KILL THE UMPIRE; WELL, NOT REALLY

Well, the Washington Nationals just dropped a four-game series at the Phillies ball yard.  Still in front of Atlanta by five games the morning after; the Nats are still a disappointment.  Sometimes it is difficult to watch on TV when those exceptionally good ballplayers are about to blow one.

Near despair arises (or does it fall?) when Phil Mickelson is on the verge of missing a cut.  Somehow he makes it by a stroke, shows signs of surging on moving day, and then bogeys away his gain and then some on Sunday.

Then there’s Notre Dame: about to take on Navy in Ireland, a game opening the seasons for both teams.  Can a fan, much less a nervous grad, watch?

Obviously, whether the anxious fan can influence the play of the athletes, as he fears, is nonsense. His nerves are completely and geographically separated from those competing for fame and treasure. What kind of fool would even feel, much less admit, trepidation over televised entertainment, sport intended for public consumption and the enrichment of owners and sponsoring institutions and compensation for professionals and future compensation for collegiate stars?  Of course, the fool does watch, even while squirming in his chair or walking up and down in frenzied worry.

Some other fans elsewhere may act the same, but probably fewer than one might suspect.  But millions of non-athletes, some of whom guzzle more beer than at other times, watch with fascination and elevated pulses influenced by heightened desire for victory.  Vicarious victory.

How many fans can face the reality that whether their team or player scores and soars or sinks and stinks changes the fans’ lives by not a single iota?  Well, okay, a lot of life-changing money could be riding on the outcome. Still, rabid fandom has little to do with compulsive gambling.  The overheated fanatic need not have filthy or pristine lucre in play over an important or unimportant game.

Game  \’gam\ n 1a AMUSEMENT, DIVERSION b: FUN, SPORT

So goes the definition of “game” in the Webster’s New Deal Dictionary.

Americans (and maybe to a greater degree soccer fans in other countries) can get pretty emotional about sports.  Those feelings may have been true in earlier times, such as when elders were in high school. As a failed athlete who turned to cheer leading to travel with the school’s teams, this old mind of a would-be athlete recalls plenty of excitement about victory and deep sorrow over defeat. Hoopla has grown in intensity over the years. Expression comes in many more boisterous vulgar ways than when a San Francisco staffer for the Examiner, Ernest Lawrence Thayer, wrote poetically in the paper in 1888 of ill-fated Casey at the Bat.  A clipping of that poem was given to a comedian in a New York theater who used it when some pro ball players were in the audience. So back some 120 years ago, there was proof behind the footlights of amusement, diversion, fun and sport all wrapped together.

So why do fans treat sports as more important than amusement, diversion and fun?

Maybe, to identify themselves with success.  Thus, failure – a loss – is devastating mentally.  My team, my hero, my heroine (women are big fans now, too) is no better than I am.

Most of us fanatics can come back to reality pretty quickly.  Oh sure, it’s only a game. It doesn’t make any different in my life.  But . . .

How many cars will be overturned and burned should the Nat win the Word Series?

(Oh, O! Just jinxed ‘em.)