I Had a Friend Was a Big Baseball Player Back in High School

Part XXI (Luke's Response)

So bulbous, hairy, occasionally inebriated dudes paint their faces and yell in unison on Sundays to satisfy their need to express emotions? I'm kidding. I see your point. There is an interesting emotional attachment fans have with their teams.

Something that puzzles me is the extremes to which I've seen people take these emotions. Your team loses and you're despondent for a calendar year. Your team wins and you propose to your girlfriend.

To your point about the black/white nature of sports- I wonder if there's more to it. I wonder if we don't prefer the gray to the black and white. If there were no interest in the gray, i.e. the discussion, arguing, etc., a 24-hour sports television network would never survive. There wouldn't be people whose entire careers are made arguing about sports games. Of course I understand your point, because at the end of the day, there is a record book. There is a score that gets recorded. There is some sort of finality.

I heard a funny line from a sports talking-head this week, although not for the first time. Speaking of a men's college basketball game he said, "the better team lost." I love that even though we know who the winner is, we don't know who's better.

Indeed I am a Duke/Yankees/Lakers supporter. The reason is the same reason I'm a free-market supporter. I like to see the best. That's about it. Traditionally, Duke, NY, and LA (among others) have employed the best.

When I was growing up, the team on TV was the Nuggets. The crappy '90s Nuggets. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, LaPhonso Ellis, Dikembe Mutombo. Although in fairness Mutombo averaged 4+ blocks per game in '93, I got tired of watching dump-bucket hoops. The best team in our conference those years was the Lakers. But am I still a Nuggets fan today? Of course.

I guess the biggest puzzle to me is the extent to which people take their sports fan-ness. I don't totally understand how some people's moods can be affected by the outcome of sports games. Enlighten me.

Oh, The Days The Rain Would Fall Your Way

I'm a bit late on this (and trust me, it's not from some sense of extraordinary scholastic achievement), but the P.C. III grades came out yesterday, and I would like to include a brief word from our sponsors, Rare Earth, once again:

That's right, folks, our long national Practice Court-related nightmare is now officially over. Well, for my class at least.

All of the other saps who are currently in P.C. and those who will have to endure the law school edition of the Bataan Death March at some point the future?

They'll just have to find their own way to survive.

Current Reading

To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifiting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivlary by Will Blythe

I knew this book was going to be right up my alley (whatever that really means) when I read the following quote on the book's jacket:

It is a basketball rivalry that simply has no equal. Duke vs. North Carolina is Ali vs. Frazier, the Giants vs. the Dodgers, the Red Sox vs. the Yankees. Hell, it's bigger than that. This is the Democrats vs. the Republicans, the Yankees vs. the Confederates, capitalism vs. communism. All right, okay, the Life Force vs. the Death Instinct, Eros vs. Thanatos. Is that big enough?

I'm Starting to Believe It's Your Plan All Along

Congratulations to Ms. Nina Patterson for correctly naming "Nightblindness" by David Gray as the Friday Song of the Day.

It's a rare occurrence to be labeled as a prophet in your own time, but when someone calls me just that, who am I to argue, dear readers? This concludes the self-congratulatory portion of today's post.

Last night, even though I am not a graduate of the University of Texas, I gathered with some Texas-Ex classmates to support the Longhorns in their quest to take down the Evil Empire of the North Carolina Research Triangle, the Duke University Men's Basketball Team.
In an aim to discern my rooting interests, and knowing that I didn't go to UT, one of my classmates asked,"Justin, who are you cheering for?" I turned to her with a look of pain in my eyes and responded,"I'm rooting for UT. Cheering for Duke would be like cheering for the Road Runner against Wile E. Coyote or AIDS in Africa."* In other words, something deeply and inherently evil and possibly scarring to one's eternal soul.

As we all know, the 'Horns came up short in their effort to rid the 2009 NCAA Tournament of the team America loves to hate, but as of now, we are all supporters of the Villanova Wildcats.

*Those exact words may or may not have been used. I'll leave the actual phrasing to your imagination.

Not What You Should Be or What You've Become

I've never been one of those people who swore that the first 4 days of the NCAA Tournament are the greatest days on the sporting calendar, but in my opinion, the first weekend of March Madness is a bit like stuffing at Thanksgiving: It's not everyone's absolute must-have item, but you're kidding yourself if you don't get a little hop in your step when it comes around every year.

Sure, the Bears may have lost to the Boilermakers 90-79 on Thursday (which you know is actually a flattering score for Baylor if you watched any portion of the public whipping, ahem, game), but all in all, an appearance in the NCAA Tournament was an unexpected surprise for a team that could not even play non-conference games as recently as two years ago due to the Dennehy/Dotson/Bliss scandal.

Let's be honest, though, my friends. The real reason I sat down to write tonight is not the Baylor men's basketball team, it's not the surprising upset that the Davidson Wildcats sprung on Georgetown, and it's certainly not the primal screams of an NCAA-hyped Gus Johnson*.

No, the true reason I come to you tonight is to send a very special message to Luke Reeves, Cody Blair, and each and every member of the Duke Basketball family:
Look on the bright side, at least Coach K has more time this off-season to film those American Express and State Farm Commercials.

P.S. Luke, you can still cheer for the Yankees, Lakers, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and Microsoft.

*I know that I've posted that video before, but it's just too much fun to leave out of the rotation.

So Alive with Wild Hope Now

Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for naming "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles as the Friday Song of the Day and to Ms. Heidi Hipp for naming "Young Pilgrims" by the Shins as the Saturday Song of the Day.

This afternoon, I was lucky enough to catch the 2nd half of the UNC-Duke game. The game was humming along pretty well in the second half (unless you're a Blue Devils fan) until Tyler Hansbrough went up for a layup with about 14 seconds left in the game. That's when things got a bit chippy. Hansbrough, who had been killing the Devils all day, was fouled on his way up by a Blue Devil defender, but apparently Duke's Gerald Henderson thought that wasn't enough.

Now, I know that there may be some of you who agree with Billy Packer that Henderson's elbow meeting the bridge of Hansbrough's nose was merely an accident, but each and every time that I watched the replay (trust me, CBS showed plenty) it just looked like Henderson was taking out his frustration on his archrivals. Henderson may not be a dirty player, but the way that he led with his elbow seemed to indicate that he was seeking out contact instead of putting his hands up to block Hansbrough's shot. I could be wrong here, and please tell me if you think I am.

I guess it just wouldn't be Duke-Carolina if someone didn't have to leave the floor bleeding.