Staggering Ubiquity

Trivia question. If I were to ask you what Lamont Sheets swears he invented in the 1960s, would you know the answer?

How about if I asked you what the 1980 Lousiville basketball team made popular? Still don't know?
One last question. Dusty Baker and Glenn Burk (both of Los Angeles Dodgers fame) are often credited for introducing what gesture into Major League Baseball(There is a lot of argument between Lamont Sheets and Baker/Burk over this)?

Did you get it right? If you did, high five! Did you get it wrong? If you did, the answer was the high five. To all three questions. Minds blown.

Clearly, I have a thing for high fives. Some people might say "Uh, hell yeah you have a thing for high fives. You have an article about them on the wall of your office." That's true, it's from "Sports Illustrated" and it's titled "The Methphysical Significance, Staggering Ubiquity, and Sheer Joy of High Fives" written by Chris Ballard.

I have also went to a store where books are free as long as you return them(The sign said "Library") and found actual studies(Now, with science!) that show teams that make more physical contact (i.e. high fives, fist bumps, arm bashes, and hugs) tend to have higher winning percentages.  Insane stuff, insane enough for me to write my college psych paper on the topic.

Below is quot I fell in love with but now I'm not sure if it really works great here.  It should be noted that this post was first drafted on June 3rd, 2011 so I don't remember my idea for the quote but it's still good.  Deal with it haha.

"It shows your brotherhood out there. It's beautiful man, in a way I think it's it's what the game is all about." -- Anonymous quote about high-fives, cuz I can't remember who said it and Google didn't help.  I think it was Chauncy Billups though.

Snap back to reality (Oh, there goes gravity, Oh there goes Rabbit...).  High five's are everywhere in sports, and life in general.  Turn on any Major League Baseball game and watch a guy come into the dugout or out onto the field at the announcing of the lineups, it's a stunning display of elaborate high fives, going under, over, and around, for every guy on the line, there seems to different "handshake" or high five.

The NFL, when players come out onto the field, they run a gauntlet of teammates, both hands out, high fiving everyone on the team before meeting one or two players at the end and going into some crazy "handshake".

The NBA, well, maybe there not really high fives, more like elaborate touching and shimmy-ing all around (Like me on the dance floor, right ladies?).  What I'm saying it's all over sport.  I meant to say sport, it's a word, it works there.  Don't be thinking I made a grammatical error.

Then you can look to the stands at games, strangers high fiving strangers after a goal, touchdown, home run, big play, anything really.  The fans are a community, living and dying together with every moment on the field.

Then there's the out-of-sports high fives, which are what I love to do.  I'll high five anyone from my ninety-two year old Grandmommy or my little baby cousins when I'm teaching them how to "Gimme five", "Slap skin", or "Take the Five train to Slapsville"....wow.  That's what I wrote.

So why do I love high fives?  Well, I love the sound (Try this, get your hand a little bit wet and high five someone with a dry hand for a more epic noise, and some pain), but I think the main reason I love them is they are almost an universal sign of "Hey, you're alright in my book."  You never high five someone you're mad at do you?  No.  You high five people who are in your corner, the teammates on the rec softball team, fellow fans of your team, the guy next to you at Mission Control when you land a Mars rover (Like I said, this post has been in the works for a long time), or the guy at the bar who's leaving with the hottest girl in the joint.

And just one last fun random note, I come from a giant Irish-Catholic family, and I have high-fived everyone innit ("Everyone" being those from 2005 onward) except two, and I'm gunning for them hard.  Need a nice, natural high five.

So this was a years worth of editing and writing....I hope ya'll liked it haha.