Thermodynamic Spectating
I remember in elementary school the many motivational posters that hung on the wall. One inf
ormed the class that math was not a spectator sport. While the poster didn’t make me any more enthusiastic about math, it did teach me what a spectator was. However, somewhere between reading sports blogs, posting on sports blogs, jumping up and down at games, buying merchandise, and generally getting way too into something that I have no real impact on, I realised that indeed spectating was not a spectator sport.
As a result, I often wonder why. I frequently wonder, “what is that thing that makes sports so engaging?” To this end, one of my more recent interests in sports, and indeed the focus of this blog, is sports history. By nature of statistics and records, history is always relevant. So when a game has occurred, when it is all said in done, there are endless comparisons (justified or not) that can be made. After the fact, you can look back and pick out all the moments which proved pivotal in the game.
I have a theory, one that apes some vague scientific concepts. The way I see it, sports is all about potential energy. Before something big happens, before a pass, a pitch, a shot, whatever, there is the moment where nothing has been decided. At that moment, that play could be the defining moment of the game, or just some irrelevant misfire.
It’s taught that tension is the essence of drama, and there is nothing more tense than waiting for that big play, and nothing more dramatic than seeing it happen. That’s where things really get interesting. Those moments become immortalized and suddenly everything surrounding that moment becomes more important.
There gets to be an air of mystery around things like this. Was there something special about the ball being used? What about the helmet? Did someone lace their socks differently that day? The pragmatic view is that the stuff is simply stuff, the players played the game and all other objects are simply incidental. That’s no fun though. As an active spectator, I feel like these things matter. The things that maybe get left out of the equation or disregarded in sports, I feel it is the job of the spectator to hold up and show the 
importance of. I like to think that, as the laws of thermodynamics teach us, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so residing with those old cleats, bats, and gloves are the glowing remains of the great moments they contributed to.
Okay, admittedly its a little campy. But would we have such a lucrative sports memorabilia world if it wasn’t true? I encourage everyone to test the theory out. Seek out a sports museum and go there. Tell me if you don’t feel a little something special in the air.
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