The Core Stories of Sports
From an audience perspective, sport is all about narrative. A game between two competitive teams can be exciting; a game between age-old rivals gets people on their feet. The ability of a fan, or a writer or a commentator, to slot the players into existing tropes and assemble a story makes the game worth remembering.
Read enough Sports Illustrated and, over time, you’ll find three recurring stories that drag out the hoariest cliches but still continue to inspire us. Today, I’m going to put my English degree to use and run down these Core Sports Stories. I’ll also point out some real and fictional examples of each Story so you can follow along at home.
The Underdog Makes Good
Tagline: Nobody believed in them – until they believed in themselves.
What It Is: A team that no one expects to amount to anything suddenly goes on a winning tear. Alternatively: a team that’s pretty good playing against a grievously favored opponent. They’re outmassed and outclassed in every way possible but they still go on to win.
Why It Works: We all feel like losers sometimes. We all have obstacles in our life that are bigger, tougher and more established than we are. It’s invigorating to know that those obstacles can still be knocked down.
Real-World Examples: The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey “Miracle on Ice”
Fictional Examples: Rocky, Rudy, David and Goliath
Sport As Redemption
Tagline: He’d lost it all … then he found hope.
What It Is: A loser, a crook or a villain is loudly and universally ostracized by the fans and press. He then goes on to win and all is forgiven.
Why It Works: If the last two thousand years of western civilization are any indicator, we’re all looking for redemption. I’m not sure that a 40-HR season is what the Scripture had in mind, but it’s much more entertaining.
Real-World Examples: David Beckham (several times), Ray Lewis, Kobe Bryant.
Fictional Examples: Hoosiers, Rocky III, The Longest Yard
The Birth of Something Beautiful
Tagline: He was the greatest they’d ever seen.
What It Is: A rookie comes out of nowhere and goes on to be the greatest.
Why It Works: Bragging rights. By telling this story, you get the right to say “I knew him back when.” You catch the train at the first station and you ride it all the way to its end.
Real-World Examples: LeBron James, Tom Brady.
Fictional Examples: The Natural
Honorable Mention: Money Ruins Everything (1919 Chicago White Sox); All Glory is Fleeting (Mohammed Ali).
Setup: Fold a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper in half so it’s long and skinny. Fold it in half again the same way. Now triangle it up like you’re folding an American flag. The resulting wad should be a very compact little triangle. If you don’t know how to fold an American flag, join the Boy Scouts and suffer like the rest of us did.
Rules: One player attempts to throw the projectile into the trashcan. The other player plays defense. If played in an office, the players may confine themselves to wheeled office chairs for an added challenge.
You then work this trio of coins up the table by sliding one of them between the other two. The moving coin can’t touch either of the stationary coins and it can’t fall off the table, or play changes hands.
Rules: After a mock insult is exchanged between the players, they bump chests, throw their arms up into the air, and taunt each other with some variety of, “You wanna go? You wanna throw down, cupcake? You gonna back up that tough talk? What? What you looking at? What?” This continues until one or both players back down, saying some equivalent of “That’s what I thought” or “Yeah, you just wait.”
As of last year’s All-Star Break (July 11th, 2006), the Boston Red Sox were 51-32, having gone 6-4 on their last ten. They ended the season 11 games behind the Yankees, in a slump that most fans were ashamed to be seen watching.
In games where it wasn’t even close, Mr. Durkin would lay down his last five or six cards and just play them blind. Flipping them over lazily one at a time, sending freshmen back to his room to grab beer out of the sink (“and I counted how many are in there”). One or two of us would try the same stunt when we felt cocky, almost always blushing and fumbling the cards back up once we realized we’d counted wrong.
There’s a line in The Hunt for Red October where the Russian sub’s navigator boasts about being able to “fly a plane in the Alps with no windows” with a compass and a map. Well, I could manage a professional baseball team in an underground bunker with no windows given a spreadsheet with the team’s stats, and this table.
It’s been clear to anyone who’s been following the case of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of rape – Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans – that the case has been mishandled from the beginning. Even if the case against the three students was airtight, it’s improper for a District Attorney to go on a national news program and call the defendants 
(To be fair,