As the rainy season inundates the dry yet tropical climate of Olancho, I pause to admire the use of "season" to describe the amount of time required to argue for a team's excellence in its chosen sport. While the attention of the Catrachos among the rest of the world's "football" fans turns to the World Cup in June, I find myself cheering on the Detroit Tigers who have taken a 3-0 lead against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Whether you love soccer or baseball or badminton, sports allow an expression of an obsolete set of emotions, in my opinion. Those emotions of defeating an opponent are probably not essential in the contemporary world, yet we will most likely have this evolutionary hangover for the remainder of our tenure as a species. Certainly the problem-solving practice within sports is something to praise, but in general, the notion of "us versus them" is no longer necessary for our survival. Who can deny our fascination with such an exercise, though? I love the plethora of information that must be understood and acted upon to achieve ends in athletics. Every scenario provides its unique challenges, yet we study patterns from history to come to conclusions based on our experiences and then implement them, usually with confidence. Baseball provides an excellent description of reality as a sequence of probabilities, and although, say, some catcher is hitting below the Mendoza Line, that hardly prevents the possibility of his batting in a game-winning run. Anomalies, while not the "norm", certainly occur more often than "never". In fact, it is impossible for rare events to never occur. Memorable moments in sports are like humor: they're better when the ending is unexpected. Why do human beings crave this sort of unlikeliness, these stories of irregular heroes? Perhaps we have a profound love for inconsistencies, the strange events that allow us to learn about the strange stage on which they take place. Understanding is a reward, more so than simply recognizing what is understood. We are always seeking new patterns, and when we find them among the old ones, it marks that eureka moment of our deep relationship to our unlikely universe.
To close, here's my All-Time NBA team:
Starters:
PG - Nate Archibald, who was as much a threat in the lane as he was in the open court.
SG - Michael Jordan, who has the record for most blocked shots by a guard.
SF - Rick Barry, who probably had the best vision of any basketball player in history.
PF - Bob McAdoo, who was the first big man who could also dribble and shoot from the outside.
C - Wilt Chamberlain, who ended up weighing over 300 pounds while playing for the Lakers.
Bench:
PG - Oscar Robertson, who averaged a triple-double over his first five seasons.
SG - Kobe Bryant, who will always be almost as good as Jordan.
SF - Elgin Baylor, who introduced an athleticism that is taken for granted today.
PF - Walt Bellamy, whose style of play has been compared to Coltrane's stlye of jazz.
C - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was the last juggernaut finesse center.
G - George Gervin, who trademarked the finger roll. Ice be cool.
F - Bernard King, who could slash or post-up, making him the most complete paint player ever.
