Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau
The great thing about sports is that they're so utterly unpredictable.
Funny, for a while there in my twenties and thirties I turned my back on sports fandom because they didn't grab me the way they did when I was a kid. Partly because I fashioned myself as something of an aesthete-intellectual more interested in music and literature (that sounds more pretentious in the wording than I actually was in person, as hard as that may be to believe), and partly because I thought they were a bit childish. It's just boys and men running after balls, after all.
"How's the sports team stocked with professional mercenaries in your general geographical location performing against the other sports teams stocked with professional mercenaries in other general geographical locations?" a pretentious guy once wise-cracked to me, and I recall finding that pithy in its truism. What possible connection could someone like Kawhi have to me?
It's true, he might sign with another team this summer (though that's now seeming unlikely). And yet, I still feel like the Raptors are my team very much in the way that the Cardiacs and Blur are my bands, Alice Munro and Martin Amis are my writers, etc. Actually, geographical proximity plays a part in it for me more than it does for the arts, where I find it mostly unfathomable. But a work of art is controlled by its creator(s), and any magic produced by the finished product is intentional. You go into it not knowing exactly what to expect, but the patterns and rhythms are set in stone. There's some leeway with live concerts where artists may do songs a bit differently, but even so, they're still following a template.
You can listen to a recorded song, read a book or watch a movie many times and they're always the same (even if, admittedly, your reaction to them evolves). But the exquisite beauty of a sports competition is the anticipation and expectation attached to the process and the outcome that can only be experienced once by all involved. There is no "creator" pulling the strings behind the scenes, no asymmetrical control. It's a stage where everything is up for grabs.
I've come to relish this as I get older. Of course, all this gushing could simply be due to having been witness to one of the greatest shots ever made in basketball history!
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I basically went through the exact same phases as you. A wise guy once noted to me that it's kind of weird to be obsessed by any pro sports team that doesn't have a) one of your kids or relatives or b) a close friend, playing on it. The same goes for national teams which most of us only have a relationship to because of happenstance - we just happen to be born in a given country or be of a particular nationality or ethnic origin.
The last time I really got excited for a pro sports team was when the Ottawa Redblacks won the Grey Cup in 2016. For some reason I was a fan of Ottawa's CFL club (the Rough Riders back then) even as a kid in the Maritimes. Before 2016, Ottawa hadn't won the Grey Cup since 1976. I was born then but was too young to remember.
Other than that the only sports performances I've gotten excited for in recent years have been at the Olympics. Mostly for Canadians but also for foreign athletes on occasion.
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