Rooting for the Little Guy

Halloween went extremely well this year.  My Little Mac costume was met with largely favorable results; as predicted, a lot of people (all of them men) got the Punch Out! reference and everyone else just figured I was a boxer, which was fine with me.  One guy asked me "which Klitschko brother are you supposed to be?" and someone else told me he loved "the De La Hoya costume," but overall it was a good night.  Much better than a few years ago when I went as Marty McFly from Back to the Future and everyone thought I was Tony Hawk (because of my skateboard prop).

Little Mac is one of my favorite childhood characters not only because he was the star of my favorite Nintendo game, but also because it was fun to root for the little guy.  I was always one of the smallest guys in my grade (and, height-wise, I still am), so I could always relate to the undersized athletes trying to do battle with opponents twice their size.  This got me thinking: who are my favorite little guys in sports?

Football: I'm a huge Wes Welker (5'9", 185 lbs.) fan, and respect the hell out of the guy.  The way he can run a route across the middle, take a hit from a linebacker that outweighs him by 60 pounds and manage to hold on to the ball is impressive.  The fact that he does it week in and week out and teams have yet to figure out a way to stop him is fascinating.  I'm not normally a big fan of anything even remotely Boston-related, but Welker gets a lot of respect for me.  The fact that he sports my number 83 is just icing on the cake.

Hockey: Richard Park is a fascinating NHL player not only because he's pretty small, but also because he's one of the few Asian-born hockey players ever to reach the NHL (he moved to Southern California from Korea when he was three).  As a member of the Islanders from 2006-2010, I saw Park take his share of hits, slashes and blocked shots.  While he was never the most talented player on the ice, he hustled as much as anyone else on the team and consistently produced despite his relatively-small size (5'10, 190 lbs.).  Unfortunately Park left the NHL this offseason to sign a contract with a team in Switzerland.  He'll be missed.

Basketball: Though he's moved on to the Boston Celtics, no one lit up Madison Square Garden in recent memory like Nate Robinson.  While he's best known for his show-stopping slams at the NBA All Star Weekend's Slam Dunk Contest (and in particular his dunks over Dwight Howard), Robinson is actually a very talented basketball player when his head's on straight.  He has the potential to be one of the better scoring guards in the league, and his athleticism gives him the potential to be a solid defender and rebounding guard, too.  Though it's been in a drawer for a while now, I'll never get rid of my green number 4 "KRYPTO-NATE" t-shirt.

Long live the little guys!