We cannot live without hope, and nowhere is this more poignantly and tragically expressed than at the racetrack.
And so the story is told of the million-dollar Pick 6 carryover at a moribund track where old men dream of one last break before hope dies within the rising tide of desolation.
The old man, pushing 70 and channeling 80, is in poor health. He has not only been disappearing under the slag heap of 1,000 lame horses and many more bad photo finishes, but — even worse — for years he has been eating the $6 Daily Special at the grandstand grill. Decades of gravy and animal fat clog his arteries — perhaps the one act of mercy granted the addicted punter.
The old man has gone all in. He has invested his last $1,000 on five parimutuel tickets. There is his $640 main play — his best shot at winning it all. Then there are the four smaller plays that might keep him in the game if his main play falters.
This pretty much describes me as I watched the random outcomes that took us to the Acrid 16
His main play has sailed through the first four races; but now he has to sweat out another one of those torturous photos in the fifth. The delay is long and arrhythmic. He loses. Frantically, he looks over his other four tickets and discovers that he can still win and win big — but a 12-1 shot will have to beat the even money horse in the final leg. If his horse wins, he can achieve his one remaining aspiration: to keep coming back to the track. Without that, there is nothing. Long ago, it stopped being about winning. Now it’s about survival, and, like Gatsby’s green light, survival is receding before him.
His body is awash in cold sweat. His tongue is like nothing so much as sandpaper. He wobbles. He cannot breathe. The medics arrive, hooking him up to clamps and wires. His body, bloated and sallow, is strapped to a gurney. A woman watches as he is carried to the ambulance and turns to the old guy’s friend.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Is he alive?”
“He’s alive, lady,” the friend says. “But just barely.”
This pretty much describes me as I watched the random outcomes that took us to the Acrid 16 phase of the greatest sporting event since Brent Musburger famously said, “You are looking live at the Colosseum, where the Christians and Lions are about to clash, and Verne, I’ve got my money on the Lions, even though they’re minus 450 in Vegas, and how about those shapely cheerleaders?”
And, for the first time in my life, I actually identify with the Christians. Generally, I can retrofit some form of logic to explain why I am just barely alive, but not this year. Not even close. This is like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded. OK, old reference, but how can we explain the surge of the Big Ten, or the dirge of the ACC? Granted, this Big Ten phenomenon is almost as old as Musburger and me combined. They all look like the same mediocre team. Not a Lonzo Ball among ’em. But then the Michigan getaway plane slides off a wind-swept runway in Ypsilanti and everything changes. Suddenly the team seeded eighth in the Big Ten Tournament comes alive, busting favorites and brackets and turning lesser handicappers (allow me the salve of scorn in my hour of pain) into savants.
So now this mediocre conference, exemplified by our own Maroon Five, has three extant teams while the mighty ACC is down to one — North Carolina, the future book favorite to win the whole thing — and the Tar Heels seem to be begging for a soft spot to land (unlike Michigan in more ways than one).
If we were looking for an explanation, we might talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences, or maybe just the Law of Overrated, but one thing seems clear: mistaking parity within a conference for mediocrity on a larger scale can be as painful as listening to a Big Ten Network announcer start 200 sentences with “If you are Minnesota…”
Well, as much as I love my home state and root for my guys — Little Dick and all — I am not Minnesota. Nor did I see much of this coming, whereas in past years, when I was in this thing to the bitter end, I was clearly on top of my game.
True, many are suffering, although that is nothing new. Many must suffer in order for a few to prosper and it’s as true of your NCAA pool as it is of our economy.
But still…South Carolina knocking off Duke? Duke was the Now Team. Duke had become the second-favorite in the futures pool — a paltry 9-to-1 before delighting haters everywhere by falling to South Carolina in the second round. The very existence of the Gamecocks’ hoops team was almost a secret, having hidden from the Sweet 16 since 1973. Whatever happens next, there will be a ticker tape parade to celebrate the demise of that Dukey sonofabitch and serial tripper Grayson Allen. Allen became the most vilified baller in North America this season because of a weird predilection for tripping scores of opponents. Well, actually, two. Meanwhile, I saw legions of sociopaths slam opponents in the head because those sonsofbitches had the nerve to drive to the hoop for what might otherwise have been an uncontested layup. But that’s different. Not in my house. You want to jam the ball? You gotta pay the price. As one announcer truly worthy of vilification might say, “Concussion City, Babeee!”
Part of the joy of the game — aside from watching big men hurt each other — is in grasping the subtle rituals that unite fans and players alike in their contempt for human dignity. You could argue that such contempt forms the origin of sport. Although the Christians vs. The Lions thing is more fable than fact, the myth long ago became the perception and with it came the ultimate humiliation of loss.
Because most of us are not athletes and never were, we therefore must find meaning where none exists. Which is why sports is a religion. We choose our creation story and go from there. And the facts keep sliding away from us, like mercury from a busted thermometer.
This is the 19th straight year that Gonzaga has made it to the tournament, and every one of those teams was the best Bulldogs team ever and this, damn it, was their year. Of course, it never was and for those of us in the know, it was an annual pleasure to pick the Zags to lose in the second or third round. Which they did. Failing without fail.
But here they are, seemingly about to cruise to the Final Four, and even I have to admit that…Oh, God!…maybe it is their year. The thing is, I don’t know. I never do, but usually I think I do, and now I know I don’t. You look at the odds and they tell you nothing. The more you know, the less you know. The biggest favorite as I sit at my keyboard is North Carolina, minus 7 1/2 vs. Butler. The odds tell all, and this year they say that you can leave your assumptions, like your hopes, at the door.
Sure, but isn’t ignorance the seed of hope? And am I not alive — just barely — with Kentucky to win it all? Yeah, that’s right, Kentucky — a fast-food team full of McDonald’s All-Americans who look more like post-Jared non-achievers. After these disinterested slugs were lucky to get a three-point win over Wichita State (and are now underdogs to lose their next game to UCLA), I am on that symbolic gurney, knowing that at best I have a random 1-in-16 chance of winning anything.
But, then, you could argue that I’ve been on life support since I made my first sports wager (Vikings over the Bears) 40 years ago.
Hey, if this isn’t fun, I don’t know what is. And if you answered “both,” I can’t blame you.
