The Songs of Wandering Shortstops

The dunk competition from NBA's All Star weekend showed some real creativity on the part of their athletes. Check it out at this link at The Huffington Post of all places. I don't know about you, but I prefer my reverse jams a little to the left. I must say that I do not really see a place for discussion about the dunk comp or any judged sport on this site. I love a lot of judged sport, do not get me wrong. I thought it was great to see Dwight Howard being what wrestlers would call a "good worker" by putting over the young talent. The point is at WCTS, we are trying to get a form of competitive sport recognized as an art form that is as yet unseen. It's like, of course something being judged on style points is art. Basically, all judged sporting events are beyond this discussion. That's someone else's blog. This is something quite different.

I guess a good place to start is Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus." This is one artist trying to describe another artist creating and the constant need to do so. The act begins "Because a fire was in my head," and maps out this eternal and universal desire by the artist to forever seek out this inspiration that allows one to create through their own creations. This is all done while constantly knowing that it is something they will never truly encapsulate or reproduce. Everybody still with me? It is about how inspiration cannot be manufactured, but requires a quest of sorts. The same thing can be applied to sports and their athletes. They have their quests to try and create within. They are called plays, downs, at bats, shifts, possessions, games, series, seasons, careers. Each one produces different sorts of opportunity for creation to varying degrees of success.

Whenever I drive past a ball diamond, I always think of the stories that have unfolded there. Whether it be a well-looked-after pro-quality park or some old, neglected weed haven behind an elementary school, drama of all sorts has occurred at these places. It is both upsetting and inspiring to know that there are so many games at so many levels that will forever go unnoticed and unmentioned. At the same time, much like a freshly zambonied sheet of ice, it represents possibility. It is the canvas that which the "fire in the heads" of the athlete brings them to. What makes team sports particularly unique, aside from the astonishing fact that they have generally a few split seconds to create in their medium, is that it does contain tangible moments of concrete success. However, the truth is that they are just as fleeting as Inspirado herself. You will never score the very last goal, hit the final home run, even win the last championship. A select few have and will retire after a championship, but because the form endures through new games, seasons, etc., the sport itself remains a driving force. It's that clean sheet of ice or that old ball diamond, that "hazel wood." With each athletic opportunity, the athlete will continue to go here, and "pluck til time and times are done."


- Update regarding last week's post - A method to Mickey's madness?