There is a scene in the movie Cinderella Man in which the hero Jim Braddock’s character confronts a New York sportswriter who had written some nasty things about him when he lost a championship bout early in his career. Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, recounts the sportswriter’s words, which included this closing line:
“… A sad and somber funeral, with the body still breathing.”
Although the mood at today’s White Sox game—the home finale for the season—was not necessarily sad and somber, it was bittersweet, and it was most certainly a funeral with the body still breathing. Barring an unprecedented collapse by the Minnesota Twins this week, the White Sox will join the ranks of teams that failed to make it to baseball’s postseason the year after winning the World Series. This situation has been a long time coming—as of Sunday the Sox were 30-38 since the All-Star Game—and nearly 3 million fans paid for the privilege of watching it all unfold. The Indignant Citizen was among those fans, for 13 games, anyway.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Sox were supposed to win it all again this year and prove they weren’t just a one-hit wonder. This was supposed to be a dynasty, overseen by players with good contracts: not too long, not too expensive. Instead, they teased us. They cast off some of last year's players that were considered expendable (center fielder Aaron Rowand) or dead wood (pitcher Orlando Hernandez) and brought in exciting new faces (designated hitter Jim Thome and pitcher Javier Vazquez).
None of it quite clicked, though, not the same way it did last year at any rate. Not that the team stunk up the joint. Sure they lost some games they should have won, but plenty of good teams go through funks. These guys just never managed to put it all together at the same time. When the pitching was on, the bats disappeared. When the runs piled up like bribe money at city hall, the pitching imploded. The result was a mediocre season with winning streaks that occasionally conjured the old magic and that was punctuated with magical plays that we all felt would be “the turning point.” None turned out to be that point, though, and as often as not the Sox followed up big wins with emotionless losses, often to the same team they had demoralized and embarrassed the night before.
A season of that led to today’s contest, the last home game of the year, against the Seattle Mariners. Although the scoreboard announced the crowd at 37,518, at least 10,000 seats were empty. After all, the Bears were on and looking to go 3-0 on their young season. They are going to the Super Bowl, Bubba. Screw the White Sox. But the fans who went to the Sox game saw a good one. The Sox won 12-7 behind good pitching by Freddy Garcia, two home runs by Paul Konerko, a home run by Joe Crede, one by struggling Brian Anderson, and a grand slam by the streaky Juan Uribe. There were lots of fireworks and a nice video montage tribute after the game. The team stuck around after the final out to acknowledge the fans, who gave them a standing ovation and loud cheers.
But unlike last season’s final game, when the cheers were meant to propel the team into the final week of the regular season on the road, and on to the Central Division title, Sunday’s cheers had a strong “thank you and see you next year” feel about them. Some of the players won’t be back. Scott Podsednik is probably gone, so is Freddy Garcia, possibly Javier Vazquez, maybe Joe Crede. . . . This is what happens to teams that fail to repeat, or even make the playoffs, after winning a championship. They get broken up. Old pieces get shipped off and new pieces are brought in. This is professional sports.
And next year, long about February, the White Sox will again begin pushing their ticket packages. Nine games, 13 games, season tickets. The Indignant Citizen likely will not be among the buyers next year. Three years of planning summer weekends around baseball is enough. Last year baseball seemed like the most important thing in the world. This year, not so much. There are more important things, better ways to spend time. The Indignant Citizen is still a Sox fan, he always will be. But he will catch his games in person less frequently next season. Baseball will be background noise, not the main attraction.
There is a big city out there, lots of things to do and see. Many things to write about. There will be less time for baseball, less time for the White Sox. But they will understand. Hopefully they won’t even notice the Indignant Citizen isn’t there. Hopefully they will be too busy winning.
It’s true what they say. There IS always next year. That is the magic of sports. And the magic of life is that there is always tomorrow, there is always this afternoon, there is always next hour, there is always the next word; there is always another opportunity to do it just a little bit better than you did it before. Seizing those opportunities separates the contenders from the also-rans. It is the difference between the playoffs and a long off-season; between fulfillment and frustration.
We were, of course, talking about the White Sox, not about Life, and the two are not synonymous, or analogous. So since the Sox’ season is effectively over, and since the home fans had a chance to acknowledge the end in person today, it seemed appropriate to eulogize the season. But what to say? They didn’t really “give it their best,” nor did they “valiantly come up short.”
No, in order to turn disappointment into hope, we must look ahead, not backward. So in that spirit: “Next time around, boys. Next time around.”
Monday, September 25, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Unsafe From Any Angle
Monday marks five years since those treacherous bastards exceeded their own hopes and everyone else’s fears by bringing down the Twin Towers. These milestones—one year, five years, 10 years—are arbitrary, but unavoidable. The media make sure of that. One year since Katrina, five years since 9/11, and what difference does any of it make? One year on or five years, the stark realization is the same: nothing has changed.
Well, it isn’t that nothing has changed. The Indignant Citizen can’t take a bottle of water or an electric razor, or toothpaste on an airplane. In order to get into an ordinary office building these days you have to empty your pockets and pass through a metal detector that still beeps if you’re wearing a nice belt. And 2,658 U.S. soldiers have died fighting an endless war against a vague enemy in the sands of a country that isn’t a country anymore and that had nothing to do with either 9/11 or Katrina. And don’t we feel safer for all that?
Shit, the Indignant Citizen thought he could never feel more unsafe than standing on the Brooklyn Promenade, with the smoke and flames from United 175’s plunge into the South Tower of the World Trade Center billowing overhead and the echo of the twin concussions still echoing in the Wall Street canyons across the river. The Indignant Citizen was wrong. Because actually now things feel very unsafe. Despite all the security precautions we’ve taken, despite all the Jersey barriers we’ve plunked down around Important Sites, despite all the times we’re required to show identification, despite all of it, isn’t it just a matter of time before some other wing-nut blows up something else here, killing even more people?
Really, what’s to prevent an explosives-laden truck from pulling up outside the Indignant Citizen’s office building in the Loop? Or plowing into a department store, or a mall? The Indignant Citizen could show three forms of identification and be subjected to a strip search and a rectal exam just to order a Big Bacon Classic at the Wendy’s and none of it would keep some band of unhinged Jihadistas from taking out a couple hundred elementary school kids in Wheeling with a few automatic weapons and some grenades from the surplus store.
Meanwhile our goofy president goes on TV and tries to convince us that we’re safer because we had some bad guys locked up in secret and probably illegal prisons in foreign countries, where we most likely tortured them to get them to tell us what they know. We have no way of knowing for sure whether any of it worked or not, we can only take the goofy president’s word for it, since none of the proceedings are public, nor any of the information.
The Indignant Citizen will be in New York on Sept. 11 this year. This was not planned, things just worked out that way. Barring some other catastrophe between now and then, he expects to find a city functioning very much as it did on Sept. 10, 2001, and very much the way the rest of the country functions today. As traumatic as Sept. 11 was five years ago—and make no mistake, it was a gut-wrenching event at the time—it turned out to be a blip on the radar screen for most people.
Whatever feelings of community and patriotism we felt broadly in the days and weeks after 9/11 have faded amid the constant drumbeat of war and the increasingly vapid and ridiculous culture we are building for ourselves, a culture in which the death of an entertainment figure who wrestles crocodiles can knock off the front page stories about how the Taliban are enjoying a resurgence in Afghanistan. Oh, remember the Taliban? Remember Afghanistan? The War on Terror and all that? It’s so easy to forget, what with all the stories about new oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico that could supply U.S. demand for all of one to three years.
In case you’re interested, there’s a little story in USA Today about how unprepared the U.S. is for its next catastrophe. Well, unprepared in a response sense. We’re certainly prepared in a viewership sense. Hundreds of TV stations are ready to send reporters and cameras toward the danger at a moment’s notice, to feed our visual stimulation addiction.
Then, once again, we can look at the pictures and say how terrible it all is, how everything has changed now. And this time we’ll mean it. Really.
Well, it isn’t that nothing has changed. The Indignant Citizen can’t take a bottle of water or an electric razor, or toothpaste on an airplane. In order to get into an ordinary office building these days you have to empty your pockets and pass through a metal detector that still beeps if you’re wearing a nice belt. And 2,658 U.S. soldiers have died fighting an endless war against a vague enemy in the sands of a country that isn’t a country anymore and that had nothing to do with either 9/11 or Katrina. And don’t we feel safer for all that?
Shit, the Indignant Citizen thought he could never feel more unsafe than standing on the Brooklyn Promenade, with the smoke and flames from United 175’s plunge into the South Tower of the World Trade Center billowing overhead and the echo of the twin concussions still echoing in the Wall Street canyons across the river. The Indignant Citizen was wrong. Because actually now things feel very unsafe. Despite all the security precautions we’ve taken, despite all the Jersey barriers we’ve plunked down around Important Sites, despite all the times we’re required to show identification, despite all of it, isn’t it just a matter of time before some other wing-nut blows up something else here, killing even more people?
Really, what’s to prevent an explosives-laden truck from pulling up outside the Indignant Citizen’s office building in the Loop? Or plowing into a department store, or a mall? The Indignant Citizen could show three forms of identification and be subjected to a strip search and a rectal exam just to order a Big Bacon Classic at the Wendy’s and none of it would keep some band of unhinged Jihadistas from taking out a couple hundred elementary school kids in Wheeling with a few automatic weapons and some grenades from the surplus store.
Meanwhile our goofy president goes on TV and tries to convince us that we’re safer because we had some bad guys locked up in secret and probably illegal prisons in foreign countries, where we most likely tortured them to get them to tell us what they know. We have no way of knowing for sure whether any of it worked or not, we can only take the goofy president’s word for it, since none of the proceedings are public, nor any of the information.
The Indignant Citizen will be in New York on Sept. 11 this year. This was not planned, things just worked out that way. Barring some other catastrophe between now and then, he expects to find a city functioning very much as it did on Sept. 10, 2001, and very much the way the rest of the country functions today. As traumatic as Sept. 11 was five years ago—and make no mistake, it was a gut-wrenching event at the time—it turned out to be a blip on the radar screen for most people.
Whatever feelings of community and patriotism we felt broadly in the days and weeks after 9/11 have faded amid the constant drumbeat of war and the increasingly vapid and ridiculous culture we are building for ourselves, a culture in which the death of an entertainment figure who wrestles crocodiles can knock off the front page stories about how the Taliban are enjoying a resurgence in Afghanistan. Oh, remember the Taliban? Remember Afghanistan? The War on Terror and all that? It’s so easy to forget, what with all the stories about new oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico that could supply U.S. demand for all of one to three years.
In case you’re interested, there’s a little story in USA Today about how unprepared the U.S. is for its next catastrophe. Well, unprepared in a response sense. We’re certainly prepared in a viewership sense. Hundreds of TV stations are ready to send reporters and cameras toward the danger at a moment’s notice, to feed our visual stimulation addiction.
Then, once again, we can look at the pictures and say how terrible it all is, how everything has changed now. And this time we’ll mean it. Really.
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