The Outstater
‘Winning’ Is only for Losers
YOU REALIZE, DON’T YOU, that this Sunday’s Indy 500 won’t be an actual race? It will be more of an exercise — a spectacle, if you will — in adeptness at fudging rules and regulations to one’s advantage, that and quickness in changing tires and refueling.
That’s because there is nary a nut or bolt that isn’t officially specified. The identical 2.2-liter twin-turbocharged V6 engines are designed for fairness not victory. As are the requirements in aerodynamic design, fuel and weight limits, aeroscreens and tire compounds. And don’t talk to me about “safety,” an abstract when you have agreed to jostle 33 other drivers for position at 230 miles per hour.
Face it, the Borg-Warner trophy is not for trying to go the fastest per se but rather for testing the limits of the IndyCar Series Rulebook (updated annually). Let that soak in for a minute.
Now you are ready to hear that your favorite professional football or baseball team is not really trying to win the pennant or whatever — not in a concerted way, at least. True, the first baseman is trying his darnedest, as might be the shortstop. The manager, though, has traded a better-hitting shortstop away in the off season along with two star relievers, all on the orders of the owner who is liquidating talent this season.
Why? He is pursuing a longterm investment strategy that may or may not have anything to do with baseball. At best, your team is angling for a higher draft position and has written the season off — “tanking,” they call it.
The truth is that the incentives of big-time sports now line up so that your team can be a loser and still be highly profitable. How? Stadium bonding deals, revenue sharing, lower payroll costs and the sale of future potential through the magical narrative of “rebuilding.” Winning may not have a lot to do with it. A dumb fan base helps.
You don’t want to know what the Biden administration’s promotion of generals enthralled with diversity, equity and inclusion fairness has done to national defense.
Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, had something to say about winning but he is often misquoted. He didn’t say winning is the only thing. He said that “the will to win” is the only thing.
So much for that. We are now living in the world of Harrison Bergeron, the dystopian character of the Kurt Vonnegut story where a “Chief Handicapper” determines that the strong must wear weights and the beautiful masks. A more sedate example: To win the Bermuda World Bridge (cards) Championship, you have to tell your opponent your most effective bidding conventions — fairness, again.
This dampening of the human drive to excel, to win, has spread throughout our society. If winning has become a mere social construct, then it is smart to just hang around until somebody gives you a participation trophy. There’s no need to work to deserve it.
The novelist Joseph Epstein has written an essay on that point, “Everyone Gets a Trophy.” He argues that our most prestigious national and international awards have less and less to do with prestigious national and international accomplishments.
For example, the Presidential Freedom Medal (to Nancy Pelosi, for god’s sake) has become a partisan tableau. “And when the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Bob Dylan in 2016, what prestige remained was all but blown away,” Epstein says. “His songs have nothing to do with literature, and most, in any case, are derived from Woody Guthrie.”
We join Epstein in awaiting the day the literature prize goes to Barbara Blackburn, holder of the Guinness world record in speed typing, which ought to finish the prize off completely along with our civilization. No, wait, she’s not of the correct racial identity.
To sum up, a personal note: My daughter was dragged to so many of her older brothers’ soccer and football games, fiercely competitive back then, that she now owns a sweatshirt that reads, “I just want both teams to have fun.”
Well, that’s where we are. Gentlepersons, start your engines. — tcl
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