Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Dynasties can provide comfort

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, June 2, 1998 | 11:57 a.m.

AS I WATCHED the final game between the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers Sunday, I was acutely aware that I was alone among my peer group in cheering for the Bulls. Aside from my wife's reason for supporting Indiana -- Larry Bird is cute -- the anti-Bulls bias was best summed up by a friend who said, "I hate dynasties."

"I often root for the overdog," I told another friend.

"You're evil," he said.

If "evil" seems a harsh judgment to render in matters of basketball fandom, it indicates how ingrained our little-guy ethic is; it's what the country was founded on, after all. While dynasty-hating isn't a uniquely American trait -- dig that crazy French Revolution -- it is part of our national character. We may love a winner, but we can't resist pulling for an underdog.

Consider "Titanic." Part of its kick was that its backstory hit every stop on the continuum, from underdog (James Cameron as beleaguered, money-leaking director granted little chance of making it) to big winner (king of the world!) to the inevitable post-success enough-already phase, at which point it was OK to dislike Cameron again.

These days, the overdog-underdog process is complicated by the velocity of society: It's hard to be dynastic when culture reorients itself every nanosecond. Today's top dog is this evening's Trivial Pursuit question.

I think that helps explain my Bulls boosterism, which otherwise doesn't make much sense. I've never even been near Chicago, and while I buy all the yada yada about "best basketball player of all time," I don't want to be like Mike.

But I do like having him around. The Bulls' continued domination is oddly comforting in a world of interchangeable rap musicians, fluid economies and the Florida Marlins. I wasn't joshing my friend -- I do root for overdogs: the usually mighty Dallas Cowboys in football (when they're not playing my finally overdoggish Denver Broncos) and the Atlanta Braves in baseball (when they're not playing my Colorado Rockies).

It's a tendency I exhibited early; as a 14-year-old in 1976, I cheered on incumbent Gerald Ford because I liked the soothing notion of consistency at the top. Of course, I'm no longer that resistant to change, nor do I naturally extend my overdoggery beyond sports or even apply it rationally. I refused to watch when "Seinfeld" ruled the airwaves. As for the Kennedys -- America's royalty! -- they've been on my nerves for years. And I was overjoyed to see someone splat a pie in Bill Gates' face a few months ago. There's a difference between overdogs and overlords.

Alas, I'm not above a reactionary, Joe-Sixpackish contempt for certain presumptuous elites, would-be overdogs. I have a hard spot in my heart for Mensa, the haughty big-IQ group, which is why I relish this excerpt from the San Francisco chapter's newsletter:

A proposed dress code would require men attending Mensa events to wear shirts "with no tears, rips, holes, splotches or dirt." T-shirts "must cover the entire chest or stomach." Women's attire would be "the equivalent." The proposed hygiene rules are equally stringent: "If the smell of the person is noticeable ... they should not be admitted."

It's possible they meant it as a self-deprecating spoof, but as I've never met a Mensan with a sense of humor, I doubt it. Anyway, I prefer to think of them this way, large-brained but splotch-shirted, smelling funny, natural overdogs humbled by their own comic flaws -- no way they'll ever be like Mike.