We Cheer for the Underdog

     I really like baseball. Because I'm from Georgia and I'm a glutton for punishment, I've always been a big Atlanta Braves fan. They won tonight. On a walk-off homerun, at that. That's beside the point...While reading some forum discussions online and hoping that someone else thinks the Braves have a chance at winning the division, I noticed that several baseball "experts" often referred to the Braves as the "David" of baseball. In sports, as well as many other areas of life, a big struggle between two seemingly mismatched sides is almost always called a "David and Goliath" showdown.

Most people, I think, have a general idea of the story of David and Goliath, but I'll summarize it briefly. The Philistines were squared off against the Israelites. For 40 days their greatest champion, a man said to be over nine feet tall, came out and heckled the Israelite camp. The Israelites, including King Saul himself, were terrified of the hulking man. No one dared venture out to accept his challenge. A young teenager, David, was sent out by his father Jesse to check on his older brothers who were with the Israeli encampment. David sees all of these men cowering before this enemy and is disgusted: "26 And David said to the men who stood by him, "What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (1 Samuel 17:26). David will not be cowed.
     It takes him a little while to convince King Saul to allow him to do battle with the Philistine, but when he finally does, David kills him with a rock and a sling and then decapitates him with Goliath's own giant sword. He had faith that his peoples' God would see him through to victory, despite his very obvious disadvantages.
     Allusions to this story in 1 Samuel appear in so many different areas of life: a local hardware store trying to compete with a brand name department store; a team like Jacksonville State beating Ol' Miss in football; the outnumbered and outgunned 13 colonies banding together and facing down the British Empire. All of these things are sometimes talked about as "David and Goliath stories," where there's an underdog that just doesn't have a chance, yet somehow manages to win out against nearly insurmountable odds. We love the underdog. We love to see Goliath humbled and brought low. Thanks to the story of the unwavering faith of David, we have something to call it when the underdog wins.

http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/davidandgoliath.htm