FORT STEWART, Ga. - Way back, before ESPN, was this huge everything in sports television, there was a television show aired every Saturday on ABC called Wide World of Sports. At one point, WWOS was the main source for sports on television.
They made some ‘now-somewhat-boring’ sports really exciting to watch. Sporting events such as bowling, skiing, figure shaking, wrestling, the superstars, several different versions of auto racing, water surfing, demolition derby, rodeo, billards, bobsled, track and field, gymnastics, weighlifting, little league baseball, and of course boxing were made popular.
I can remember watching all of these sports. There was a time when all of the major boxing matches, with Howard Cosell, were on WWOS.
The show made sports figures and athletes like Earl Anthony, the great daredevil Evil Knievel, Pele, and of course, the great Muhammad Ali household names. The list of great athletes and sporting events that appeared on the show were endless.
I will never forget the show’s opening: “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport ... the thrill of victory ... and the agony of defeat ... the human drama of athletic competition
... This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!”
If you never seen the show, I urge you to go to Youtube and check out the intro. It’s one of those things that are embedded in my mind. The skier and a dirt biker falling just as the script hit “the agony of defeat …”
I felt some of that agony of defeat this weekend after my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes got bounced out of the NCAA college basketball tournament.
So much hope for a fabulous ending to the season, only to fall short. This is exactly why I only follow a few teams, one being all Ohio State sports, and the other is the Atlanta Braves.
The fact is, in sports, at the end of seasons, only one team gets to feel the thrill of victory and all of the other teams are forced to feel the agony of defeat. It hurts to lose. I hate losing more than I love winning.
This Monday, one team will feel the thrill of victory, while the 63 other teams will have felt the agony of defeat, with a hope for next season.
But, the best thing about watching sports is you never know which team will be on which side – the thrill side or the agony side.
As for Monday’s final game, I believe Michigan will be the last team standing.
Lost in the midst of all this Final Four news, the boys of summer are back. America’s pastime is underway. That’s Major League Baseball for those who don’t know.
MLB started last Sunday. Baseball is the hardest sport to predict the final winner because the season is so long. They play 162 games. I have always said that every team will win at least 60 games and lose at least 60 games. That leaves 40 games that make the difference between a winning or losing season.
I like the team the Braves have put together this year. For the first time in many years, I think the Braves have a good enough team to win the World Series, but we’ll see in nine months.