Rooting for the wrong dog

Despite the dozens of little coffee shops dotting the streets in quaintly cultured Hoboken or the teeming espresso bars in the rocky town of Fort Collins, I searched out the familiar green circle of Starbucks wherever I went. I paid the extra buck for whipped cream and another three for wireless internet without a thought that a million other places not only didn’t charge you for the perks but also refrained from such allures as exotic looking mugs and coffee makers.

Drinking coffee from a familiar cup is one thing, but when an entire country votes in favor of the candidate they can “relate to” or a huge section of the tennis-loving populace calls an icon like Pete Sampras boring you have problems. You may not identify with a guy that was captain of the debating team at Yale, but you’re not picking a high school buddy, you’re picking someone to sit in the highest office in the nation. As for the supernatural that conceded just one match in 57 matches at Wimbledon in eight straight years, I can think of a hundred adjectives --- and boring is certainly not one of them.

This unconditional devotion to the underdog fascinates me a great deal. I have never rooted for an underdog, except in the case of cricket, where India was long the poorer bet in a match-up against the Aussies or the Windies and patriotism and peer-induced fervor overcame my love of infallibility. My contention is this: we can’t always pick to be winners or losers in real life situations, but we sure can pick our idols :)

Since I believe sport (especially individual sport) is one of the few situations where you can see people’s true personalities in action (somewhat like an unadulterated reality show), I am mainly talking here of sporting underdogs, except for Bush, cos let’s face it, I can never pass up a chance to talk about Dubya; he lends natural fodder for humor even when I am at my funniest worst and if that’s the reason he got elected to a second term, so be it. After all, laughter is an integral part of the American way and Friends, Frasier and Sex and the City signed off earlier that same year leaving people no choice but to turn to politics for humor ;)

Not to be unfair to underdogs, there is of course a very real reason to love players like Andy Roddick who are so incredibly gracious in defeat. The ace-blasting American heartthrob never passes up a chance to shower praise on Federer and has openly declared that Roger is not only the best player ever but also a wonderful human being. In yesterday’s zillionth defeat against Federer, side-stepping his ailing foot (literally), he acknowledged that Roger ‘was already kicking my butt before that’. Lines like 'I threw the kitchen sink at him but he went to the bathroom and got his tub' come easily to Andy and his sense of humor in defeat is sometimes more laudable than Federer’s successes.

But let’s face it, we have also loved the racket-throwing, tear-jerking Ivanisevic, while he took something away from Sampras’ unparalleled victories and cheered for a tantrum-throwing, abuse-hurling McEnroe, in the face of a composed and gracious Borg. Time and time again, the crowds are on the side of the underdog, cheering him on, rooting for every easy point won, every stroke of luck that moves him forward, waging a raucous, albeit, losing battle against the silent invincibility that players like Roger and Pete display.

I was rooting for the Yankees in last year’s playoffs (more because I root for ANYthing New york than any real love for the team; besides, I was fed up of hearing media personnel and politicians alike wonder if this would be the year the ‘curse’ would be lifted). And I noticed increasingly that all of mankind was cheering on the Red Sox against the “evil empire”. Everyone outside of New York, it seemed -- in bars, the work-place and broadcast news -- was unequivocally pro-Sox. Why, I asked a die-hard Red Sox fan. We root for the underdog, it’s un-American not to. That explains the elections, I thought. Of course, some might argue that Kerry was the underdog, the guy trying to overthrow an incumbent and entice a formidable red-state enormity, but once the debates were on, and Bush started his defense with “he forgot Polland” Kerry was the irrefutable topdog. Unfortunately, one that was too smart, too composed and too self-assured for people to “relate” to.

Then again, there are inevitable winners like Lance Armstrong, that boast of a huge fan following. But here, the allegiance is more because lesser mortals can feel a certain sympathy for him due to his struggle with cancer, probably because it makes him more of a human being. I have never heard more support for Sampras than I did during the Australian open where he broke free of his shackles and cried for his coach and friend who was then battling death.

Right from Shakespeare’s As you like it, where we all loved seeing the david-grade Orlando overthrow the goliath-grade Charles, most of us tend to associate a good-over-evil aspect to a contest and root for the player that can induce a certain amount of compassion, even if he is the least likely of winners.

Is the human being’s natural sympathy for the underdog due to a sadistic tendency that craves to see a success story falter (toppling of icons like Martha Stewart and Dan Rather seem to have an ominous element of deep satisfaction), or is it merely that we want to see a human being up there who can display weakness from time to time and tell us that despite our shortcomings, we could be there some day?