Radiolab: "Games"

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Air Date: August 23, 2011
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Main Theme:
This episode explores why games have such a profound emotional impact on us, the roles they play in our development and culture, and how stories, rules, competition, and the love of the “underdog” intertwine within the world of play. The show weaves together personal anecdotes, psychological research, and iconic sports moments to understand what makes games—across all forms—matter so much.

Episode Overview

The episode begins with a personal story highlighting the emotional turmoil caused by a favorite team’s playoff loss. From there, the hosts and guests examine why we care so deeply about games, analyzing the tension between order and creativity in play, the universality of rooting for underdogs, and how games mirror core aspects of human experience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Emotional Power of Games

• Eric Simons' Hockey Fan Devastation
  • Eric, a lifelong San Jose Sharks fan, describes how a playoff loss left him strangely angry at the world:

    “That’s embarrassing. The fact that these guys I don’t know lost a hockey game in Dallas has the power to override everything I think I like about myself.” (06:00)

• The hosts reflect how commonplace it is for sports fans to have outsize emotional reactions to seemingly trivial events.

2. Family, Identity, and Hero Worship

• Stephen Dubner’s Childhood Fandom
  • Dubner, best known as the author of Freakonomics, recounts how his father assigned each child a different baseball team, making fandom a personal, almost sacred inheritance.
  • When Dubner’s father died, he repeatedly dreamt of playing football with his hero, Franco Harris, but always being handed the ball for the final, decisive play:

    “He couldn’t win the game for me, but he was on my side and he wanted me to win.” (29:10)

  • Meeting Franco Harris as an adult, Dubner realizes the ultimate lesson:

    “No one can save you but yourself...everybody’s gotta be their own messiah.” (40:00)

  • Dubner argues that sports hold “immeasurable value” because they act as safe proxies for life’s conflicts—“war where nobody dies.” (41:40)

3. Games, Rules, and Creativity

• Allison Gopnik on Play and Child Development

  • Gopnik explains that children’s play progresses from pure imaginative invention (like pretending to live on the moon) to highly rule-bound activities (e.g., freeze tag).

    “Games that stick are the ones that let us experience the world in both those ways at the same time.” (48:00)

• The Stagnation of “Book” Games

  • Brian Christian and chess analyst Fred Friedel describe how games like checkers, and increasingly chess, have become so studied that “the book”—the exhaustive catalog of recorded moves—can kill creativity.
  • In chess, grandmasters sometimes play entire games from book, but the crucial moment comes when neither side has a script and genuine novelty is possible:

    “You have a position which has never occurred before in this universe. Ever? No, in the universe.” (1:00:00)

• Chess as Infinite Possibility

  • The sheer number of possible chess games surpasses the number of atoms in the universe, ensuring endless opportunities for creativity—unlike checkers, which has been nearly “solved.”

4. Games as Story-Generating Machines

• Good games offer drama because their rules, chance, and skill generate unexpected narratives—moments “which have never occurred in the universe.”

• Sports and Zero Moments

  • Hosts cite iconic plays—like Larry Johnson’s improbable four-point play (Knicks vs. Pacers, 1999) or Wayne Gretzky’s airborne goal—as examples of previously unimaginable moments.

5. Why We Root for the Underdog

• The Universal Pull

  • Dan Engber, Scott Allison, and Nadav Goldschmidt discuss research showing 80-90% of people instinctively prefer the underdog, whether it’s a sports team, a political candidate, or even a struggling geometric shape:

    “You can get people emotionally reacting to a geometric shape...you're pulling for it. 'It's gonna be like Rudy.'” (1:17:40)

  • Theorized reasons include maximizing emotional payoff, a desire for fairness, or simple identification—since “to be a living thing is to fight against the odds.”

• Murakami’s Egg and the Wall

  • Referencing novelist Haruki Murakami’s speech:

    “Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg...No matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg.” (1:26:20)

6. Why Some Cheer for Favorites

• Malcolm Gladwell: Defender of Winners
  • Gladwell describes his visceral pain when favorites lose unjustly, stemming from empathy and a “deep distrust of luck”:

    “It is the injustice of the person who should win, not winning. That is the most exquisitely painful situation to be in.” (1:31:00)

  • He admits: “There's an unflattering interpretation—maybe on some deep level I think of myself as a favorite, not an underdog.” (1:34:30)

7. The Ultimate Underdog Story: Two vs. Five

• The North Jackson High Miracle Game
  • Pat Walters tells the story of a 1992 Alabama high school basketball game where, amid foul trouble, a team finished with just two players against five—and won.
  • The town is electrified; national news outlets run the story.
  • Despite the victory, life moves on: neither hero finds long-lasting change, and the fairy tale doesn’t endure. Yet, for a moment, they achieved the impossible.
  • Years later, one man is in jail reflecting on that moment, another is a single father:

    “Even though it was just that one moment...I just feel like I’m happy. Got healthy kids. I get to see them every day. If I was to die tomorrow, I’m happy with my ending. It ain’t over.” (1:52:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fandom’s Intensity:

  “Burn down in flames. Like, that's embarrassing. The fact that these guys that I don't know…turn me into this drooling, savage, angry beast.” —Eric Simons (06:40)

• On Games as a Gift and Escape:

  “Sports fandom is a fantastic gift with almost immeasurable value…It’s a proxy for real life, but better. It’s war where nobody dies.” —Stephen Dubner (41:40)

• On the Value of Games:

  “You have a position which has never occurred before in the universe. Ever? No, in the universe. Not in the history of this universe.” —Fred Friedel on ‘out of book’ in chess (1:00:40)

• On the Power of Story and the Underdog:

  “If there were a novelist who for whatever reason wrote works standing with the wall, what value would such works be?” —Haruki Murakami (1:26:20)

• On the Aftermath of an Epic Moment:

  “Nothing happened. By the end of the school year, people stopped calling, and the story just kind of faded away…It just was over.” —Pat Walters (1:51:10)

• Embracing Your Own Ending:

  “I might not be in the NBA or whatever, but…I’m happy with my ending. Got healthy kids. I see them every day. If I was to die tomorrow, I’m happy with my ending.” —Chad Cobb (1:52:10)

Key Timestamps

• 00:42 – Emotional power of sports fandom (Eric Simons)
• 09:45 – Stephen Dubner’s family and fandom
• 19:54 – The Immaculate Reception: Dubner’s hero worship/dream
• 25:10 – Loss of Dubner’s father and recurring dream
• 36:25 – Adult encounter with Franco Harris and the limits of hero worship
• 41:40 – The value of sports as safe conflict
• 48:00 – Gopnik on children’s play and the two modes (imagination vs. rules)
• 55:10 – Checkers and the problem of “the book”
• 1:00:00 – Chess, novelty, and the infinite midgame
• 1:08:20 – Games as story generators; baseball’s mini-dramas
• 1:13:30 – Dan Engber's underdog dilemma and psychological studies
• 1:26:10 – Murakami “egg and the wall” parable
• 1:31:00 – Malcolm Gladwell: why some people root for favorites
• 1:39:10 – North Jackson two-on-five basketball story begins
• 1:46:00 – The miraculous finish: two players beat five
• 1:51:10 – Reality of the aftermath: not every fairy tale sticks
• 1:52:10 – Final reflections; “happy with my ending”

Summary Takeaways

• Games matter because they create the space for us to experience deep emotions, creativity, and community under the safe constraints of rules.
• We almost universally root for underdogs, reflecting an innate hope that the world can be fair, or at least occasionally surprising—it’s a narrative we need whether we realize it or not.
• Play is both order and chaos; rule and invention; destiny and surprise.
• Sports, in the end, are not just contests—they are story machines that reveal who we are, what we fear, and what we hope for.

Radiolab’s “Games” reminds us that beneath every buzzer-beater or chess move, whether in triumph or everyday struggle, lies a universal search for meaning, belonging, and the chance—however fleeting—to write something new into the world’s story.