Perception is reality
That’s no revelation; it’s just cold, hard fact. One needs only listen to talk radio or peruse Internet message boards to know that most people know what they know, and aren’t really interested in digging any deeper for facts. What they perceive to be true is true, so please don’t confuse them with logic.
Nowhere is this any more evident than in sports, and the Nationals’ situation provides a perfect backdrop. A team that won 73 games a year ago — following pre-season prognostications of “historical” ineptitude — is now seemingly heading toward a 100-loss season. Even with a completely healthy roster this year, the best-case scenario was somewhere around a .500 finish. (My personal prediction was 75-77 wins.) But sick bay started filling up from opening day forward, and the Nats lead the majors in games lost to injury. Call it an excuse if you wish, but I defy you to name another team that’s lost as many everyday players for as many games as they have and won more than they lost.
Baseball plays a long season. Compared to pro football, the baseball schedule is roughly ten times as many games, 162 vs. 16. Hypothetically speaking, if the Nats finished 54-108 this year, they’d be playing .333 baseball; pretty dismal, right? Yet, in 2003, the Redskins finished 5-11, .313 football. Was there a great gnashing of teeth, or a massive cancellation of season tickets? No one was happy about it, but the perception was, oh, that was an aberration, that’s not going to happen again. But, in fact, it did, in 2006.
No one has done a better job of convincing the American public that everything that happens in their sport is worthy of attention than the National Football League, and they are to be congratulated for it. They should give seminars about it. Fans seem to believe that NFL games are action-packed, start-to-finish. Nothing could be farther from the truth. After he retired, the late George Allen was asked by the league to go through dozens of NFL broadcasts and find out just exactly how much action there was during that 3-hour program. The figure he came up with was somewhat surprising: On the average, there was less than 15 minutes of actual action in a complete game.
Think about it: the clock continues to run after running plays and completed passes. Sometimes the final 2 minutes of a game takes 10 minutes or more to play. Yet fans gladly pay pretty significant money for the privilege of witnessing those 15 minutes or at least being able to tell their friends that they were at the game.
I like pro football. I’m not obsessed with it like some folks seem to be, but it never ceases to amaze me when I hear sportscasters rave about how good someone looked — in practice. Or callers to talk shows who seem vitally interested in how yesterday’s two-a-days went. Obviously, these things are perceived as important, and when your team only plays once a week, you’ve got to have something to hang your hat on the other 6 days.
This year has been a struggle for the Nationals. If you perceive that that’s the way they’re always going to play and they’re not worthy of your support, you have my sympathy. I won’t bother to tell you how good they looked at practice.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
