02.08
Thoughts on sports and their different regional “flavors”:
I’ve always been interested in how different areas put their own twists on sports. A game played by the same rules can be played in totally different ways and interpreted in a completely different manner by different cultures.
But why? What is it about certain cultures that drives changes in the game?
A few years ago I noticed several articles that discussed a style of basketball being played in the American southwest by young Native Americans. Dubbed “Rezball“, it was basketball played at an extremely fast pace. According to ESPN.com,
Rezball is a smashmouth game of speed, aggression and stamina. Full-court presses and man D are applied relentlessly, but the transition game is the game. Guards often start a break after receiving the inbounds pass; set plays are rare. Rezball makes the 2007 Suns look like the 1995 Knicks. Squads with three guys taller than 6’3″ are rare, so even the short guys know how to play big, and all five positions boast guardlike handles and shooting skills. Watching the best teams will rivet you to your seat—from the way players improvise at warp speed to their sheer endurance and the dialed-in-but-carefree way they ball.
For some reason, Native Americans decided to add an extreme element of speed to their game. Granted, height is not a usual trait in Native Americans, so few teams would have the option to slow down the game by throwing the ball to a lumbering big man underneath the basket. But from what I know about Rezball, it is faster than the Philippines Basketball Association, a league known to impose height requirements to give domestic players a chance.
So why did the Native Americans tweak basketball in that way? Is running or sprinting a typical habit of the people?
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum is the southern style of professional wrestling, known in some circles as “rasslin’”. According to Wikipedia,
Rasslin’ – refers to a southern style of professional wrestling which emphasizes kayfabe and stiffness, with fewer squash matches and generally longer feuds. It was synonymous with the NWA-affiliated promotions. Rasslin’ included TV tapings at smaller venues, as compared to the larger and more well-known arenas utilized by northern U.S. promotions such as the AWA and WWF/E. The term is derived from a phonetic spelling of how the word “wrestling” sounds when spoken with a heavy Southern accent. It is also commonly used in a derogatory manner by non-Southern wrestling fans to describe that style of wrestling.”
(To be honest, although the description is correct, I have never heard anyone in Florida refer to it as “rasslin’”. Actually, due to the mixed population in Florida, I’ve been told the state is a very difficult place to wrestle in, because transplanted fans from different parts of the country look for different things in their wrestling performances.)
I’ve been told that “southern” professional wrestling is generally slower than its northern counterparts. In the definition above, “emphasizing kayfabe” means characters and stories have more of a role in southern pro wrestling matches. In order to build those stories and develop those characters, the action must be slower. No rapid, high-flyin’, biff-bang-boom-wham-bam-slam matches. In southern wrestling, each match tells a story and it is the story that is emphasized more so than the athletic performance.
So why is wrestling different in the South? What is it about southern culture that favors deliberate storylines over fast-paced action?
Having lived in the South for over 20 years, I can attempt to answer this. For the same reason country music is generally slower, and southern accents are not as fast as northern dialects, Southerners prefer a more laid back lifestyle. People are more spread out in the south and aren’t ingrained with the urgency of northern city folks.
There is also the notion that morals are more prevalent in the South. Whereas in the North, people are all jumbled together and no one knows which way is which, in the South, there are traditional codes of conduct – such as how a gentleman or lady should act. Pro wrestling storylines feed off of these ideas. Bad guys deliberately brake the codes of conduct and good guys get in the fans’ favor by giving these villains a helpin’ of fist-flyin’ justice.
Before I end, I would like to leave you with a few questions.
Questions: Could there have been at some point different nuances in baseball? Were there slight differences in baseball strategy when the game started its growth in America? Did southerners play a slower-paced game than northerners? Was the northern game the origin of homeruns and fastballs and the south the birthplace of off-speed pitches, setting up batters, and base-to-base offense? Could there have been a difference in regional pitching psychology? Also, was there a different style of game strategy in the Negro Leagues?
The best answers may win something from me, if I can think of a cool gift.
Jordi,
Excellent topic.
About the wrasslin’ I grew up as a fan of the WWF being a Yankee. I don’t know that the feuds were any shorter in the 80′s than in the south, but then again I can’t make the direct comparison. The only thing I ever noticed about the WWF was that Vince loved his big guys. So the smaller wrestler didn’t get the same opportunity as a less athletic giant. I’d also disagree that the code of honor exists only in the south. Frankly, I’ve always viewed the south as “Nice to your face, but talks behind your back” while my northern brethren we’re “F you to your face” but “had your back in a crisis.” Just look at New Yorkers whenever there is a major disaster, they band together like no others.
You’re regional points are great though. I remember having different wiffle ball rules between different neighborhoods. My cousins played “pitcher’s hand” differently than we did in my neighborhood on the other side of town. That led to plenty of arguments between 9 year olds about how stupid it was that pitcher’s hand applied to anything other than first base since you can’t tag out 3 guys at once. (See, I’m riled up already about that… OUR rule was the superior rule.)
I think if you take a look at the history of the Negro league you’ll find one where the players had to be faster and better than their white counterparts. I know that was the attitude of managers when the color barrier was broken. A black man had to be an All-Star, a white guy could get a couple of chances.
In regards to the big changes to the game though, I think free agency changed a lot of the “regionalism” that I didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with prior to the 1980′s. A team’s own guys won’t tip off their own pitchers if the pitchers have a tell, for fear that they might have to face the guy somewhere down the road. How counterproductive is that!? So if anything, the constant movement took what would have been a regional philosophy out of the regional and spread it around all of baseball.