Good Game

Some people have March Madness. Others the All-Star Break(down). I hear legend of toothless beasts in the North pulverizing each other with sticks while dressed as figure skaters. But I am not affected by these bizarre conditions. I am a one-sport wonder.

Or at least, i have been until moving to DC, but now local fervor and access may be a game changer.

There are odd benefits to growing up in a state like Oklahoma. While today the Sooner state can lay claim to an authentic - if hijacked - NBA squad, sports fever in the Bible Belt's Buckle most often found its expression in impassioned prayers for divine assistance in non-professional athletics. Whether that was high school basketball, college football (BOOMER!), or the once-mighty AAA 89ers and OKC Blazers, the unifying elements were:

1) Whenever a player got good enough to become a fan draw, he left for greener pastures.

2) While the home team might occasionally win the day, it could never win any lasting glory.

The water towers of countless Oklahoma towns - big and small - pay tribute to these truths with their meticulous recording in 20-ft spray paint letters of various state runner-ups and championships in everything from track and field to women's lacrosse. Victory is transient, but more than that, it is fragile.

It is difficult, perhaps even callous, to compare the trials and tribulations of a minor league semi-pro to T-ball or U-5 soccer leagues, but they are not so different. 1 out of every 10 to the nth player might have a real chance at a sports career; most just don't have the spark. But they aren't letting that stop them. The result can veer from incessant doldrums to edge-of-your-seat excitement as every pitch, pass, shot and swing hang on the axis of skill and luck. A grounder to third can turn into an inside-the-park home run. A squibbling shot on goal can squirt through a goalie's leg like bar soap in prison (thank you again, Robert Green).

The point of watching sports in Oklahoma was to hope for the best, enjoy the good days, and take every flagrant error and crushing defeat as par for the course.

I've moved away from this athletics aesthetic since leaving Oklahoma in 2000. Trinity football enjoyed its own modest success and rare national spotlight. The Spurs were good for a national title every year or two. And while I'm not proud to admit it, UT provided me ample opportunity to jump on the band wagon when they defeated a juggernaut, and likewise abundant fodder when they were themselves the victim of humiliating reversals.

In New York, I was bereft of almost all of this. Columbia sports make Oklahoma high schoolers look polished. While New York has a bevy of teams, as a temp-local it was hard to feel much true affinity. Jets or Giants? Yanks or Mets? Knicks - oh please!

But throughout, I have always had three great weaknesses when it comes to sports fandom:

1) Fantasy football has taught me to love - LOVE - pro football.

2) I cannot resist the bliss of a game - any game - at the ballpark/stadium/arenaplex.

3) Soccer just isn't very accessible to an American audience.

DC and Summer 2010 may be giving this all a shake up. The local NFL draw is more likely to appeal to my Okie schadenfreude than my sudden affinity for Manu and the Crew. But other avenues are opened by relatively cheap tickets, easy metro access, and - lets be blunt - the general lack of success-driven popularity.

World Cup 2010 was an amazing event to behold, and behold it I did. Being unemployed for the duration gave me the opportunity to be dangerously obsessive with the greatest contest on Earth, and I took full advantage. Of the 64 matches played, I watched 39 in their entirety, missing a total of 15 games (often simulcast) with the rest caught at least for a full half (I did need to job hunt some of the time). And while the particular fortunes of the underdog teams for which I cheered were not ultimately as bright as I could have dreamed, it made for an immensely enjoyable month of television. And a terrible let down thereafter.

And this brings us to DC.

With only the slightest bit of work, I can go out with a friend to catch a Nats game on a week night. Do I follow baseball? Do I care how promising the next rookie pitcher is? No, I do not. But I'll watch him play. I'll root - root, root - for the home team. I'll drink - slowly- an $8 beer and sit comfortably in the shade with an blue summer sky above me and I will be happy.

Soccer is a little more difficult - or at least, takes a little more work. Not because I like soccer less than I like baseball, in fact, quite the opposite. While the Nats may be to MLB what the Redskins are to the NFL (laughably unimpressive), the dropoff from World Cup to MLS is not one of degrees, but of kind. They simply are not in the same league, in as metaphorical a sense as something that literally true can suggest. The local team is DC United, which like many MLS squads has a name that sounds like it might mean something, but which in fact is just a meaningless mimicry of a venerable international title. For example, there is no royal family in Salt Lake City, and I'm sure Madrid is not loving the comparison. But the marketing is not the biggest stumbling block to MLS fanaticism - it's the game play.

I'm not suggesting the US doesn't produce good players, or that good players don't get drafted onto MLS teams. I'm saying *great* players never do. MLS players make as little as $30,000 a year, compared with several times that for the lowest-paid bench warmer in the European premier leagues. That's only economics, and truthfully the US market cannot sustain anything more. But it shows on the field. Brilliant crosses go woefully untouched. Bizarre defensive decisions result in easy points. And worse, the specter of a goalless draw haunts every match.

While in Houston I had the opportunity to watch the local Dynamo take on the Columbus Crew (the names really are strikingly odd at first, but they do grow on you. Seattle Sounders. Philadelphia Union. New York Red Bulls.). It was not a pyrotechnical display of finesse and cunning. There were few well-earned shots on goal, and it ended 0-0. But it was still fun. The incessant drumming of the fan section behind us, the earnest best effort of these accomplished athletes, the comical missteps, the intimacy of watching a sporting event with less than 10,000 people in attendance, and yes, the orange jerseys, took me back to the Halcyon days of my youth. The bleary-eyed innocence of cheering for victory even though you know skill is a small part of the equation.

Getting settled in DC, the MLS season is already 3/4 over, the Nats aren't exactly gunning for the pennant, and the Redskins are starting Donovan McNabb. And what sport do the Wizards play?

It may be a long time before a DC-loyal sports fan can stare down the accomplishments of the Pinstripe Alley or safely purchase a jersey that won't soon be embarrassingly obsolete (I'm looking at you, Jets #4 Favre owners), but until true glory flounders its way into the D of C, I get to relive the simple joys of fresh air, over priced junk food, and the sort of clean conscience that comes from always cheering for the underdog, and celebrating each tie as a groundbreaking achievement.

Because winning isn't the most important thing - it's how much you can enjoy losing that matters.

Weber

::(lame) Texpatriot