Sea Hunt

When I was a kid I watched a show called Sea Hunt. It starred Lloyd Bridges (more recently of Airplane! fame Airplane! ), and it was all about this guy Mike Nelson (Bridges) who spent most of his life underwater, scuba diving for this and that, and somehow narrating all the while for viewing landlubbers like me. Amazingly, he never got winded.
 
Occasionally, though, Mike would meet up with some meanies deep down and have to suspend narrating while he slugged it out with them. If things got really serious they'd wrestle around and try to uncork each other's oxygen regulator, or, if a knife presented itself, they'd simply cut their opponent's oxygen hose sending the soon-to-be airless airborne toward the surface. (How to Defend Yourself In The Event Of An Underwater Carrot Fight)

I was reminded of those Sea Hunt imbroglios two nights ago when I attended my first ever water polo match, here in Eger. As I mentioned in an earlier post, water polo is big news in Hungary, and huge news in Eger, where, to put it bluntly, it can be said of the Eger Waterpolo Club (Egri Vizilabda Klub), We're Number One! Yes, "we" are Hungary's number one water polo team. I cannot gauge what that actually means, what an achievement it is to be number one in Hungary, because I don't know how many other teams there are to be number one over. Suppose there are only two teams?

Anyway, I arrived about a half hour before the match began, to an already pretty well full and buzzing arena. Bad western "psyche" music thumped while the sports announcer, stricken by the same affliction suffered by most sports announcers -- delusions of grandeur -- bellowed into the p.a., welling up a sliding baritone and stretching syllables to their breaking point, sure in his heart that he was entertaining, an audience treat.

Competing with the announcer, behind a banner that read "Egri Ultra," a highly animated support group whacked their bleachers in unison and sang loudly in what I guessed was either a championing of our Eger guys or a Bronx cheering of their opponents.

The teams, oblivious to all that was swarming above them, as professionals should be, warmed up in their respective ends of the pool, passing around the ball, testing their goalie, swimming the pool's width alternating between quick short sprints and more "leisurely" strokes. I emphasized leisurely because if I had tried to keep pace with their leisurely strokes I would have had one myself, and Mike Nelson would have had to come rescue me as I sank like a stone to the pool's bottom.

Electronic time clocks counted down at each of the pool's four corners, and when those timers reached zero, the teams donned their caps, huddled up, and, apparently exchanged strategies and exhortations at their respective goal. Each team then took to its back line while the ball was placed in a floating donut anchored at mid-pool. Suspense permeated the arena as the match was now cocked.

After what seemed like a mini-eternity the referee blew his whistle, firing each team on a not-at-all-leisurely dash for the ball.

When the thrashing stopped Eger had outdashed their opponents, and the crowd erupted in applause: it was going to be a good night! A jó éjszakát!

Like most sports, waterpolo strategy isn't rocket science. Basically, it follows this flow of events: When your team has the ball, your team swims the length of the pool and tries to put the goal past the other team's goalie while those on defense try to stop you from doing that. Then, when the defense gets the ball and goes on the offensive, tactical objectives reverse. It's like soccer, only waterlogged.

Here is what must be said for the players: they are in great shape, and are able to do things in the water that most of us can't do on dry land -- their ability to pass and catch the ball with precision, for one. Particularly catching -- to see them snatch a whipped, wet ball so sure-handedly while treading water, one might suspect them of velcroed palms and fingers.

Or, when the defensive players, the goalie in particular, sense that the opposing team is about to take a shot, they kick their legs in such a way as to launch themselves out of the water nearly the height of their torsos, freeing their arms, and they just kind of hold that position until a shot is fired.

The part I liked best, and understood least, however, was the game within the game, where, for reasons I couldn't determine, two opposing players would suddenly drag each other underwater and apparently try to drown each other. There would be a lot of thrashing and churning at the water's surface, and occasionally limbs of some kind would break out of the water momentarily before submerging again. The crowd would go wild at these lock-ups, ignoring the actual match still being played. After a few seconds of attempted murder both combatants would come up for air, each looking tremendously aggrieved, each appealing to the referees for justice. True Solomons, the refs ignored them both and signaled to play on. 

I wondered if, in the history of water polo, any player successfully drowned his opponent, and if so, were charges brought, or was it like fighting in hockey, where it's just part of the sport. Good clean fun. Not really criminal behavior.

Come to think of it, those water polo tussles are very much like a hockey fight, except that hockey feeds our blood lust with lots of punches and, well, blood. We see it all, get to see it all. In water polo, though, all that good stuff takes place under water, below the ice, in comparative terms, and so, by virtue of its visible inaccessibility, the violence seems to lose a lot of its appeal. In other words, from the audience's perspective, as the customers paying for the entertainment of the match, what's the value of two guys trying to kill each other if you can't actually see them? Is this what I laid out all those forints for, just to see roiling water? I began to feel cheated. That is why, I was later told, it is better to watch water polo at home on tv, as underwater cameras do catch that action, every choke and gouge and yank and attempted de-Speedoing (and worse).

It seems to me that Hungary's number one team needs a little Jerry Jonesing, Jerry Jones being the owner of the Dallas Cowboys who, in his brand new stadium, installed above the gridiron a video screen the size of a football field, so that the fans can get a much improved look at the game than they will ever see from their seats. Eger needs that kind of Jerry Jones vision (some despise his brand of ownership. I think he's a genius. How else do you describe someone who gets season ticket holders to cough up a minimum $800 per game to come watch a steroidal TV?). We need to have a big screen in the arena where we can watch the real action, Greco-Roman drowning, just like we saw on Sea Hunt.

Eger prevailed, maintaining its first place position. As far as I could tell, no one on either team drowned. Having tasted of my first water polo match, my take on it is that while I admire the athletes, I don't much care for the sport, especially when the best part, the homicidal dunking, is beyond view. Sure, watching some guys score a bunch of points can, I suppose, be exciting. But watching two guys fight for their lives, that's drama! That's what Sea Hunt had, and what water polo, for now, until we get the big Jerry Jones screen, lacks. 
Eger (White Caps) Wins The 2009 Hungarian Cup