Chiefly uninterested

"Football, on the other hand, is a zero sum game..."

They tell me I’m supposed to be watching a football game tonight.

Why?

I haven’t watched one all year. It seems a little late to start now.

I guess I’d call myself a football agnostic. I know it plays a big part in a lot of people’s lives, but I just don’t share that attachment. Not even on this secular holiday that’s come to be called Super Bowl Sunday.

I count myself fortunate to be among the relatively small number of folks in these parts who neither bleed purple nor green and gold. My psychic equilibrium is unruffled by the televised exploits of the Bears, Lions, Dolphins or any of the unlikely menagerie that occupies a significant slice of the national imagination better than six months out of the year. I grew up in a family profoundly indifferent to football beyond the high school playing field and that general indifference to kid’s games played for adult money has stayed with me.

On top of that, I was born into the tag end of the era when sport in America pretty much meant baseball. From the Civil War to the Vietnam War, baseball held the field as America’s undisputed National Pastime. It is a game of utmost simplicity and the most complex elegance. To play all you need is a few neighbor kids, a stick, a ball, a patch of open ground and imagination. To play well involves the most subtle strategy and extraordinary physical finesse. It is a game both accessible and aspirational. It’s the game I and the country grew up with.

As a game, it shaped us. Played on the sunny fields of summer, baseball is a game for. Optimists -- a game called on account of rain holds no truck with failure mongering and gloom; there’s always a raincheck, a chance to try again on a better day. It’s a game that always holds out that chance, however slim and unlikely, that things will turn around. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” goes the famous Yogi-ism, and the fans abandoning their seats to beat the traffic get to listen to the ninth inning rally from the parking lot. Until the final out, the underdog can turn things around. Baseball is a game of redemption.

Football, on the other hand, is a zero sum game. A game of greed and possession. To win, you must seize ground from the opponent and quite literally run over him to do it. Once that advantage is gained, hold on to it at all cost. Vindication comes with the final whistle.

There’s no running out the clock in baseball, but in football, time itself is ally or opponent. The ending is arbitrary – the come-from-behind drive halted, not by athletic skill or defensive strategy, but the inexorable, indifferent ticking of the clock. A game of arbitrary limits, played through the cold chill months of gathering winter.

As a national game, it suits our national mood. We are told America is in the fourth quarter, ahead by 2, but the clock’s running out and it’s the other team’s first down. Kale and plain oatmeal are on the national menu and greatness is something to be remembered. It’s time to hunker down; run out the clock; play not to lose instead of playing to win. It seems that our national life is a super bowl…a whole lot of noise and hoopla surounding a generally mediocre game with way too much attention paid to the quarterback.

It ought to humble us to remember how, in the depths of the Great Depression, our grandparents sang “Happy Days are Here Again,” assured by their leaders that they had “nothing to fear but fear itself” buoyed by the sure sense that “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” We’d rally up. Swing for the fences. The World Series was best of seven and we were barely in the first innings of game four. Optimism was as American as hot dogs and apple pie and baseball was our game.

Still oughta be. Even on this Super Bowl Sunday.