What's the greatest feeling in sports? (Hint: It's not winning)
What's up!
We're back to our usual format today. First up, it's a short essay designed to make you think about a particular topic in a new way. Today, we're debunking a commonly held belief about what the greatest feeling in all of sports is.
Then, I've compiled the five best "things" -- articles, podcasts, videos etc. -- I found this week, which I think you'll enjoy checking out. Let me waste my time scouring the internet for the best content so you don't have to.
What is the greatest feeling in sports?
It's a warm August night in Chicago and 40,000 people plus one Bill Murray are on their feet at Wrigley Field. Millions more are watching at home as the hometown Cubs take on the Washington Nationals in a nationally televised primetime game on ESPN. It's the bottom of the ninth inning, two outs, based loaded. A 25-year-old rookie reserve is at the plate, down to his final strike.
Basically it's the type of scene that if it happened in a movie it would seem too impossibly cheesy, too Hollywood, too fake to ever believe.
But it happens. The pitch comes and unlikely hero David Bote crushes the ball out to straightaway center field, over the famed ivy. He gives a celebratory bat flip. The crowd goes wild. A grand slam walk off home run.
Here's the video link for those that haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI8uH4_pzeo
As Bote rounded third base triumphantly, the scene at home plate between him and his teammates looked like a mosh pit at an EDM concert after one too many acid tablets. Pure euphoria. As the video circulated around the internet, I saw a common reaction: THAT celebration has to be the greatest feeling in sports.
I disagree.
One of the projects I have been fortunate to work on was Seth Davis's most recent book, "Coming to Us," about the secrets of elite coaches. And by work on, I mean I transcribed all of the interviews for the book. You know, the important stuff. Regardless, there was an interesting insight that emerged from the dozens of hours of interviews. It's that high level coaches don't really enjoy victories.
They are crushed by defeats, haunted by them forever. But the feeling after each win is mostly just relief, a release of stress. Then almost as quickly the attention shifts to the next game, the next season. In Davis's interview with Alabama football coach Nick Saban, Saban said he doesn't really enjoy the victories because he sees winning as something he's supposed to do, a sentiment echoed in James Andrew Miller's recent podcast series on the Alabama program.
I see similarities in the celebrations of great sports moments. It's a release, an aftershock of something that's already happened. After some variable amount of time, the celebrator realizes it's a hollow distraction. After all, nobody went into their driveway as a kid and only practiced their fist pumps and touchdown dances.
Because the greatest feeling in sports comes not in celebrating a great victory.
It doesn't even come from the victory itself.
The greatest feeling in sports is in the briefest of moments when you first realize you're about to win. Like when a running back makes a cut to the outside and sees an open lane down the sideline. Or when a basketball player rises up for a poster dunk, at the apex of their jump, and knows they are above the opponent. Or, if we're calling this a sport, when the river card comes out in Texas Hold 'Em poker and you suddenly realize you have an unbeatable hand.
Or in the case of Bote, when a batter sees a pitch come in, his perfect pitch, and puts the perfect swing in motion. He knows in the next moment he'll feel the solid contact with the sweet spot of a bat, hear that deep cracking sound, and see the ball launch like a rocket into the clouds.
The moment hasn't happened yet. The touchdown hasn't been scored, or the dunk completed, or the stack of chips won, or the home run hit. There's an edge of uncertainty. A potential for anything to happen. But that feeling when preparation is about to meet opportunity in perfect synchronicity is incomparable.
Nobody who is watching or participating in the game realizes it yet, but inside you know in that split-second that you're smarter or faster or stronger or better than everyone else around you. Fear and doubt melt away. You're about to perform the master stroke, and everyone is about to witness it.
There is no thought of winning or celebrating in that moment. It doesn't matter at all.
Because you're already experiencing the greatest feeling in all of sports.
The Best Things I Found This Week:
Tiger is Tiger Again
Essay
The Bote grand slam was great and all, but the biggest sports story of the weekend was Tiger Woods. His 64 on Sunday electrified the sports world, drawing crowds like a rock concert and boosting ratings by 69 percent on television (nice).
There were hundreds of Tiger stories coming out of the weekend, but the best one I found came from Kyle Porter of CBSSports. Though he doesn't get into the real psyche of Tiger (no one did), he's able to give a really cool on-course perspective that couldn't be caught by TV cameras. Worth the read!
Hard Knocks: Cleveland Browns
HBO
This isn't exactly a deep cut, as Hard Knocks is one of HBO's most popular shows on a yearly basis, but it bears mentioning that it ALWAYS lives up to the hype. There are very few media outlets who can cut through the BS and coachspeak to get to what's really happening in a sports franchise, and yet somehow year after year we get unprecedented access and an honest behind-the-scenes look into one NFL training camp.
It's the same format every year, so if you've watched one season you kind of know what to expect. But if it ain't broke, why fix it?
This Week in Depressing MoviePass News
Report
Ok seriously, somebody is lying. Every couple of days, two very predictable and totally opposite things happen. 1) We get a very serious and well-founded article about how the MoviePass business model doesn't work and that the company is going out of business, and then 2) We get a response from MoviePass executives announcing some change in the service that will absolutely, totally, no doubt, no question, this-time-it's-for-real save the company.
Troy Wolverton of Business Insider crunched the numbers and yep, what do you know, the product offering is still too good to be true. It turns out giving people $50 worth of value for $10 every single month is still a bad idea. Except now, the stock has been diluted by 9000% and is trading for about four cents at the moment.
I, for one, have decided I'm going down with the ship.
Harris Fantasty Football
Podcast
Another one of those recommendations where I really can't believe I'm giving away my secrets. I normally don't share my fantasy guru, because I like the competitive advantage, but I'm grateful to you all for subscribing so here's a freebie.
Chris Harris, who was a member of ESPN's fantasy football editorial team for a number of years before starting his own individual site, gives THE BEST fantasy advice I've ever found. He has a daily podcast, videos, and rankings on his website (which I'll conveniently not give you the link to). Every year he goes against the conventional wisdom on a few players, and he's almost always right. If you want to win your league, heed this man's advice.
Pretty Good: 222-0
Video
You know those moments when someone mentions some movie or show or thing off-hand just assuming you understand the reference? But in reality you have no idea what they're talking about, and when you ask them what they're talking about they give you this wide-eyed glare and "WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING!" I know this exchange well because I'm usually on the giving end, but today I was on the receiving end with a web series called "Pretty Good."
These videos are two years old, some older, and have between 300k-600k views. So I'd classify them as a soft hit, not a mega viral sensation.
Still, it's time to catch up on these fantastic creations. Each one tells an obscure historical sports story, with dozens of layers filled with comedy and intrigue. This particular episode explains the bizarre circumstances that led to a football game ending with a final score of 222 to nothing.