What is common between Cricket, Baseball or Football? Confused!!! Don’t be. The answer is simple. All these have religious followings in different parts of the world with Football (or Soccer as they call it in the states) ruling the majority of the globe. Cricket attains the top spot in the sub-continent regions while baseball does so in North America but shares it with Basketball and American Football. I am sure all of you are familiar with one of these or some of the other sports atleast. But that’s not the question I want to talk about in this blog. It’s a much deeper topic than that. What I would like to ask is, what is about sport and not any particular sport but all sports in general, that makes them so appealing to the masses that it sometimes crosses all boundaries of crazy and normal at times. If you don’t know what I am talking about then perhaps you need to attend an el classico or maybe a game between Celtics and Rangers or any game in a South American League. Trust me you have no idea how crazy even crazy can get. Over the years people have time and again said “It’s just a game!” But is it? If yes then what justification is there for all the craziness? That’s what I want to find out through this blog. So lets focus our attention to the most basic question “Why so much passion?”, “What makes sports so special?” The answer to the latter will hopefully satisfy the first question as well. I think the reason sports appeals to so many people is because it is a flat out competition between two individuals/teams and as humans it is in our nature to appreciate competition and to reward the victor. But more than that it is a story of hope because only in sports can it happen that an underdog on any given day can come out of the closet and defeat the giant. This is so reassuring to so many people because it gives them strength in their real lives. This is the reason that people who do well on the field are idolized and many times worshipped because they are shining examples that anyone on any given day can be the best. These sports icons come from all walks of life but they share their passion and their determination with each other. Sport has time and again proved to be bigger than barriers such as national boundaries or caste or religion. When India plays Pakistan in a cricket match, it does not matter whether you are a Hindu in Pakistan or a Muslim in India; you are always right behind your team. Every time during the FIFA World Cup, there is frenzy in India with people picking their teams. It’s not because our team is not there and we are trying to fill their void with someone else. It’s more to do with the fact that we appreciate what the likes of Messi or Ronaldo mange to pull of during those 90 minutes and it gives us a sort of happiness. This is the happiness of knowing that we have seen something special. That special thing is not just the putting of the ball in the goal but the fact that people like us were faced with opposition they somehow found the way to be successful. In sports there is a famous saying that goes as “Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t”. This is as close to real life as it can get. It goes on to show that sometimes even despite your best efforts things don’t go your way. You have to accept this fact and move on because you will get another chance to prove yourself and what happened today would act as a motivation to better next time. If nothing a defeat teaches us more than what a victory would. In this sense, sports are a miniature representation of life itself. For me, this is the greatest that anyone can teach us and nothing does this better than sports. Give a defeated man some hope that everything will turn out alright and that is the greatest gift you can give him. To those who say sport does not matter and that it is insignificant who wins on the field, I beg to differ from you. I would like to turn your attention to the night of April 2nd, 2011. The venue was any street in any city of India. The scenes were totally similar in all parts of the country. People were dancing; people were celebrating the fact that India won the world cup. It did not give them any financial benefit or they had not won an election. Yet they celebrated like they had. There is no way to put their feelings into words. Why they partied when a bunch of 11 men and a handful of other support staff won another tournament is a question for you to find your own reasons for. But if you were to tell me or any one of those millions of people that it did not matter, I don’t believe you because I know it did. I saw that it did. If you cannot appreciate sports atleast appreciate what it stands for.