So It Goes

Manny's Folly: Do We Really Care?

ANDY BOROWITZ has a funny piece today under the headline, "Angry Cleveland Indians Fans Demand Team Take Steroids."

"The national pastime suffered another black eye last night," Borowitz 'reports' in a spoof article, "when a mob of irate Cleveland Indians fans poured onto the diamond at Progressive Field to demand that their team take steroids.

"Displeasure with the championship-starved squad reached a boiling point with the news that slugger Manny Ramirez took performance-enhancing drugs -- but only after leaving the Indians."

Of course, Borowitz is playing off of the news that Ramirez, the L.A. Dodgers star outfielder, got hit with a 50-game suspension for testing positive for steroids. It's pretty big news given that Manny (or should I say Mr. Ramirez?) is a force on the field and, to put it euphemistically, an "iconoclast" off the field (go to this interesting profile of him in the New Yorker from a couple of years ago to see what I mean). But I don't feel the sort of breathless, end-of-the-world commentary about this scandal that I think characterized much of the public chatter when some other top baseball stars have been nailed with juicing themselves over the past few years.

Maybe there's a bit of steroid fatigue. Maybe we've just come to expect that everyone's doing it now and that, as the Borowitz spoof suggests, you'd be a chump not to.

Oh sure, there will still be those who will wax on about "the integrity of the game," the desecration of our one true civil religion, the psychological well-being of our children, and all that. I agree, and I, too, am disappointed. But some give our "national pastime" (well, some people's national pastime) a bit too much credit for saving and sustaining the soul of the American people.

It is just a game, after all, not an existential experience. (I pay $200 a seat plus another $500 for food and beer therefore I am.) Indeed, much as we will all hate having to wonder now whether the towering home run over the centerfield seats was real or "assisted," most of us still love the sight of it, don't we? Just as we love the acrobatic drive to the basket followed by the rim-rattling dunk; the violent, cruise-missile-like hit on the receiver down the middle of the field; and the bulging sprinter who shoots past the field toward the tape. We love being stunned by these feats even as we hate the bums for desecrating the sport.

Some of us love the punishing power and antics of professional "wrestling," even as we know it's all fake. Baseball and the other sports have not even approached the contrivance of the "smackdown" yet, and I still think most want to see a battle of the humanly possible.

But I have to believe that many of these naturally great athletes take then unnatural step of juicing their bodies not only because it gives them an edge (and shame on pro sports for not clamping down on this sooner, before it turned into an arms race, something that players felt they had to do to survive.) They do it, also, because they know it will please the crowd, which in turn will please the sponsors, which in turn will please the team ownership, which in turn will please the athlete and his agent at contract time.

I'm not saying that the guys who take the drugs and cork the bats are not responsible. They are. And, yes, there are plenty of majestic and exciting athletes who are clean (I think). But don't we secretly like what we see from the cheaters? Do we really care that they cheat?

Jeff

My Tuesday Nights Are Booked

I HATE TO SAY, BUT I MAY BE HOOKED on a new TV series. Last night the new series "Friday Night Lights," premiered, and I have to say that they're on to something.

The series is based on a movie which was based on a non-fiction book, which profiled how a Texas town obsesses about  high school football. You'd think that the political, business and civic leaders in town had nothing more important to worry about. The whole town literally closes on Friday nights when the games on are. The pressure on players and coaches to win is intense. The players, who are not even old enough to vote, are revered as great idols of the community. In the opening episode of the series, they they are even hit on (without success) by women older than their own mothers. Everything is sanctified by a prayer.

Kyle Chandler has landed one of the best fits of his acting career as the team's coach. He is the one who must shield the team (and himself) from the overblown expectations of the community and, at the same time, make sure they live up to them enough so that he keeps his job. He exudes cool charisma on the outside, which shields worry on the inside. This may be his most complex role ever.

In the first episode (which aired last night), the town (and viewers) are jolted to reconsider just exactly where football fits in the hierarchy of human priorities. It's a brilliant way to start the season, as it will keep viewers coming back. And it raises all sorts of interesting questions.

I grew up in a town where sports, especially football and basketball, were treated with similar reverence and hysteria -- though not quite to the extent that it is portrayed in this series (and, sadly, none of the kids I grew up with looked quite as good as the actors in the series). It often disgusted me that people would take these games so seriously. On the other hand, it did bring about real excellence. Several of our teams, including our football team won the state championship my senior year (I was on the team until my senior year, wouldn't you know, but I was not, how to say, a star player), and many of our other teams won championships and were competitive as well. That's good, too.

Unlike the town on "Friday Night Lights," I think there was ultimately a sense of perspective in my town, that sports wasn't everything. But it sure was amazing to me how so many people in town followed the progress of our teams even long after their sons and daughters graduated from the high school and with a fixatation that was a little too intense.

Anyway, for better or worse, I guess my Tuesday nights are booked.

Jeff

Paying Attention to the Big Hurt

JUST TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I'VE lost touch with what's going on in Major League Baseball, until I opened up the sports pages this morning, I didn't even realize Frank Thomas was still playing.

It's not that I wasn't paying any attention to the game. I was focused pretty narrowly on the progress of a few teams this season. But only in a few quick glances at box scores and at league standings.

But this morning I read that Thomas hit two homers for the Oakland A's in yesterday's 3-to-2 first-round playoff win over the Twins. You mean Frank Thomas? The former heart and soul of the Chicago White Sox? I thought he had been cast away and pushed out of baseball altogether.

No, at 38 years old he had a banner year for the A's, hitting 39 homers and 114 RBIs (not to mention a respectable .270 average), which will give him a few MVP votes and certainly make him everyone's pick for Comeback Player of the Year.

I can't tell how much this warms my heart. Thomas was at one time -- perhaps still -- one of my favorite players. Not because he was such a devastating and reliable power hitter, but also because he seemed to be such a great, clean-cut guy (of course, that was his public image, but I'll take that). He was endowed not only with a great athletic gift and public persona but also with a wonderful nickname, coined by the coiner of all nickname coiners, Ken "The Hawk" Harrelson, the White Sox's play-by-play announcer (and former major leaguer): The Big Hurt.

It's also poignant to see Thomas performing so well this year, especially in the post season, because of the great success of the White Sox last season. The White Sox was his team. He had been with them continuously since 1990, something that you almost never see from a player these days. Whether that was a sign of loyalty or a really good contract, it was a shame that Thomas sat out that glory year with a fractured foot, and it was even worse that he was dropped unceremoniously at the end of the season by the Sox organization.

For all these reasons, I'm watching and rooting for Thomas in this post-season. I'm paying attention now.