“S’Battle!!”

My friend Jeff L. and I used to play this game for hours-on-end in our high school years at my house. We also had access to the Intellivision football, basketball, baseball and golf versions, but this one was by far our favorite. We talked about this recently and I asked him why it was so. He stated rather simply, but definitively, that is was because we were so evenly matched (the advantage gained from playing the other games with my siblings didn’t hold up with Sea Battle). This struck me at once as both true and also utterly telling about our human nature. Deep down, we like to both watch, and to be engaged in, a fair and close contest. It is the essence of good competition and sportsmanship. And I think it is why many people, myself included, react in a strongly negative way to anabolic steroid abuse (Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire) and cheating scandals (New England Patriots) and “flopping” in soccer (or Duke basketball!). Ill-gotten gains are tallied as losses internally, where it really counts. A certain amount of gamesmanship is tolerated or even enjoyed (Seve Ballesteros). In other cases, it skirts the boundary and depends on your perspective (The Jordan Rules, John McEnroe). But I think all of us are susceptible to crossing that line if given the right/wrong game, the right stakes, the right opponent, the right mind-set and conditions. I don’t think that it defines you as a person, but it’s good to recognize the signs when a game or sport is bringing out the worst in you and, rather than yoking us together in friendly rivalry, is actually causing angst and ill-will. That never happened with Sea Battle between Jeff and me. It was the perfect level of competition, replete with frequent laughter, light-hearted intensity, gentle taunts and short-hand expressions (he would usually ring me and say only this: “S’Battle?!”). Fantastic fun! And I would hazard a guess that our lifetime match-up summary would be in the 52-48% range. There we no fights or heated arguments. No haggling over rules to gain advantage. No tears, other than joyful ones. No money changed hands (golf is hard enough on your ego without adding a financial pressure… something lost on many dude-bros lamely trying to relive their high school glory years or posturing as high-rollers). I think the ideal competition is engaged at about the level of non-league bowling… or backyard badminton (maybe pickleball, which I haven’t tried yet but sounds promising)… or silly-season golf (more on that later). But the gold standard, for me, will always be Sea Battle!