"What's a Tie, Daddy?"

The other day my nine-year-old son asked, "What's a tie, Daddy?" A tie? What's a tie? He was referring not to a fashion item, but to an even final score score in sports. Initially flummoxed, I recovered by saying, "A tie is when the final score in a game remains even, like 2-2." My son, an otherwise observant and astute little man, did not possess the concept of tie in his capacious brain because in North American major league sports a tie score is rare. Overtime has replaced what was once the final outcome after regulation time. If two teams battle to a tie in hockey, basketball, football and, of course, baseball, they must resolve the deadlock with an overtime period, inning and/or shootout. This is not quite true, as NFL regular season games can remain tied after overtime. However, as these tie matches are few and far between, my son may never have witnessed one. Why is it that ties are no longer acceptable? Even in soccer, the world's most popular sport, matches can remain tied during the regular season. I can understand the necessity of tie-breaks in the playoffs, but what compels us to determine a winner of a regular season game? My inference is that North American society cannot abide the irresolution of a stalemate because of our increasingly Darwinian nature. There must be winners and losers; "tie-ers" are verboten (the word doesn't even exist). The terrorists must be defeated. We cannot accept that two teams played equally well. One team must be better; one team must be worse. One army must win; one army must lose. Like Newtonian physics, for every winner in society, there must be "an equal and opposite" loser. Ties were part of a kinder, gentler age, when sportsmanship and the quality of the match counted more than the outcome. The old adage "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" is no longer common parlance. A tie score is wishy-washy, namby-pamby; it is not acceptable in our winner-takes-all, Malthusian world. This is a shame, as tie scores say to humanity: "Ultimately, we can respect one another's will to play as well as possible without necessarily determining a winner and a loser." The simple concept of bringing back the tie in North American major league sports has far-reaching implications for restoring civility. But who's going to buy this? It's too late. Overtime is here to stay; ties are passé. "Whatever you do, son, do not walk away from a tie score."