Roger and Me: Redefining the Sports Dynasty.
Roger Federer and Michael Schumacher got me thinking about dynasties.
I have mentioned on and off in various forms how I loathe parity. How I lament there are no true dominant sports franchises anymore. I'm not sure how sports were infiltrated with the notion of equality but it's clear it's a recipe for mediocrity.
I miss the days where at the beginning of the season you knew which teams were to beat. It took true talent to put together a squad that could dethrone a champion. Not anymore. Every year we start fresh thanks to salary caps and free agency. Loyalty to ones team is all but dead.
Today? We've rewarded inefficient teams and managers. It's all-superficial now. Rules to equalize sports are to please the casual fan that cares very little about sports. 'Why should I watch because such and such team always win' is the cop-out for the dumb-ass fan. It's all about marketing to the masses by lowering standards. Someone is better than you are? Ask big brother to penalize them. Anti-trust laws or salary caps - it's all the same.
We're now forced to take a second look at what constitutes a dynasty. The first pro team to confront this was the New England Patriots. Are they a sports dynasty? First, it's best to remember that each sport has its own reference point. For example, you were not likely to see a team win five in a row like you did in hockey or baseball. Generally, it's four in five or three in four and so on. Second, you have to consider the fact that reaching the finals is a feat in itself. That's why fans celebrate even a playoff round victory. They'll take their winds where they can take them. In the past winning was the only measure of excellence. Now reaching the semis in any sport is an accomplishment.
Which brings me back to Federer and Schumacher. Schumacher and Ferrari have dominated Formula racing for nearly a decade. Most of the crying came from the teams who were getting spanked and non-racing fans. F1 cracked and brought in measures to make the sport more 'equal' again. Yeah, among the big teams. The little teams still don't compete. What it did was put a leash on Ferrari. To their credit, Ferrari - the essence of racing - managed to stay on top.
Tennis is an even starker example. Tennis is one of the few sports (along with cycling. For you golf fans I grant you Tiger) where we celebrate a dominant player. Maybe it's because it's an individual sport. Roger Federer's accomplishments are the result of a private dynasty. We are in awe of such an athlete. Should we, say, take away his backhand to make the playing field more level? Of course not, so why do it in other sports?
Sports mirrors society in many ways. This sort of 'equalizing' the playing field is found in all aspects of society now. From business to our schools, we want to make sure no one is left behind. More importantly that no one has a monopoly on things.
Suffice to conclude that the modern set up of sports is not perfect. It pleases the failures and penalizes the successful.
Once again I'm forced to respond to a sports post. Once again I'm out of my league in at least one catagory: Formula racing.
ReplyDeleteI've read what little Time Magazine has to say about Schumacher. To be honest, I don't really care about the sport, so more power to him.
Believe it or not, but I'm actually a fan of tennis. Federer comes from a long line of dominating characters, and surely he will fade as another name comes. So I'm down with that as well.
But parity, at least in the sport that I care most about, American football, is not the bogeyman of the sport. True, team loyalty seems to be at a premium. Hell, player loyalty seems to be at a premium. But let's be honest - teams have always traded their twilight players to the Raiders. It's good to see this practice alive and well!
I've always been a 49ers fan. I will never regret their dominance over the 80's and early 90's. But it's also perversly fun to watch them try to eek a meager existence in the current NFL climate.
I'm not a fairweather fan, and perhaps I'm in the minority, but I do not resent parity. As a fan of football (and not just a given team), I welcome the oppertunity of any given team to dominate a single season. It certainly doesn't make me like my team less; it allows me to be surprised.
Without further words, I have one specific example that does bother me. When money dictates the sport, when a dynasty has gone stale, when a team has no soul because they are always cobbled, Frankenstein's monster-like, from the best of the previous season: The New York Yankees.
In fairness to the Yankees, they do have a strong farm system. Fair points about parity. There's always a silver lining in life. However, you mentioned the 49ers. That's part of my personal sports heritage too. Along with the Celtics, Lakers, Oilers, Islanders, Cowboys, Patriots, Yankees, Red Wings (I think that's it. The 76ers were a quasi-dominant team). All sports dynasties in the 80s and 90s Baseball was a little more elusive. The Dodgers, Cardinals, Royals and A's in the 80s were very strong by reaching the finals twice but were hardly dynasties. Still, baseball is the closest thing to a sport tolerating a dynasty. College sports, from what I can tell, still has them. Nothing like seeing a tiny school smackdown a big collegiate program. The five-in-a-row teams may be dead but I long for them.
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