Sidelines: Election day a sports event? It might as well be

Call me crazy. I like election day.

The whole election season, really. No, I don’t like the mailbox-stuffing. And the barrage of online and TV ads. And this year, I don’t like that it’s taken on such a nasty, rancorous tone (the vast majority of it coming from, oh, what’s his name…the red hat guy. Doesn’t like the Postal Service.)

But the race? And the day? You bet. I like the intrigue, the anticipation, the stakes. It’s all I want to talk about with people. I follow it as closely as I do the Super Bowl, The Masters or any Game 7 in a World Series, Stanley Cup or NBA Finals.

Which makes sense. Because election day is, in essence, a sports event.

No, there’s no physical component to it, of course. Joe Biden and Donald Trump aren’t going to be running dashes or playing each other 1-on-1 up and down a basketball court (amusing as that would be). But when it comes to the other criteria that makes up sports as we know it, election day has those boxes checked (or circles filled in, if we’re being consistent with the analogy).

Sports has winners and losers. So does the election. Sports has a running score. So does the election. Sports makes predictions based on numbers. Just read “Moneyball.” The election does too. Just read FiveThirtyEight.

Sports has gameplans, comebacks, favorites, underdogs. The election? True, true, true and true.

Sports has blowouts and down-to-the-wire games. And every four years, so does the election.

When you’re watching a candidate trail early and wonder if he or she can rally late, it’s similar to watching your basketball team fall into an early hole and wondering if your star player can lead a rally. When a candidate loses a must-win state, it’s like watching a trailing football team give up a late touchdown.

“Ooh, they couldn’t afford that. That might just do it.” You can say that in both cases.

Watch on Tuesday and see for yourself. Biden will win a state or Trump will win a state, jump into the lead and you’ll hear the excitement in the voices in the studio and feel the tension start to rise. The only other way you get that is by watching sports. Or going through another re-watch of “Breaking Bad.”

Even the punditry sounds the same. Some analysts will say the key to the election is the enthusiasm of Trump’s base, while some will say the race comes down to Biden’s ability to flip states. It’s like if the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers were playing, and some analysts picked the Steelers because of their aggressive defense and others went with the Seahawks and their electric offense. Or when the Boston Celtics played the Miami Heat in the playoffs, and the debate came down to Boston’s edge in talent or Miami’s advantage in depth.

In all three cases, it boils down to the same thing: There’s a contest, here’s who will win, here’s why. And then comes the day where you see who was right and who was wrong. That’s sports, and that’s elections.

And that’s the part that fascinates me every four years. I like the game that’s at the core of all of this, both sports and the election. I like the chess match of making moves and responding to what the opponent does, and I like the unveiling of the results over the course of the night. I like the contest.

In sports, you can discuss, analyze and predict all you want leading up to the game, but you never know what will happen until that day. And it’s the same thing with the election.

We don’t know what will happen once the numbers start rolling in Tuesday. And if you’re a sports fan, that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for.