"The Rant" By Trav Flatt
By ThrowsLikeAGirl
I’m coming in butting my head up against multiple deadlines, and I have absolutely no clue what to write about. The main culprit is "Life Stress", which has ballooned this week to the point that I’m seriously inclined to run amok with my desk stapler. Unfortunately, it’s an electric and I don’t have an extension cord, so a rampant act of destruction has been averted via logistics.
Hey! There is that letter opener…
Anyway, I decided to browse some headlines in a desperate search for inspiration. The first thing to really jump out at me was as follows:
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are in third place.
No, really! They’re on a seven-game winning streak, to boot. The only explanation that comes to mind is that Pinella took whatever mojo he had in Seattle with him when he relocated to Tampa. (Whatever it is, it sure as hell isn’t in Seattle anymore.)
My personal big happy news of the day doesn’t even have anything to do with baseball: The Lakers Lost. There are few things in the world of sports sweeter than watching an over hyped, overrated team getting their butts handed to them. Call me a bandwagon jumper, but I’m highly pro-Pistons these days. After hearing all of the sports radio call-ins ranting and raving about how Detroit had absolutely no chance in hell, it was very gratifying to see the Pistons methodically crush the Lakers into oblivion.
Detroit finally gets to be number one at something aside from per capita murders. If the Pistons hadn’t pulled it off, I think we can agree that things don’t look so good for the Tigers or the Lions (Side Note: Go, Mooch!).
So, the Pistons situation made me happy. I don’t generally care about basketball, but it’s the entire ‘Underdog’ situation that appeals to me. Point of fact is that I just finished writing an entire column on the topic, so I’m at a bit of a loss on how to elaborate here.
It’s that whole Triumph through Adversity thing, you know? Just love seeing some overlooked entity rise up from the scum pond of obscurity and knock the favorite right off their high horse. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s why I’m so damned anti-Yankee.
The flip side of Loving the Underdog is to sneer at the favorites. Affiliating with the downtrodden immediately sets one against the trodders, right? When everyone thinks you’re on top, there’s a drastic drop in the thrill of victory and all that remains is a surprised disappointment at defeat. Winning ceases to become an accomplishment so much as an expectation.
Those scars can grant character far more readily than pampering ever did. I tend to think this holds true for the physical, the mental, and even the Win-Loss column. There’s got to be a bit of a balance, of course. I mean, if you go and overdo it you turn into the Expos, and that’s just downright pitiful.
