The Queen's Jersey

Jerry Seinfeld had a joke about modern sports.  He used to say that with all the players changing teams, "You're actually rooting for the clothes, when we get right down to it.  You're standing and cheering for your clothes to beat the clothes of another city."

It is only slightly broader than that.  Often you are rooting for your town, your home town, your roots, your sense of place.  That is why we cheer for our home town team long after we left.  In England your football team is chosen before you are born.  It's generational, it's human, it's mythic.

We saw two displays of it this weekend.  The first lasted four days, the second lasted four hours.

The four day weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee had everything British, from the Royals, the weather and the wave.

"Proud to be British" screamed the Telegraph, "All for one" cried the Metro, the television anchors were criticized for their giddiness,  the Daily Mail could be converted into a souvenir tea towel.

The four days were filled with pouring rain, cold temperatures, impenetrable crowds, concerts on the Mall, parties on a every street and one million people came out to see the Queen wave from her balcony.  Why do they do it? Country pride. It's their Queen, their heritage, their country, their team. And some day it will be another Royal, same jersey, different person.

Taking the Eurostar two and a half hours East and we found ourselves at Stade Roland Garros for the best match of the French Open.  But it didn't start out that way. At first the world's number one Novak Djokovic made quick work of hometown favorite and Frenchman Jo Wilfried Tsonga, who lost the first set six to one.  But then something happened that gave Tsonga the strength to push on until he had the world's number one down to his last point.  And that was the crowd.  They cheered every time Tsonga won a point, every time he took a drink, every time he got a serve in, every time Djok hit the ball wide.  On that day and that court everyone was French.

The enthusiasm for Tsonga was no different than that for the Queen.  They were rooting for their flag, for their colors, indeed, for their jersey.