Anatomy of a Nail Biter
Last night, I witnessed one of the greatest, most competitive regular season Spurs games in history...
...From an ESPN GameCast window with a 2 minute delay because it is impossible for a Houstonian like myself to catch the Spurs on TV, especially when Sweet Sixteen games are in progress.
So I watched a Shockwave screen slowly update before my eyes, and I greedily checked the score. Spurs are ahead! Then I check the play by play in the bottom left and I cheer for two Tim Duncan free throws as if seeing the words SAS: Tim Duncan Made Free Throw 1 of 1 is seeing them happen. I cheer as if I am watching it as it happens, when the Mavericks have already inbounded the ball and are trying to steal the game. But in my world, the game isn't over until GameCast tells me it's over. Duncan didn't make those free throws until ESPN said he did. And I didn't cheer until The Internet told me to cheer... two minutes too late.
If you were to superimpose my actions over the live playing of the game, I'd be like that kid in choir who always seemed to sing the last word of a verse three beats after everyone else. I can see the turned heads and the this-guy-has-had-one-too-many-7-buck-beers gestures now. Ahh, well.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for people in Utah who heard that Lincoln had been shot two days after it happened? What about civil war battles fought weeks after the war had ended? Or slaves still toiling away for their masters when a Proclamation had freed them months ago? They weren't free the moment Lincoln signed his name. They weren't free when he made the proclamation public. They were free when someone told them they were free, and not a moment sooner.
Here's an interesting related question for another post: When is profanity actually profanity (to a child for example)? Is it when they say the word to their mother after hearing it on the playground? Or is immediately after when she forbids her child from ever, ever saying that word again?
Back to my point... I can hardly imagine how all of those people felt in an age when information traveled like Bill Walton, (to keep with a basketball theme) but I do understand how strange it is to feel emotion for the past. Do you get it? Seeing the Spurs win elicits celebration. Hearing that they won elicits happiness. What is the emotion for that time in between, where celebration for a two minute-old victory feels like getting up in the morning and jumping for joy because you just found out that they signed the Treaty of Versailles?
I'll take my joy, along with my argument that it didn't actually happen until ESPN told me it did.
And I'll pass along the wisdom of GameCast, which spoke to me like a comforting mother by repeating what I needed to hear three times:
End Of Game.
End Of Game.
End Of Game
Last night, I witnessed one of the greatest, most competitive regular season Spurs games in history...
...From an ESPN GameCast window with a 2 minute delay because it is impossible for a Houstonian like myself to catch the Spurs on TV, especially when Sweet Sixteen games are in progress.
So I watched a Shockwave screen slowly update before my eyes, and I greedily checked the score. Spurs are ahead! Then I check the play by play in the bottom left and I cheer for two Tim Duncan free throws as if seeing the words SAS: Tim Duncan Made Free Throw 1 of 1 is seeing them happen. I cheer as if I am watching it as it happens, when the Mavericks have already inbounded the ball and are trying to steal the game. But in my world, the game isn't over until GameCast tells me it's over. Duncan didn't make those free throws until ESPN said he did. And I didn't cheer until The Internet told me to cheer... two minutes too late.
If you were to superimpose my actions over the live playing of the game, I'd be like that kid in choir who always seemed to sing the last word of a verse three beats after everyone else. I can see the turned heads and the this-guy-has-had-one-too-many-7-buck-beers gestures now. Ahh, well.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for people in Utah who heard that Lincoln had been shot two days after it happened? What about civil war battles fought weeks after the war had ended? Or slaves still toiling away for their masters when a Proclamation had freed them months ago? They weren't free the moment Lincoln signed his name. They weren't free when he made the proclamation public. They were free when someone told them they were free, and not a moment sooner.
Here's an interesting related question for another post: When is profanity actually profanity (to a child for example)? Is it when they say the word to their mother after hearing it on the playground? Or is immediately after when she forbids her child from ever, ever saying that word again?
Back to my point... I can hardly imagine how all of those people felt in an age when information traveled like Bill Walton, (to keep with a basketball theme) but I do understand how strange it is to feel emotion for the past. Do you get it? Seeing the Spurs win elicits celebration. Hearing that they won elicits happiness. What is the emotion for that time in between, where celebration for a two minute-old victory feels like getting up in the morning and jumping for joy because you just found out that they signed the Treaty of Versailles?
I'll take my joy, along with my argument that it didn't actually happen until ESPN told me it did.
And I'll pass along the wisdom of GameCast, which spoke to me like a comforting mother by repeating what I needed to hear three times:
End Of Game.
End Of Game.
End Of Game
