I’ve been watching the Indians play a lot more frequently now that basketball season is over and August is approaching, the slowest month of the year in Hollywood. As I’ve already alluded to, I’ve largely enjoyed watching the games, even though baseball has its problems. It is an ideal sport to put on TV in the background when you’re doing something else.
You probably already know that the Indians have been playing the Yankees since Monday. On Tuesday night, while watching just called up Josh Tomlin throw 7 innings of no walk, no home run baseball, I was stricken by the gigantic discrepancy between the star power on the Yankees and that of the Indians.
Tomlin versus CC Sabathia. Alex Rodriguez versus Jhonny Peralta. Derek Jeter versus Asdrubal Cabrera. Curtis Granderson versus Trevor Crowe…
I could go on, but I won’t. At least in terms of the national perception - and really the historic background of the players themselves - it was almost like the Yankees were an All-Star team, and the Indians were a bunch of minor leaguers.
Which actually isn’t that far from the truth.
At any rate, however, I was also taken by how much more fun it was to root for the Indians precisely because of this fact. That they ended up beating the Yankees 4-1 made for an even better experience.
Like neuroscience / culture writer Jonah Lehrer talked about here, there is a lot to be said about rooting for the underdog. Although it happens naturally with any team, even those that are not our favorites, it’s even better when your favorite team is the underdog - and, of course, when they win.
I started to realize then, that there is a flip side to all the negative things you’ve heard and we’ve written about the NBA’s move towards super teams. When LeBron, Bosh, and Wade decided to join together in Miami, they also indirectly created a whole new set of underdogs. Watching good but not great teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, or up and coming teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder compete against the Heat will be ten times more enjoyable now. And although I will certainly miss watching James and Wade try to beat each other’s brains in on the floor, the Cavs-Heat game will take on an entirely different, but still quite substantive, competitive character now that Cleveland is resoundingly an underdog team.
This realization on my part, I thought, was a positive sign about life as a sports fan in Cleveland. Rooting for the underdog may not be the same as winning a championship, but it is something pretty great, and something to be cherished.
And if and when the underdog wins the title, that might just be the best thing ever.
