Sports Are Stupid.

My wife didn’t grow up around boys (she attended a girls’ school), didn’t have any brothers yet she is utterly-fascinated with the cultural norms and oddities in the weird and traditional world of men.

Nothing she knows about men has prepared her for what she’s been able to learn, other than the fact males can be odd creatures with some very strange habits and even stranger rituals and nothing, in the world of men, is more mind-boggling than what happens when groups of males get together, be it for parties, or for wars, or for team sports.

Suffice it to say, she’s sports-curious. Lucky for her, I’m a male with a history in team sports, and a fluency in the language of Men. This qualifies me to be her conduit, her translator, and ultimately her ringmaster, although I’m quite certain I learn more from her in this exercise than she does from me. Such is the case when two worlds collide.

"Sports, logically-speaking, are weird. Male groups of various sizes agree on the concept of an artificial world, couple that with an artificial scenario and an artificial purpose, and then gather together to “play” different roles in this fake world, all in the hopes of producing a certain desired outcome. That is to say, a win, which is both hugely meaningful and, at the very same time, utterly meaningless."

One side will defeat the other by exemplifying superiority in whatever criteria that's deemed important. This could be something as simple - and odd - as the ability of one group to put a frozen rubber wafer into some framed netting better than your opponent. Or they might be using sticks to hit balls that hopefully travel beyond the dimensions of this artificial world. Regardless of the sport you’re studying, you can guarantee that, at its core, its theme has boys guiding specifically-shaped objects into other specifically-shaped objects to score points of some kind.

It’s here that those who don’t know sports very well will ask the obvious: Why are we doing this again, with the cliched answer being, “so that we can win”, which naturally leads to the follow up question about why we feel this need to win. The answer to this question is simultaneously logical and illogical and, by logical extension, conclusively male.

Why do we play to win? So we can win. Why? So we can be better than them. And why do we need to be better than them? Because it’s important. And why are artificial results of an artificial world so important to us? Well, because. Because we're male. If that sounds simplistic and overly-chauvinistic, Google “war” and feel free to look up the team rosters.

The corner kick from Hell.

This is the point where sports logic clashes mightily with real logic. In my wife’s case, if she’s willing to accept that the results from these artificial worlds are somehow “important”, she now needs to face the real lengths boys will go to acquire these hallowed wins. My wife needs to be able to understand the concept of the “win at all costs” mentality.

Logically one might rightfully question the actual costs of winning an artificial contest and question if it’s worth it, meanwhile sports logic will question the questioning itself. While a warrior in battle is said to be willing to die to achieve his goal, the faux warrior in this faux sports world of his, is prepared to metaphorically die at all costs, except of course, the cost of death itself, which even he will say is too high a price to pay to win a stupid trophy.

And thus begins stage two of non-sports fans trying to understand the spaghetti logic of sports. Here you’re not only being asked to try and understand the actual arbitrary lines that govern a sport but additionally the implicit and invisible lines that govern the players’ conduct within that sport. If hitting a player over the head with your stick is illegal - but effective - why is it okay to do sometimes but not at others?

This doesn’t even begin to entertain the acceptable but frowned upon (read that again) rituals within all sports. For example, if you hit a home run against me that’s okay, but if it seems like you’re enjoying the home run a little too much and showing me up in the process, I reserve the right to plunk a member of your team (at any time) with a fastball to the lower back as retribution although I do realize that this may lead to a member of your team doing the exact same thing to us in return, also as a form of retribution.

Makes perfect sense to me. My wife, not so much.

Time for a High Six!