Daily Records
Bigger, Faster, Higher, Stronger, More
Aside from the automated device that measures the moment the bobsled’s nose is pushed across the starting line, and its twin at the bottom of a 2-kilometer track, no one would ever perceive the winning sled finished 0.01 second faster than the second-place finishers.
We measure Olympic bobsledding by imperceptibly-small moments for no other reasons than we want to and we can. We seek definitive inequality in sporting competitions—especially those commercialized by Americans. The Modern, Nietzschean Ubermensch must always be in pursuit of overcoming itself.
“The Mundanity of Excellence” (1988) is an ethnographic study of competitive swimmers. Sociologist Daniel Chambliss sought to understand how people became members of the Olympic Swim team, and showed how the organization of the sport (effectively pyramidal) demonstrated both a distribution of resources and skills. The athletes progressed through leagues where they trained with others of similar skill levels.
At the lowest levels of competition the athletes separate themselves: Some finish in the top 20% consistently, some never in the top 20% but also rarely in the bottom 20%, and others are more likely to finish in the bottom 20% than above it. These are growing children, so physical capacity varies among those of the same age grouping, and all of them will be physically changing through adolescence. A swimmer who physically outraces their peers at age 9 may no longer have similar physical advantages at age 16. Success at these levels depended more on the amount of time spent training than technique.
Chambliss found that swimmers who progressed to higher levels of competition were incapable of finishing in the top 20% when they first moved up, but a number of them would improve to become consistent top-20% finishers. He found again, at high school level and below, it was time, more so than technique, that set the better performers apart from their peers.
At the national level, NCAA Division I and the U.S. National Swim Team, technique and body morphology become more significant. However, when swimmers reach this level they have already put in thousands of hours of pool time, and progressed through lower competitive leagues primarily for having put in that time. At these levels, athletes are afforded the rarest and most valued resources in the sport and have what is considered to be the best coaching.
At the point where technique and physicality become significant factors in performance, most athletes have already washed out of their sports and no longer compete. There are multitudes of people who had the capacity to become outstanding physical performers, but because of social factors (not having a sponsor, needing to work) at an earlier stage of their athletic development simply never had the chance.
All athletes will reach peak performance, but they will never know it when it happens, but for the rarest of outliers who set world records. We in Modernity love extreme outliers, because they give us something to aspire to. As Sartre noted, we are to freedom, condemned.
Major League Baseball changed their rules, to make the game more marketable. I am not talking about pitch clocks or bigger bases—they changed the definition of a non-play.
Walk-off (WO)
Definition
A walk-off occurs when the home team takes the lead in the bottom of the ninth or extra innings. Because the visiting team will not get another turn at-bat, the game ends immediately, with the home team victorious.
A walk-off can be recorded in many ways, including: a hit, an error, a walk with the bases loaded, a hit by pitch with the bases loaded, a sacrifice fly, an out (with less than two outs in the inning), a wild pitch, a passed ball and a balk. As long as enough runs are scored to end the game as the result of the play, it is considered a walk-off.
Bullshit.
This is Generation Everyone-Gets-A-Trophy’s doing.
“Walk-off home run” was coined by baseball neologist and Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley to denote what happened when his opponent hit a home run to win the game.
In baseball, unlike all other commercialized American sports, the defense controls the ball. A “home run” is a ball hit outside the field of play, in fair territory. The defense loses control of the ball and the batter is allowed a free run around the bases. Since there is no play to be made the defensive team walks off the field.
If the situation is the same, and the game-winning run is on second base, and the batter hits a ball into the outfield that a fielder makes a play on while the base runner is dashing for home plate and the catcher is set up to get the throw, catches it, and sweeps a tag that misses the sliding runner who scores the game-winning run, no one was walking anywhere.
The defense was exerting themselves as much as they could, trying to stop that run from scoring. They had not given up on anything because nothing had been won, yet.
When I played competitive baseball, we used to call that, “Winning the game in the bottom of the 9th.” But now, regardless of whether the defense is walking off the field, helpless, or busting their asses to try to make a play; it’s a “walk-off.”