We Won! Redux

“Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don’t win, it’s a shame…”
Jack Norworth

On re-reading “We Won!” it occured to me that it would be easy to misunderstand my meaning. I do come off a tad harsh and detached. Do I really feel so strongly about people rooting for a home team or feeling good when someone with whom they identify (for whatever reason) succeeds? Of course not. It’s almost impossible to observe anything competitive without choosing sides and the side we choose is most probably going to be the one we feel is in some way closest to ourselves: school, home town, country or whatever. In a contest between a man and a gorrilla most of us would identify with the man. Between a gorilla and a crocodile, we’d root for the gorilla. Where not even a remote relationship exists we make one up - rooting for the team whose jersey colors appeal or who represent a city we once enjoyed a good vacation in. Simply, it seems we have to cheer for someone. That’s all fine.

I don’t profess to be immune from this irrational inclination. I do not recall ever being so wrapped up in something that had nothing to do with me personally as I was during the 1972 Canada-USSR hockey series. I have never felt more “Canadian”. And, one of my all-time most enjoyable experiences was being caught up in the success of the Korean Soccer team when I lived in Seoul during the World Cup. Pure joy. And most recently, I was a pro tempore Filipino as I delighted in watching Manny Pacquiao demolish Eric Morales. It’s human nature and I am, at least according to my mother and a few other people, human.

That people identify with one or another competitor bothers me not at all. What does bother me is that people so often think it matters or that the connection is somehow real. It isn’t. What’s a “Canadian” in nature? Nothing. It does not exist. But that human need to identify - as harmless as it may be when it comes to sports events and singing competitions - is what the nastier elements of humanity build upon the create their armies and fight their wars.

For the record:
It seems that the Filipino subject of the blog post that gave rise to “We Won!” won! Congratulations.

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In the few days since writing “Stats from a Hat”, two things have happened. Firstly, I learned that the “msmyla” daily page hits are substantially higher than I had guessed. Secondly, the latest page ranking have been released. With the “fashionese” page staying the same in Google rankings but rising substantially wiht Alexa, they do reduce, but not eliminate entirely, what I saw as odd discrepencies. It is an arcane art, to be sure.