The fallacy of underdog appeal [op-ed CCT [29 January 2008}

Go Pats! 18-0, the most wins in a season ever, and poised for immortality. Let’s hear it for the top dog. May the greatest get even greater. Doesn’t sound right, does it? Sort of immoral, like “May the rich get richer.”

Most people say they prefer to root for the underdog. It just seems like the noble thing to do. Seabiscuit (with that underdog of a name) vs. War Admiral.

David vs. Goliath.

Anybody vs. the damn Yankees.

It is said to be a problem of Milton’s famous, rarely read “Paradise Lost” that Satan, the ultimate underdog, generates more reader sympathy than the Boss.

Here are the Giants getting all this underdog sympathy, everywhere but New England. The Giants, with six losses and a second-rate Eli Manning for a quarterback, are the Seabiscuit and David of this contest.

The Patriots’ perfection is being presented in the news as setting them up for hatred beyond the expected geographical loyalty. It’s as if perfection itself is an enemy. Patriots fans are stuck with the unenviable task of rooting for the top dog.

My friend Bob, wedded to underdoggedness in choosing to remain loyal to the teams of Detroit, where he was born, says it gets boring when the same guy or same team wins all the time. But are we bored with Tiger Woods’ run at immortality? Apparently not. They are not even running PGA golf tournaments on the networks until Tiger chooses to play his first of the year. The most transcendent figure of any sport going, he does nothing but raise ratings.

I suppose you could argue that the ratings are not from interest in seeing him win yet again, but suspense at seeing which young golfing David will rise up and smite him. That’s doubtful. The closer he gets to breaking Nicklaus’ record of major tournaments won, the gold standard, the more exciting it gets, which is why that figure keeps being hyped by those in charge of hyping. Nicklaus’ records have themselves become underdogs against Tiger’s assaults. But my guess is that few are rooting for them to survive.

It is indeed exciting to see a team, by sheer spirit and superhuman effort, transcend what is perceived as their inferior talent. It’s like rooting for ourselves, inferior material, to improve (something I suppose we do every day, as a condition of existence). The striving of an underdog is something we can identify with. But what we want in our flawed underdog counterpart is transcendence of mediocrity.

We say we prefer to root for the underdog but, in reality, we want it to lose that underdog appeal and become the nasty, hateful top dog. We don’t root for the underdog as such but for the potential top dog. If they show no aptitude for becoming top dog, they are boring.

If the Giants do win, it will prove that they weren’t underdogs after all, but just started being top dogs late in the season. It’s called peaking.

We don’t root for Mozart to fail to be brilliant or Shakespeare to be mundane. In the movie “Amadeus,” Mozart’s brilliance is set off by his rival Salieri’s earnest mediocrity. The true underdog rooter’s reaction should be: Hey, give Salieri a chance for goodness sake. But does anyone actually have that reaction? Nothing against Salieri, but it’s Mozart who extends the human musical horizon. Who wants him to have even one bad day just to let Salieri back in the game?

My wife, not really caring a whole lot one way or the other, when she deigns to watch a bit of a game, will say something like: Oh, isn’t that nice the other team scored, makes it a more interesting game.

Yeah, right.

I will be happiest if Tom Brady goes 50 for 50, Laurence Maroney runs for 325 yards, and the Pats score a 100-zip shutout. That would make an interesting game. Given the season so far, there is only one possibility here for perfection — an all-time, Mozart-like performance — and to want it not to happen is perverse, no matter where you live.

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