Aristotle

Who has it better than us?

Does it get any richer for the sports fan over the weekend than two girls’ soccer games at the Parade Grounds in Brooklyn, pennant races, college football drama on Saturday, U.S. Open meltdowns on Sunday and uncomebackable comebacks against the best on Monday, and National Football League all day Sunday and two more on Monday night?

Nope. It’s all good (is that still the au courant saying?).

Mr. Del Porto, guns glistening in his sleeveless blouse in the Queens County September sunlight, somehow dispatched Mr. Federer, whose black sox may have undone him. Superstitious, I know, but these things have consequences. To my detriment on the golf course and elsewhere, I continuously rebel against Aristotle’s admonishment: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

There’s more, though. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. A defensive back makes a remarkable leap to slap an arching pass into the hands of a Denver receiver behind everyone who scoots to the score with seconds remaining.

But is luck, as Aristotle posited, the residue of practice? The defensive back did what he was trained to do and ended up costing his team the game. Should we teach him not to disrupt the play and allow the pass to take its course? Of course not. Can’t do it, as Mike Singletary would say. One must always try.