The Wisconsin Sports Rant

I actually sat and watched an entire half of football, er, soccer today — the first half of the USA’s tie with Italy. Not only did I watch it, I really got into it! Watching how the teams worked the ball up the field through skilled passing and movement without the ball (sound familiar) really showed how the game is so simple, yet can be so strategic (which is a far cry from my playing days in Milwaukee Kickers on the JCC team).  So why will we never consider MLS the fifth major professional sports league in the USA? Why don’t we all gather around the telly to watch Manchester United play Arsenal? It’s simple. The tie.

Americans don’t like games that end without a clear victor and loser. To us, ties belong around our necks, not in the field of play. We like a definitive ending. We love the thrill of victory with the agony of defeat. Without it, we feel lost, blasé, and uncomfortable. Think about it. How often is there a tie in the NFL? Infrequently enough that if one does occur, it is usualy an early highlight on SportsCenter, and everyone laughs about it. You look at the standings the next day and just feel a little dirty that there are actually a couple of ones in that usually useless third column, and are not sure quite what to make of them. Honestly, at the end of the NFL season, when teams are clinching or being eliminated from playoff spots, do you even consider that clause about “if so-and-so wins or ties“? If you said yes then you are being anything but honest.

Heck, basketball games can’t end in a tie, even in the regular season (anyone remember the 5-overtime thriller between the Bucks and the Sonics in 1989 that ended in a 155-154 Bucks win?). Baseball games are played until there is a winner, even if it means finishing the next day (or if it is the All-Star game played in the Commisioner’s backyard, in the new crown jewel of a stadium that took 7 years to finish from government approval to opening day, and all available players have been used). Even hockey, in which ties used to occur nightly, has now adopted a system that makes ties almost obsolete.

The bottom line is, when you have to explain to an American what the consequences of a tie are for the national soccer team, you have already lost him (or her). We simply don’t like it. We want to win. And if we don’t win, we lose. Even if we tie. Get it? No? Exactly. Oh well, perhaps the USA can win the match against Ghana (who looked and played like world-beaters today), and Italy can beat the Czech Republic. That way we would advance, because even though we tied Italy, we really won.

We have all probably read/seen a lot about the two most obvious Wisconsin connections to the NBA finals — Devin Harris and Dwayne Wade. But what about the other ones that are not in the spotlight? Some of these connections prove how unfair the sports landscape is. Let me briefly touch on them:

• June 24, 1998 - The Milwaukee Bucks, picking two spots after the Dallas Mavericks, have them pick Robert Traylor, and they have us puck Dirk Nowitzki to facilitate a trade. This was not a trade. This was highway robbery. This was a clear case of one team’s scouting department being light years ahead of another’s. Of course, the coach/scout team of that Dallas club? Don and Donn Nelson…which brings us to, well, connection number two
• This Mavs team is largely the creation of a Don/Donn Nelson and Dell Harris (who is still there) creation, the brains behind the highly successful (but never quite successful enough) Milwaukee Bucks teams of the 1980s.
• Keith Van Horn. Sure, we traded crap for crap in getting him, and then unloaded him for more crap (Anyone remember Alan Henderson and Calvin Booth in the lovely Milwaukee purple?). But hey…it is a connection.
• Last, but certainly not anywhere near least, Gary “^@%#@” Payton. This is the POS we traded away our best shooting guard (possibly ever) for simply to try and make a run in the playoffs in a year where we had ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of advancing even past the first round! What they f*&k was Ernie Grunfeld thinking? We got a player who had no desire to be in Milwaukee for a good 2 1/2 months in exchange for the best shooter in the league. That was REALLY smart. Oh, we did get a swingman who we promptly traded for a latter-day Anthony Mason so again, we are left with nothing.

Meanwhile, as both of these teams are first-time participants in the NBA Finals, one will also be a first time NBA World Champion, which is as many as the Bucks have in their 38 year history, and more than I have seen in my lifetime. At least whichever that team ends up being will have one player that I admired in college.