quick-release, and laser accurate – he had some crappy defenses and never had the support of a good running game). We have a need, in sports (and in life, really), to consider what has happened up to now to be the whole. When a team loses three games in a row, in a 162-game season or a 16-game season, everyone figures that the team will never win again and that the season is over. A-Rod’ll win at least one, and he may (MAY) end up as the best to ever play the game, stats-wise. What 15 guys would you rather have? The money he wants is silly and stupid, but give me A-Rod at the plate at any time and I’m happy.
November 7, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I’m on the, I’m so glad A-Rod’s choked up until now and I hope he continues to do so, bandwagon. But I imagine he’ll not choke one of these years. He hasn’t done anything totally sleazy, and you can’t fault him for going for the money, but it doesn’t mean you have to cut him a lot of slack too. I think he hangs himself by going for the biggest contract in history, by talking about himself in superlatives occasionally, by not having any team loyalty, and especially by being complicit in Scott Boras’ sleazy tactics.
You can argue that none of that is “his fault,” but he opens himself up to a lot of criticism if he doesn’t produce championships or make his team better.
That said, I’m sure it’s lonely being him, when no one on your team likes you, so I do feel for him a bit. I really just want him to fail because I hate Boras.
Comparing him to Barry Bonds is apt, though I don’t think Elway or Peyton quite fit. Both of them were good team leaders, and Elway played well in the playoffs, Peyton decently. All you can do is perform your best, try to spur on your teammates, and hope the rest takes care of itself. So far A-Rod hasn’t been an asset to his team in the playoffs.
15 I’d rather have: On the Red Sox, Beckett, Manny, Ortiz. Possibly Papelbon but only because of the entertainment value. Santana, Verlander, Jake Peavy?, Guerrero, Pujols, Dan Haren?, Derrek Lee, Jeter, Rivera?, Oswalt. And…I don’t know, Hanley Ramirez.
Okay, so that was a stretch, and I know that some of those guys have come up small in the playoffs, but there’s clubhouse chemistry too, and from a fan perspective, root-ability.
So there.
November 7, 2007 at 11:16 pm
good, good. the more i thought about it, the more i was like, “it MUST be the tone thing/a funny joke/context-appropriate.” i think i am always a little prone to prickly-ness (as my mama would say…she also once said i was like jimmy cagney! a scrappy bantam rooster!), but yo, for real, there’s something about the relative isolation here that makes me see weirdness everywhere.
November 7, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I guess for me it comes back the fact that he’s a colossal talent. He’s just really good. Great, even. In this case, to be an A-Rod fan is to root for the best and greediest and also somehow the underdog. I don’t know a lot of A-Rod fans. He’s Ted Williams-like with the stick, which is really something. I think he’ll get his playoff head on straight soon enough.
I am disgusted by the money, but it’s not so gross by major sports standards. He wants what, twice as much as the next guy? That next guy is making three thousand times as much as me. I think they’re both overpaid, but I refuse to exercise my control by turning off the tv and never going to games or buying merchandise.
We, as a society, haven’t figured out scales of compensation. We don’t understand how to translate scope of job to reasonable salaries. CEOs, major movie actors, athletes, certain people just get paid a disproportionate amount of money. The points of the pyramid are the places to be. The source of the signal. We figure those folks who are brave or great or lucky enough to make it to those spots deserve a hell of a lot.
At least we live in a relatively free country wherein you can go get that paper, if you can hack it. I prefer a kind of socialism where any amount over a million a year goes into the community chest, to make schools better and build CO2 scrubbers, but that’s not gonna happen any time soon. And geez, who knows what that would do to the economy, when you remove certain motivations and certain pecuniary powers and symbols. A million dollars wouldn’t mean the same thing as it does now, so my model would need constant refining and recalculation.
By the way, you Boston folks are totally spoiled. You assume that everyone should win a championship every couple of years. Funny, you were so pathetic just 7 or eight years ago. The Celtics stunk, the Patriots were a laughing-stock (huge underdogs, as you mentioned above), and the Red Sox were lovable losers. Good time to be from Boston, as a sports fan. One of the most dominant sports cities ever, maybe. Careful, though, the worm turns fast.
By the way, why hasn’t Andy commented on the A-Rod issue?
November 7, 2007 at 11:31 pm
By the way, Dave, despite the fact that Brady will probably break Peyton’s td record this year (and won’t everybody use that as part of how amazing their year has been?), I think Peyton’s record-setting season was awesome. Once again your New York-style Boston mentality of “only the championship matters” is short-sighted. By that reckoning, Detroit Lion fans have never enjoyed good football. I’m a Jets fan, despite their never having sniffed the superbowl in my lifetime, and I’ve loved some great Jets players and plays. The season is the journey, the playoffs are the destination. It’s very possible to have a great year and not win it all. Maybe you’ve forgotten that as you lounge in a stupor, gorged on your trophies.
November 7, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Volume-wise, this may be the most-commented-upon entry in our history.
November 9, 2007 at 2:06 am
funnily enough, the vice principal was asking _me_ for some fantasy advice today (re: heath miller.)
when you put it in terms of the jets, yeah, then it’s a lot easier to think beyond the win-loss. curtis martin is way more lovable than peyton.
November 9, 2007 at 4:05 am
Yes, Boston is completely spoiled. It’s to the point where we’re not rooting for people to win championships, we’re rooting for them to win championships amazingly, gracefully, beautifully. (By the way, the New England Revolution is in the finals). Maybe if the Pats go 19-0 and the Celtics win the championship, I can retire from being a sports fan forever.
It’s never just about the championship. People aren’t that simple, or that boring. There are so many things people watch for, although to win the championship is usually at the top of the list. But there’s always style points (which is why going undefeated is better than just winning the super bowl, or the Sox beating the Yankees is better than the Sox beating someone else). Then you feel disappointed if there isn’t a challenge in winning (the last entertaining world series was probably the Diamondbacks, while the first two Pats super bowls were way entertaining).
You have to have subplots, or else what’s the casual fan going to glom onto? And you’ve got to have betting lines and fantasy, and individual stats in general, because there aren’t enough good games or teams you’re naturally invested in. And what about just thinking of each game as an entity unto itself? Every day your team wins, just be happy that they won, rather than thinking it’s a means to the end of winning a championship.
And the A-Rod hatred is certainly irrational, particularly calling him a choker. It’s just jealousy of the money, and rage at the stupidity of people who think one person in baseball can make that much of a difference. And the fact that he acts like a robot. A smug, slick robot.
November 9, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Curtis Martin is one of the classiest superstars in the history of sport. He’s top-5 all time in rushing, and you hardly heard anything about him. From what I’ve read, he seems to be a genuinely good person. And he’s awesome. Too bad he went to Pitt. Oh well.
November 9, 2007 at 7:17 pm
You know, I wonder about womens’ sports and amateur sports. Are we interested in competition, or do we want to see the very best of the best? Men are stronger and faster than women (I know some people who’ve told me that’s not true, but come on…). But the essence of sport is competition. Five ladies could make up the most fundamentally sound basketball team in the world, but fans would rather pay to see the Bulls. I would posit that the Bulls could beat any team of 5 women anywhere, and beat them pretty handily. Is that what matters? If so, why does college football and basketball get so much love?
November 9, 2007 at 10:57 pm
…or high school football (permian panthers style) for that matter.
is it the olympics thing? that “amateurs” play with purity, are driven by an unadulterated love of the sport to excel?
interesting: i always assumed that my dad’s interest in the fighting irish was motivated by, well, the obvious connections. but no: a couple years ago, he told me that way back when, the sporting events that were broadcast on the radio in pgh were notre dame football and duquesne basketball. so he grew up listening to them. if my family were slightly different (if, that is, there wasn’t some streak of being anti-college sports running through our little culture [which should tidily answer a question posed above]), then i would have been a bigtime notre dame fan. without knowing why.
i wonder if there’s a similar secret back story for other people’s attachment to college sports?