…the end of man is to know

Mid-August is here. For most people that means enjoying the last few weeks of summer by hanging out at the beach. For those college students who aren’t on the trimester schedule, they are excited to get back to campus. For me, it means something very different.

FANTASY. SPORTS. OVERLOAD!!!!

For those who aren’t familiar, fantasy sports involve leagues of “teams” (usually 8-12 per league) which “draft” real-life players onto their rosters. How players perform in real-life is then super-imposed onto the fantasy teams. Fantasy teams face each other throughout that particular sport’s season, with playoffs at the end to determine the league champion. You can make trades with other teams to swap players, set a starting lineup (players not in your starting lineup don’t help your team’s performance), and add/drop players. In many ways, joining a fantasy league is very similar to being a general manager of a real-life team.

Mid-August is the best because the two biggest fantasy sports collide: baseball and football. Some play fantasy hockey, basketball, golf, auto racing etc. But baseball and football are far and away the most popular.  I currently have 3 baseball teams and all are in first or second place as the season winds down. The trading deadline (at which no point I can no longer swap players with other teams in the league) either just passed or will in the next few days. This is my last chance to make final roster moves to ready my time for the playoffs.

Fantasy football is also on the horizon. With the “real” season starting in 2 weeks, I am in the midst of the annual draft (where teams pick the players they want on their team) season. I have spent hours thinking, researching, and analyzing which players will overachieve and who will disappoint.

So my hunch is that people who read this are thinking, “So this supposed political junkie is talking about fantasy sports? How unrelated! This kid must have really needed a topic and went to his last resort”. You would largely be correct. However, fantasy sports does give a unique look at how we think and interact.

One of my baseball leagues is with a group of friends back from New Jersey. We cycle some new people in every year, but we have had 6 people stick together for 6 years. From my freshman year in high school to what will be my junior year in college, we have stuck together. With team owners in Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, and New Jersey, we all stick together through fantasy sports. Though I have lost contact with many of my high school friends, my fantasy competition remains close. When we all get together, we still talk about who won what league in 2004 and what dumb moves we have made in years past. But there is that bond. It’s a common experience that isn’t based on anything real. Barry Bonds never cared that he was on my fantasy team and that I needed him to perform. Tom Brady never knew that I was facing him in the playoffs and I was praying he would have a bad game. Fantasy gamers create their own reality out of reality.

On the flip side, I care about the athletes to the extent that they can help my team win. I have spent many Thursday nights rooting like hell for a little-known pitcher on an otherwise irrelevant team. I track player’s careers and obsess over any trends I can pick up. But if they are off my roster, I don’t care. Some poor 24 year old has a career-ending injury and I curse him for ruining my team.  I don’t care about him for his well-being. It doesn’t matter that his livelihood and passion have been taken away. It matters that now I have to scramble for a substitute. It’s a brutish, calculated worldview. But is it any different than how we treat most strangers? I don’t pretend to own Derrick the barista, but if he misses his shift at Starbucks to attend his mother’s funeral, I still am frustrated by the long line. Most people in this world serves us somehow. Fantasy sports simply codify that fact.

But I know that isn’t true. With the exception of unusually loud football stadiums and expert hecklers, fans don’t impact the game. There’s nothing I can do in Evanston, Illinois to support the New York Giants if they are playing in Buffalo. But I watch and I root. In some ways, fantasy sports forge a stronger bond than regular fandom. I selected my fantasy players and believe(d) in them. I root for the Giants, Giants, and Knicks because my dad told me to. I now casually support the Cubs because they happen to be the baseball team near my university. The only problem with fantasy is time. Fantasy sports leagues last one season. So while this year I beg and plead Chase Utley to dominate, but hope he breaks his leg next year if he is on another roster. Long-term bonds rarely exist. It’s fleeting greatness. Winning a league this year doesn’t mean a thing next year because the teams will be all scrambled.

But that’s life. Sometimes you do things because your father told you that the guys in blue shirts are good and the guys in gray shirts are evil (this was how my father first explained the Giants-Cowboys rivalry). Sometimes you want people to succeed for wholly selfish reasons. Sometimes you don’t know why you do it. And when you find yourself staying up until 2 AM to wait for that damn Seattle-Los Angeles game to end so you can record all the stats, you understand it. You do it because you want to win. You want to have your knowledge, skill, and effort rewarded, even in the most intangible of way. And if Chase Utley can hit enough home runs in the next 6 weeks, I will gain my fantasy sports immortality…until next season.

While Americans were busy not paying attention, most of the free world (and some of the less-than-free world) had its eyes trained on Euro Cup 2008. In yesterday’s final, the Spaniards defeated the vaunted German side, 1-0. The game was highly entertaining, even to this admitted nationalist who focuses on American sports. After Spain’s victory, there were massive impromptu celebrations throughout Barcelona, Madrid, and a host of urban areas.

So many Europeans fully invest themselves, and their sense of national dignity, in how well their soccer team performs. Soccer-mania extends beyond Europe, as the African nation of Senegal virtually shut down after a stunning upset in 2002 over soccer goliath, and colonial master, France. Political leaders attend key matches, legitimizing the games as more than just sport. Foreign policy blunders, economic woes, and political scandals are temporarily forgiven in exchange for a victory.

On this side of the Atlantic, most people don’t even know how America performs in international competition. There is minimal enthusiasm, or news coverage, over whether or not America’s men’s basketball team can reclaim Olympic Gold in Beijing. In fact, I’m curious to know how many of my countrymen even know when (or if!) the Olympics will begin.

Despite not taking a single Sociology course, I have a few hunches as to why America seems wholly indifferent to our ability to move an object in a certain direction using certain body parts/accessories:

1. Dude, we’re awesome:

There’s a golden rule of social groups: those at the top don’t like change. Likewise, the United States should avoid national prestige being left up to athletic feats. Instead, let’s stick to what we’re good at: cultural diffusion, economic size, and the ability to destroy the planet in 6.4 seconds. Once we invest ourselves and risk our title as greatest, best country god has ever given man on the face of the Earth we actually might lose it. So pretending that international athletic events are completely irrelevant prevents us from losing anything.

2. 4, 6,8: USA does not preach hate:

Can anyone tell me who the United States’ greatest rival is? The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore. The Japanese are now a key trading partner. The Germans are a strong ally. The British haven’t fought with us (tea v. coffee, notwithstanding) since the War of 1812. The Mexicans and Canadians are humorously non-threatening. There simply is no country to root against. Our “rivals” have always been countries which we have tried to destroy. Our geographic and social isolation also means that we don’t have friendly rivalries. The United States is in a category by itself. Without any peers, Americans traditionally don’t favor one country over another.

3. Football, not futbol!

For the past century, America has been a baseball-football-basketball country. NASCAR, golf, tennis, and hockey are on the periphery. Cricket and soccer (for those over the age of ten) are unheard of. The problem is that most countries are die-hard soccer fans and South Asia looooooves its cricket. Baseball and basketball are globalizing very slowly, but are still very much American. If the world cared about its football teams, then maybe Americans can rally behind NFL stars in international tournaments. In the interim, there are no international football competitions. Our national sports are simply ignored by the rest of the globe.

It is quite odd, and disappointing, that in a country which has accomplished so much thanks to competition and rivalry, the public routinely forgoes opportunities to improve nationalism and patriotism.

This summer, prove me wrong. Paint your entire body red, white, and blue. Wrap yourself in the American flag. Actually commit the national anthem to memory. You can only gain bragging rights if you are willing to lose them.

And if the USA doesn’t win, just tell your non-American enemies that your country can destroy theirs before they can say “gold medal”.