I grew up rooting for the New York Giants, whose evil owner, Horace Stoneham, followed the vile Dodgers to California a few years after the Giants were world champion–for the last time until 4 years ago.  Much of that time, except the series they lost to the Yankees in spite of a great 7th-game pitching effort by Jack Sanford, I pretty much ignored them, and thought they’d gotten what they deserved for moving.  I still don’t think any major league team should be allowed to moved.  I don’t much like the idea of players’ being traded, either.  Anyway, I finally did root for them in 2010, and again in 2012 and this year, the first time because I liked their pitchers, and their catcher, and this time because I liked the idea of their becoming a dynasty–just as they did a century ago.

I wanted to write about them here, though, because the world series gave me a new thought about my sagaceptual awareness and its Urceptual heroes: to wit, that I (and apparently a lot of others) tend to favor repeating heroes–individual heroes and heroic teams.  Some root for teams that are successful because of their success, in fact.  I’ve never been like that, but am never content with a team that only wins one championship.  And this year, I was pleased with Madison Baumgartner because he was so outstanding during both the year and the post-season, which made me realize how much I prefer having an individual hero to admire in something like a world series to having several lesser heroes.  My conclusion: the sagaceptual awareness is designed to send one vicariously on an individual quest to greatness.  Or, to put it even more basically: a single hero is easier to follow vicariously than several.

Some sports heroes do overdo it, I think.  Federer and Woods seemed too dominant to me.  But I wasn’t big on either to begin with.

Back to the selves tomorrow, I hope.
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