Who's the Best?

When we talk sports, we spend a lot of time discussing “bests”.

The true purpose of sports is to demonstrate superiority over rival high-schools, cities and nations by making their women weep and humiliating them on the field, hopefully without (much) bloodshed. We attach real emotional weight to the question of who is the “best” because it reflects on our own school, town or country.

These arguments get heated quickly. Frequently, though, people aren’t even talking about the same thing. What does it mean to be the “best”? As far as I can tell, what someone tells you about this says far more about who they are than it does about sports teams.

Is the best team simply the one that wins the championship? Many will argue this—largely because they have a need for some objective criteria. These people note (correctly) that if we do not settle the question of “best” on the field, we can never really settle the question at all. These people fear uncertainty and tend to dislike deep thought.

But are we really to believe that the 2007 Giants were the best team in the NFL? Of course they weren’t. Or that Porto and Monaco were the best teams in European futbol in 2004? They were not. This is not to say that the Giants and Porto didn’t earn their championships—it’s just that “champion” does not mean “best”.

But if the debate doesn’t end there, what’s the next step?

Is the “best” simply the most consistent team? Did the 2007 Patriots earn the title of “best” because of their unbeaten season? Were the 2001 Seattle Mariners the best because they won a record number of baseball games (and then proceeded to lose before reaching the World Series)? The people that favor this conception of best tend to be plodders—people who get through their lives with dedication, consistency and practically no ingenuity. The problems with this are obvious: being “clutch” matters to us. When you can’t win the Big Game, winning all those other games almost makes the ultimate failure worse.

There’s still another view of “best”: the best team is neither one that is the most consistent nor the one that gets hottest at the right moment. The best team is the one that hits the highest highs—it’s the baseball team with the perfect game, the football team that leaves their opponent with negative rushing yards, and numerous picks. It’s the soccer team that connects so many of their passes that you’re mesmerized by the movement. This type of “best” is typically preferred by impractical types who can barely hold down a job.

Which, incidentally, is where I end up. A well-executed double play, a spectacular catch, the build-up in front of goal (even when there's no goal): these are the things that make me think of a team as the "best". There are always cynical teams. But I do not watch to see who is the most cynical.