Failure isn't all that bad.

This past weekend I spent a somewhat larger-than-normal amount of time watching sports. I watched college football, end-of-season baseball, pro football, and even a few brief moments of professional rodeo, but that was just in passing, I swear.

Still, in watching these games, I came to a somewhat stunning realization: in our modern sports franchises, if someone does well: they hit the game-winning hit, they hit a home run, or they make just about any play in football that would be classified as "good", they almost always, without fail, get completely whalloped by their teammates. That's why nowadays when a baseball player sees his teammates waiting to congratulate him at home plate, he flings off his batting helmet: he knows with no helmet on, his teammates can't completely whomp him over the head. And don't get me started on the "we won" dogpiles that happen, though mostly in the playoffs. Just take a quick look at the picture at the top of this blog. Yeah, would you want to be on the bottom of that pile? If you sprinkled in a few players from the other team, wouldn't that much more closely resemble a giant fight where a bunch of players have to deal with a few weeks' worth of suspensions? Yeah, thought so.

Football is far worse. Part of it is that it seems like pretty much any time anyone makes a play that just five or ten years ago was considered routine, they have to jump around and wave their arms like they've never made a tackle or defended a pass before in their lives. But I digress. With football, there is a lot of congratulating going on with the other guys on your team. Yes, this is in part because you have plenty of time between plays to celebrate, but still. But the thing about these celebrations that get to me is that they're all violent. It's all headbutting, shoving, and smacking; and I swear sometimes if a guy makes a good play, he gets hit harder by his own teammates in congratulation than they get hit by the opposition. Yes, I know they're premier athletes, and they're in peak physical condition, and they have about four metric tons of pads and braces that make them about as strong (and as human) as Robocop, but there will be a day when someone dislocates their shoulder by shoving their teammate who made a huge tackle. Mark my words. We already had a pie-to-the-face injury in baseball this year.

So this is why I say: sometimes it's not so bad to screw up. Yes, I'm competitive as anyone else out there. I have a strong distaste for losing, and I love the thrill of the hunt. But, if you'll notice, if someone screws up in sports, whether it's dropping a pass, missing your defensive assignment, or giving up the game-ending walkoff home run, that guy becomes a total pariah. They put their head down, they walk to the opposite end of the bench, and nobody gets close to them for fear of catching their suck. You drop one fly ball, and suddenly you're a leper. Yes, it's rough, but you know what? Nobody ever got a concussion from being banished to the other end of the bench. But then again, maybe that's why my athletic career stopped after high school.