OJ Simpson is going to prison. In the minds of many it is a long-overdue assignment for a man that 
somehow managed to elude incarceration after overwhelming evidence suggested that he was responsible for the awful murders of his ex-wife and her friend back in the 1990's.
I am not an expert on criminal or legal matters but I was always of the opinion that based on the evidence he probably did it and that he was an extremely lucky man. His subsequent lifestyle and conduct made me feel increasingly irritated and resentful towards him. That being said, even I was surprised by the degree to which I enjoyed seeing him get sentenced recently. There is nothing particularly dignified about reveling in the misfortune of others especially when, in a situation like the Simpson case, it has been something of an ongoing tragedy, but there are times when it seems justified (or is at least easily rationalized) to take some pleasure from another person's fall.
Schadenfreude (defined by Webster as "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others")of this sort often goes hand in glove with sports and, for many, seems to be an essential component of being a "die-hard" fan. I have written elsewhere about my disappointment over Brett Favre's departure from the Green Bay Packers and I have taken absolutely no pleasure in seeing the meteoric rise of the New York Jets' fortunes since he became their quarterback. In fact I now find myself enjoying every sack or interception against him. I don't consider myself a "die-hard" Packers fan but admit I am infected by a sort of low-octane schadenfreude.
By a fluke of geography I find myself living on a kind of fault line of baseball fandom in Connecticut where the rivalry of the New Y
ork Yankees and Boston Red Sox might have its epicenter. Walk into any gathering of people here and it is likely that one will find an equal distribution of fans from both teams. What often defines the "die-hard" element among these fans is not their love of their own team but their resentment and even hatred of the other. I have witnessed (and walked away from) many a "discussion" between opposing fans where both parties engage in an escalating process of finding fault with the others team, stadium, fans, owners, history and so on without really advocating or saying anything positive about their own team! A friend once told me that if one is to be a true "die-hard" Yankees fan it is partially required that one resents, despises and wishes ill upon the Red Sox and takes pleasure in any and all misfortune that might have happened to them in the past or may befall them in the future. Boston fans presumably feel the same way about the Yankees. This rivalry phenomenon is neither limited to the Northeast or to professional sports; it sometimes has even deeper roots in college and high school competition where team-fan connections are even more personal.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the highly-successful manager of the world-famous Manchester United soccer club in England once described Britain as having a "mocking culture" and nowhere is it seen more clearly than in the British tabloid press. A few years ago in an important international match the goalkeeper of the English national soccer team made a costly blunder that resulted in a defeat. The next day the tabloids were merciless in their battering of the player and the memorable lowlight was a full page picture depicting him as a jackass with donkey ears and bucked-teeth. That was the supposedly "friendly" English press; one can only imagine what fun the other country's press made of it!
The adversarial, territorial and somewhat tribal nature of sports will always breed conflict and wherever there is athletic conflict there will be inevitably be motivation to root for our heroes to do well but it's debatable whether we like that as much as we love to see opponents mess up, struggle or fail. Perhaps this type of gallows mentality is precisely what sells British newspapers, even at the expense of its national team's image or reputation. The same can probably be applied to the recent case of New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico 
Burress who drew considerably less attention from the media for his Super Bowl heroics last year than he did for accidentally shooting himself in the leg at a New York night club recently.
The popularity of tabloid publications and TV shows suggest that it goes far beyond the realm of sports and that in the worlds of entertainment and politics there is an almost limitless appetite for celebrity misfortune and scandal. Whether we choose to admit it publicly or not most of us are probably guilty of enjoying a little schadenfreude once in a while; be it Simpson's conviction, a Favre interception; a wild pitch in Yankee Stadium, an Oscar winning actor arrested for DUI, an air-ball at the free throw line, an illicit celebrity romance, or a State governor arrested for trying to sell a Senate seat. The phenomenon is almost like a type of cultural junk food that we know isn't good to consume too much of but can be oh so addictively enjoyable, even in small doses.
How to take the high road and resist the urge to find enjoyment in others' troubles? Perhaps it's as simple 
as adopting and following the motto on the British Royal crest: Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense - Evil To Him Who Evil Thinks (except during Jets games!)
