PARIS—In sports, as in many other important aspects of life, there are good days and bad days. There are also really good days and really bad days. But it’s not just the level of goodness or level of badness that’s variable—you can have good seconds, bad minutes, good hours, bad weeks, good months and lousy centuries. (Sorry Cubs fans, I’m a sucker for Tom Petty.) Nobody knows why things go good or bad for extended periods of time, nor why they stop being good or bad. Hippies might tell you it has to do with karma, but they are hippies so forget what they said—I’m sure they’ve already forgotten what you just said. Wait, what was I talking about? Ah, yes. Runs of good and bad. In sport a period of extended goodness is called “being hot,â€? having “the momentum,â€? or, if your head is three times the size of your body and you’ve just scored two consecutive baskets, being “on fire.â€? When things go bad and stay bad, it’s called being “in a slump,â€? “scuffling,â€? or “I can’t believe he walked in a third runner with the bases loaded!â€?

In dire cases of things going bad, a monkey will actually climb on an athlete’s back, staying there and repelling all good things. It’s called—you guessed it—“having a monkey on your back.â€? (I honestly don’t know why they let monkeys loose in locker rooms these days. If I owned a franchise, I would put up a big sign up outside the locker room that said “No Monkeys Allowed!â€? And if a monkey came along and asked to be let into the locker room, so he could climb on one of my star player’s backs and make him lousy, I would just point to the sign. Unless, for some reason, the monkey somehow made our team better – but even that would be a short-term fix.) (Also, I don’t think you have to worry about this kid breaking any international swimming records in the near future.) About all we can say with relative certainty about hot and cold streaks is this: you have the momentum until you stop having it. And then it’s gone. Sounds like a Yogiism to me, but I actually nipped it from King Kaufman over at Salon. Who knows where King got one of his favourite go-to themes from? Certainly not from me. At this point you’re probably asking, “Where’s he going with this?â€? I wish I could tell you. But I can’t just now. You see, I’m on a roll with this whole momentum thing and I don’t want to stop in case … whoops, there it goes. Back to being ice cold.

Note: this weekend the Sportstrotter travels south of the equator for a three-week stint of cricket watching, rugby matching, beer drinking and big-game hunting in South Africa and Mozambique. OK, I won’t actually be hunting the animals while on safari at Kruger National Park, but sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get to watch the animals hunt themselves. Stay tuned and wish me luck in the all-species battle royale.

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Posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.