sports 13
the college hill independent
What’s —the deal with—
SPORTS by David Scofield Illustration by Allison Clark This week the Indy sports editor sent out a request for sports questions from Brown students. The questions came flooding in. Here are some of the best.
Dear Indy Sports, why does March Madness always seem to have a “Cinderella Story” while other tournaments don’t? -Katie Cohen, ‘13 Some say that the squeaky shoes of nervous little teams give them an intense psychological advantage over the big schools. Others say that the abundance of canine mascots has inflated the public appreciation for scrappiness. The underdog definitely provides the most Pillsbury-soft faces necessary for a Final Four appearance. For a richer response to this question, I turn to Abraham Lincoln’s meditation on Niagara Falls. Lincoln said there was no mystery to how a big plunge onto sharp rocks produced a lot of rainbows. Dear Indy Sports, why does the Indy only care about sissy thoughts on sissy sports? When will you take your characteristic snark and pizzazz to America’s #1 darling: football? -Josh Sunderman, ‘14 Football is in the off-season.
Dear Indy Sports, why do men think about baseball when trying to lose an erection? -Adrian Nadeau, ‘15 I believe the practice of focusing on baseball to avoid arousal is analogous with the practice of saving receipts from credit and debit card transactions. If you focus on storing the receipts in a small leather fanny pack and you highlight the important numbers, life becomes simpler. You can withdraw from the relentless bombardment of bugs and radiation and honking cars. However, I’m not so sure if this is typical method for arousal eradication. When I consulted Yahoo! Answers with your question, a user named “dreamy” told me, “It does not work.” So give it up, men.
Dear Indy Sports, if all the American cities had to switch their teams (i.e. basketball players play hockey and hockey players play baseball, etc.), who would win each major sporting competition? -Theodore Baker, ‘15 My uncle named this situation the “hummingbird piano.” The name refers to the common musical dilemma in which a hummingbird gets trapped in a piano, and then the quality of the instrument relies on the bird’s activity. Ever since the Detroit Tigers picked up Prince Fielder, I’ve been saying that they are a shoo-in for the Stanley Cup. Honey, put a hot towel around your neck and watch Prince Fielder at bat. Fielder is one of the biggest swingers in the League and a cinderblock at first base. Nothing could get by Fielder in a hockey net. And if he got a stick on the puck he would send that puck to the other goal faster than a puma on a stack of pancakes. Fielder has also flirted with vegetarianism, the dietary equivalent of a hockey game. The Major League Soccer Cup clearly belongs to the New York Knicks. For the past few years, MLS fans have grown very fond of the terms “rebranding” and “expansion.” When the Dallas Burn changed its name to FC Dallas, soccer enthusiasts clapped at the clarity. The New York Knicks also excel at adjusting their identity. For a decade they win, then they’re abysmal, then they get a new star, then he’s out, then they pick a licentious team president, then he’s out, and then they luck into a new poster boy. Just this past Wednesday, the Knicks fired another head coach, Mike D’Antoni. Much like adjustments to Major League Soccer, the net gain of all this team motion is low. By the time the Knicks finish the MLS Cup playoffs, the sight of their Mr. Potato Head franchise will be far more interesting than the outcome of the championship. The victors of the World Series are difficult to predict. MLB teams got a special thing going: they know how to hang out. They can hem and haw for weeks on end. They still refer to their organizations as “clubhouses.” Taking these tired characterizations of the game as the truth, the football players of Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be picture-perfect World Series winners. The Bucs kept the same helmet logo for twenty years of abysmal performance, and they have a life-size statue of their old fullback Mike Alstott in the lobby of their training camp. The Bucs have the requisite sense of tradition and proper stagnation that baseball loves about itself. As for the Iditarod, the thousand-mile Alaskan dog sled race, I think it’s clear that any team under the direction of WNBA star Cappie Pondexter has got it in the bag.
Dear Indy Sports, what qualifies David Scofield to be a sports columnist? -Jennifer Popp, ‘12 I hear you Jen, waving your torch and pitchfork at the gate of my sports fortress. I’m sliding down the editor’s marble banister with my credentials in hand. I began training to edit the sports section in the sixth grade. During winter gym that year, I broke my arm in a dog pile and could not play on the baseball team in the spring. But I dressed for the team anyway and learned the fundamentals of observing sports. The team was a mixture of budding allstars, ruffians, and athletic misfits. The allstars went home and threw with Dad every night. Then Dad sat behind the catcher and wore impenetrable sunglasses. Then Dad’s car was always the farthest one away in the parking lot after the game, and the players, during their march across the weedy lot, could think about every throw and that one ground ball that skipped between the legs. The ruffians showed me that even in the midst of a precision-dependent game there was a need for reckless conduct. The ruffians complained when they didn’t get the position they wanted, they got called out stealing third after hitting a double, and they mocked everyone from the dugout. These guys were destined to be the high school athletes who took shots of hard liquor before a game. Their behavior prevented a unified team mentality, and it was awesome. No one gave better Dave Chapelle impersonations on the bus ride back. Without ruffians, baseball would be indistinguishable from yoga. From the misfits I learned the art of living from one practice to the next. One day these players might stun the team with a whack in the batting cages. The next day they were sprinting endlessly around left field as they dropped fly balls and the assistant coach shouted, “Jesus! Tanner, does your Mom know you can see as well as a baby possum?” These poor souls knew they would always be a liability for the team, but they couldn’t just drink Capri Sun at home. This type of player is still an influential element at the professional level. Some, such as figure skater/ former boxer Tonya Harding, struggle to sustain success over a long period of time, but their tumble from one performance to the next keeps the masses interested. In short, I believe that you can learn almost as much about sports while watching and blowing dust off your bifocal lenses as you can while brushing clay from your trousers after a slide. DAVID SCOFIELD B’13 is leaving silent voicemails for his old coaches.