Underdogs are people we can relate to; they’re unrefined and real. In the 1969 World Series, the Baltimore Orioles were the American League’s powerhouse and entered the matchup as the heavy favorites over the lowly Mets. The Mets were called the “Miracle Mets”, why, because they were comprised of a bunch of players who never finished higher than ninth place in a ten team league. They were a team filled with hardened, well-trained professionals and came out on top. When we see a rag-tag band of misfits like the ’69 Mets pull out a win against overwhelming odds, we’re reminded of regular people like ourselves. In the final analysis, New York shut down the most fearsome line-up in all of baseball.
There’s no pleasure in watching people who have had every advantage and financial resources to do what they’ve been trained to do, win. It’s hard to feel a kinship with a player or a team who, as a rite of passage is ‘expected’, to always be the undisputed champion. We would rather root for the average player who picks up a bat and discovers an extraordinary gift for the game. We can’t relate to extravagant packaging, expensive titivation, wanna-be man gods. We like the authenticity of the underdog themed stories that never die. We relate to their desire to belong and be respected, which is why I love rooting for the Mets. It’s why we love movies like The Karate Kid, Rudy and of course my personal favorite, Rocky. Heck, I believe it’s one of the reasons why Sylvester Stallone garnered 10 Oscar nominations in 1976. We love the concept of the underdog and the rest of the world. And we, as movie goers, sports fans, regular people, enjoy rooting for the underdog more than anything else in the entertainment industry.
It's a phenomenon rooted in our human nature from art, work to sports. For anyone who has ever watched the World Series when their team wasn’t a participant, most times, they'll ask: who is the underdog? There are certain characteristics and circumstances which the underdog must possess. First off, the underdog must be someone with whom we can relate. A true underdog hero is someone who comes from the areas we come from, the streets we grew up on and the schools we attended. They are perceived to have weaker skills than their more talented competition, but always have the tenacity to become better, it’s why we love athletes in general, a lot of them come from impoverished neighborhoods. An underdog stands up to society and its opinions of them, trying hard to become stronger and better, no matter what everyone tells them. There's a reason that we see films every single year play out the same formula as their predecessors, people enjoy watching them.
If you look at some of the most popular children’s cartoons they tell the story of the nerdy, quiet kid who is gifted with special powers, or an amazing quest with the chance to overcome all odds. They are often faced with all sorts of obstacles and eventually overcome them, joining the ranks of the truly great. I mean isn’t Spiderman none other than the dorky Peter Parker? The moral message inherent in these and other stories is vital to our connectivity to them. There's a good reason why sports fans willingly choose to suffer and shell out more money. It's a chance to vicariously live one's own experiences through the triumphs of another. It's a psychological release as well as an exciting chance to witness something we can only dream for our own lives.
When Rocky goes the distance with Creed, we can't help to think that if a regular guy from the streets of Philly can make it, why not us? When we see the formless, talentless Karate Kid win the championship, we wonder why our own podgy bodies cannot someday overcome the lethargy that plagues our days and nights and become an athletic superstar. This is why I love the Mets, because they embody one of the best and most enduring themes in human society, triumph against all odds. We all want to overcome adversity and become something special. Since 1969, my team has offered us a glimpse of the determination and will we need to survive. If the Mets can be inspirational despite awful ownership, horrible direction, and dreadful decision-making, I can accept that. Mets fans are always living and dying with their team, mostly dying, but there is always the possibility of the underdog roaring from complete obscurity to conquer the odds.
A friend of mine recently lent me the 1977 movie “Oh, God!”, and I got a kick out of George Burns’ wittiness playing God. In the movie, John Denver asks Burns to prove his divinity by performing a miracle. Burns replies, “The last miracle I did was the 1969 Mets. Before that, I think you have to go back to the Red Sea.” This made me laugh, as we should, because therein lies the reason we love them, because they are entertaining to watch, a real life underdog drama. I’ve realized that Mets fans unnecessarily are the cause of their own stress. The other question from the movie, I think succinctly wraps up our accusatory nature, is when Denver again tests God and defiantly asks “if you're God, how can you permit all the suffering that goes on in the world?” And God, played by Burns, replies, “I don't permit the suffering - you do.” And that’s how I feel about our view of the Mets, we love them, but we only suffer because we allow an inevitable part of the game, failure, push us over the edge.
