Winning Childhood

One of the things that has always stopped non-fans of the NBA is the aesthetic side of the game. It's really not always about if you win or lose, but how the game looks, as well, which leads beautiful but not quite complete teams like Phoenix or the early 2000 Sacramento Kings to be beloved, even though they were not good enough to seal the deal. I've also always thought kindly of the Mark Price / Ron Harper / Larry Nance / Brad Daugherty / Hot Rod Williams Cavs teams that went down to Michael Jordan's Bulls, in that they were a perfectly balanced team, but just without a high enough talent ceiling.

While some fans only care about championships, others go for some measure of worth in this fashion, and this is just alien to both camps, really. I've got friends who would, I think, cheer for a parade and team that won every NBA game 2-1, so long as the opposition had the one. It's more about avoiding the pain of defeat, and the shadenfreude of the fans of the other laundry. (A highly underrated benefit of the Internet age, that.)

But as I started to think about the upcoming baseball season, and my continuing lack of enthusiasm for the probable 2010 Oakland A's. They will be another in a seemingly interminable series of teams with a weak offense that leads to undue stress on a pitching and defense team. And it's not all about the home pitcher's park, either.

And then I started to see the same telltale signs of discontent in my other laundry. And maybe even outside of the big three leagues that I spend most of my bloghole thinking about.

The Philadelphia Eagles are a team that disdains the running game on both sides of the ball, going for a speed and finesse approach that is in keeping with the modern NFL. But you just get the feeling that this is the exact the kind of club that the Buddy Ryan Eagles would have punched in the mouth for four quarters and dominated. (Never mind that what would probably happen now is a flurry of penalty flags, and the Andy Reid team winning the majority of games due to the fact that Buddy's team treated game preparation as if it were not honorable.)

The Philadelphia 76ers are a team that seemingly has never properly valued 3-point shooting in today's NBA, either employing specialists that can hit that shot but little else, or athletic defensive players who take their share, but never make enough. So once again, what you have is a no margin team that's aesthetically challenged. Unlike, say, the Julius Erving led teams of my youth, who could score in any situation while achieving elegance. (And it wasn't just Doc, either. I could watch Andrew Toney shoot jumpers in an empty gym and call it art.)

So maybe it's not just the NBA that has this Win My Way vibe to it. Why did Mike Tyson retain his drawing power long beyond his days as a truly relevant fighter? Because he was exactly what the public wanted to see -- a knockout or knocked-out specialist who was never interested in outpointing his opponent. Why have the current crop of tennis champions (specifically, I'm thinking of Pete Sampras and Roger Federer) failed to capture the attention of a mass audience, the way that Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe did? Because the former were complete players without flaw (and a monstrously effective and dull serve ace game, rather than dramatic volleys), while the latter had definite holes in their game that they had to make up for through overcompensating struggle.

Sports is entertainment, and just winning isn't really that entertaining. That's going to happen half of the time in any contest.

And what, really, is my way of winning, but the manner in which a successful team was during your formative years as a fan? The early 2000 A's that brought me back into baseball fandom were a slugging collection of high margin steroid wonders, with Miggy Tejada, Jason Giambi and Eric Chavez (and yes, I know, Chavez has never been outed as a roider, but his career arc is the same as one) powering an offense that had to overcome weak back end of the rotation starters and questionable middle relief. There were my kind of fun. The Ryan Eagles, we've discussed, but suffice it to say that whenever the opposing team runs for any kind of positive yardage. The Erving Sixers make any poor offensive team in the laundry a sad relative.

Which, of course, is idiotic on some level; rooting for the same type of team for your whole life is dull and seems, well, childish. But so is watching sports, and enjoying the same kind of music or food or books or anything else that's a long term taste. It's kind of the way things are; we want what we want.

So, Billy Beane, Ed Stefanski and Andy Reid? Consider the DNA of the laundry. Stop giving us the same team. And if you are going to lose, and such is the nature of sports that you most likely are, lose in a way that gives us more pleasure to watch.