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Seattle baseball fans stand at the ledge of a great divide today, which is why the World Baseball Classic is so awesome. Do you love Ichiro, or do you love America? It's a good thing for all of us that it's not 1944.
The U.S. team needs the Japanese team to lose to South Korea tonight in order to advance. Well, there's also some crazy scenario where the U.S. could advance if Japan and Korea play a high-scoring game, but in the interest of the black and whiteness we so long for in sports let's just say that Ichiro and his Japanese team need to lose tonight. Ichiro talked a big game before the tournament began, but other than a lead-off homer we saw him wave out of the park the other day he hasn't really produced. He's batting .286 with a whopping four runs scored. Roughly three Japanese journalists per hit he's had in the Classic have been dispatched to report on this tour de mediocrity.
A win against the Koreans tonight means the Ichiro et al live to play another day, but a loss sends the Japanese team home and Ichiro to camp to join the rest of the Mariners. His mood has been a bit saucy towards the M's lately and we're anxious to see how a poor personal performance on his part and a game changing blown call in favor of the U.S. on the umpire's part affect his attitude. Folks, we may soon find out that a disgruntled and struggling Ichiro can be just as entertaining as a perfectly gruntled Ichiro who's hitting .400 because we're just a few incidents shy of whole bunch of "my teammates and all Americans for that matter are lazy and give no effort," kind of post games with the right fielder.
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I couldn't help laughing at the "dilemna" facing Seattle baseball fans. They love Ichiro because he currently plays for Seattle, but love America, and want them to beat the Japanese team. What's funny is how easily we are manipulated into caring about these random people, simply because they are temporarily working in our city. Like actors, pro athletes are meat for hire, always ready to sell out to the highest bidder. I don't feel any more kinship with Ichiro than I do with Tom Hanks, just because he was in Sleepless in Seattle. I only wish I had the means and opportunity to buy many pro sports teams, just so I could trade every player from one team to another, and see who people decided to root for. In this respect, college sports makes more sense for the fan: those are your classmates on the field. Not random, overpaid babys, threatening to move if they don't get taxpayers to subsidize their place of business. I guess I just don't give out my respect and my loyalties that easily.
Well I like rooting for the underdog so I am rooting for Japan. NIPPON YAKYUU INOCHI!!!!
Scott Kennedy, sucking the fun out of sports since 2006.
Interesting take, Scott. As a sports fan, I'd say that I'm not so much manipulated into rooting for Ichiro as much as I choose to root for him.
Rooting is fun, because you get the highs of winning and the lows of losing. Tethering your emotions to the performance of some guy who doesn't care about you is a price I'm willing to pay.
I like sports a lot, and I agree with Seth: I root for the teams I like. Sometimes because they are underdogs, sometimes because they are from Seattle, sometimes because I like their uniforms!
But Scott has very good points about the arbitrary nature of our loyalties. There is a little part of all of us that really wants to be part of a big team ~ it's human nature. But the results of this bias are not always pretty. Think war, or racism, or Waco. Rooting for a team IS fun - especially when you are emotionally invested. And therein lies the danger: it's SO fun, you might start to manufacture reasons why you care.
Like Scott says, they are not entirely unlike actors - so I think it is valid to re-examine why we offer tax subsidies (wellfare) to some entertainment professionals, and not others.