Show-boating in Sports

GordonMiller

Posted: Nov 4, 07 12:40pm

If my memory serves me well, White Shoes Johnson was the first football player to do a TD celebration dance. I think it was the late 70's or early 80's. At the time we called it show-boating or hot-dogging.

Today, it seems to be the norm, especially in football and basketball. But it's not confined to a TD, or a game-winning shot. It seems to be on most every play. You make a tackle- you shake your head "no" or do a little jig. The same if you knock down a pass.

In basketball, you make a dunk (which is fairly routine these days)-you gloat like you're king of the world. You block a shot-you're ruler of the universe.

What gives? Isnt that their job? That's like me doing a dance because I returned an email or answered my phone.

Is this just another senior moment for me? Does anyone else feel this way?

3 Comments // 3 Members

Posted: Nov 4, 07 12:52pm

If my memory serves me well, White Shoes Johnson was the first football player to do a TD celebration dance. I think it ...

I am completely with you. I love the celebrations when they're warranted. It is fun to see such joy as when the Sox won the series just a week or two ago. But I agree, celebrating when you have simply done your job trivializes the real celebratory moments.

Posted: Nov 4, 07 12:57pm

I am completely with you. I love the celebrations when they're warranted. It is fun to see such joy as when the Sox wo...

Great point, Talia. When you win the Series or hit a game-winning shot in overtime, or something comparable, a celebration is on order.

Posted: Nov 4, 07 6:46pm

I am completely with you. I love the celebrations when they're warranted. It is fun to see such joy as when the Sox wo...

Bill Simmons on the Red Sox celebrating:

I promised my daughter there would be a payoff at the end -- that somebody on Colorado would make an out, that the Red Sox players would jump on each other and celebrate, that there would be dancing and hugging and everyone would be really happy. She understands absolutes (words like "happy" and "dancing" and "hugging") and understood something special was about to happen, but she had never heard the word "celebrate" before." She liked the way it sounded, so she kept saying it. Celebrate. Every time something happened in the last two innings -- a strikeout, a groundball, whatever -- she'd ask me why they didn't celebrate and I had to keep telling her, "No, you'll know when they're celebrating, I'll tell you when."

Eventually, she started watching me to play off my reactions. When Jamey Carroll cranked that one-out, 0-2 fastball in the ninth, for a split-second, like every other Sox fan who had abandoned their anti-jinxing rituals, I thought I had screwed everything up and screamed, "Noooooooo!" before Ellsbury hauled in the catch and she asked me what happened.

"That guy almost screwed it up," I told her

"Oh." She thought about it for a second. "They're not going to celebrate?"

"No, no, they're about to celebrate," I told her.

We moved to the edge of the bed. I was sitting down; she was standing between my knees and leaning against me. Paps uncorked a 2-2 fastball for the clinching strike ("Yesssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!"), whipped his glove in the air and flipped out like he always does. If there's an enduring image of this 2007 Red Sox team, it's the sight of a wild-eyed Papelbon waving Varitek towards him for a postgame embrace -- he always looks like some drunken Boston kid who just sucker-punched somebody in a bar and wants the fallen guy's buddies to run over for a full-scale brawl. COME ON!!! LET'S DO THIS!!! Once Varitek jumped into his arms, the entire Boston team mobbed them within seconds, and everyone eventually settled on jumping up and down in a delirious circle. A few seconds passed before my daughter finally turned to me with a big smile on her face.

"They're celebrating," she told me happily.

The rest of the article is here, but you really have to be a Sox fan to get it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/071029&sportCat=mlb