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02.04.07
Not Dark YetDespite all appearances to the contrary, I have not abandoned this blog. I’ve just been busy, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. However, with the Super Bowl coming up tomorrow, and Peyton Manning’s smiling mug staring out from the top of the fold, I want to be clear about one thing: like Atrios, I am rooting for the Bears.
Update: Lance Mannion chimes in with an important reminder: Rooting for the Colts is not the same as voting Republican 01.22.07
Manning Up I’ve hated Peyton Manning for a long time. Despite his obvious talent, his meticulous game preparations, and his field-commander mentality, Manning’s line-of-scrimmage gesticulations and last-second audibles have always seemed a little too showy, a little too self-important, for my taste. His effectiveness during the regular season has never been in dispute, but Manning has often crumbled in the playoffs. And when he has crumbled, he has blamed everybody but himself for his team’s losses. He put his unique brand of sulky arrogance on display last year, when, in a stunning breach of football etiquette, he blamed his offensive line — the very group of roughs charged with protecting his million-dollar arm — for a playoff loss. Even his television commercials are offensive. In one ubiquitous MasterCard spot, for instance, Manning cheered on insurance adjusters, accountants, and supermarket deli workers as they went about their jobs. The intent, I suppose, was to parody the ridiculousness of sports-hero worship, but the commercial came across as an insult: ultimately, the ad reinforced the idea that most of our lives are not worthy of the reverence we reserve for guys like Peyton Manning. My list of grievances goes on and on . . . I disliked the fact that, years ago, Manning disparaged Mike Vanderjagt not just for being an idiot, but also for being a kicker (as a former soccer player, I have a soft spot for NFL kickers who, it seems to me, get saddled with enormous amounts of pressure while receiving little respect). I didn’t like the way that Manning handled the situation, even if Vanderjagt had it coming. All of this explains why I found myself surprised, last night, to be rooting for Manning’s Colts to come back from a 21-3 deficit against the Patriots. And what a comeback, what a game, it was: a pitched battle between two longtime rivals that came down to the last minute of play. In the end, I was happy to see Manning win one for a change — not because I dislike dynasties, but rather because, against all odds, I had come to Have I gone soft? Did I simply fall prey to the habitual American instinct to root for the underdog, for the guy who has been kept down for too long? Perhaps. Or, perhaps it just seems to me that I’ve been a little unfair to Manning, and that it’s finally time for him to win the championship that he so desperately desires. I’m glad, at the least, that he has put himself and his team in a position to win it. But if the Colts lose the Super Bowl, and he turns on his teammates again, all bets are off. Update: Upon reflection, I’m not sure that I’m ready to go with “like.” “Sympathize with” seems like a more accurate description of what I was feeling as I watched the game. 10.29.06
In Memoriam: Red Auerbach (1917-2006) I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Red Auerbach. But it seems that even more important than his legacy as a winning coach is his legacy as a progressive one. From the New York Times obituary:
Auerbach coached the Celtics to nine N.B.A. championships, eight of them consecutively from 1959 to 1966. He built another six championship teams as the Celtics’ general manager and oversaw a final one, in 1986, as the team’s president, a position he held at the time of his death.
[. . .] Auerbach was also a pioneer in race relations. In 1950, his first season coaching the Celtics, he chose Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University as the first black player selected in an N.B.A. draft. In the 1963-64 season, the Celtics became the first N.B.A. team to start a game with an all-black lineup: Russell, K. C. Jones, Sam Jones, Tom Sanders and Willie Naulls. When Auerbach named Russell as his coaching successor, it was the first time a black had become coach of a major American pro sports team. More from Boston.com and The Boston Globe. 09.27.06
Under PressureT.O.’s attempted suicide has many of us scratching our heads. It’s hard to know what to make of it. But it has been obvious, for a long time, that T.O. is a troubled man. On WIP, Philadelphia’s sports-talk radio station, mid-day hosts Anthony Gargano and Steve Martorano have done an impressive job of framing the issue and discussing it in a responsible way. After interviewing several psychologists who spoke about bipolar depression, they asked former Eagles player Hugh Douglass whom T.O.’s friends were when he played for the Eagles. Douglass mentioned that Jeremiah Trotter was his closest friend, but said that even Jeremiah was not that close to him. Today, it seems to me that T.O.’s famed hyperbaric chamber is an apt symbol of his troubles: isolated from his teammates, T.O. lived under the constant pressure of media scrutiny. He courted that scrutiny, and in some ways seemed lost without it. But he wouldn’t be the first person who sought the look of the cameras because the alternative — standing alone in his room and looking at his face in the mirror — scared him. Let’s hope that he’s able to get the help that he so desperately needs. Update: Owens refutes report, says he didn’t attempt suicide. Dan Le Batard believes him; I’m not sure what to believe. 09.18.06
ABC: Always Be Closing“There are, uh, uchhmm, some strategical things I should have done different.” – Philadelphia Eagles Coach Andy Reid, after yesterday’s ridiculous loss to the Giants
I’m sick and tired of Andy Reid’s muffled throat-clearings and half-swallowed phrases. The Eagles looked like a Super Bowl contender for three out of four quarters yesterday. They need a coach who will show them how to finish. ‘Cause coffee’s for closers only. “Get mad, you sonuvabitches, GET MAD!!!!”
UPDATE: The BM Rant has a nice recap, if you can stand to read it. 09.13.06
Unmaking an American MythAwash as we are in mass-media memorializations of 9/11, all tied in propagandistic fashion to the never-ending War on Terror, it’s surprising to find a mass-market sports magazine, Sports Illustrated, providing one of the most incisive and subversive takes on the construction of national identity, myth, and memory.  In an extraordinary article titled Remember His Name, which appeared in the September 11, 2006 issue of SI, Gary Smith recounts the life of death of Pat Tillman, the iconoclastic football player, Army Ranger, and thrill-seeker who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Smith sets out to breathe life and personality back into the myth of Pat Tillman. He also provides a story about a story, a cautionary tale about the ways in which the political need to make Pat Tillman’s death fit the imperial narrative of martial sacrifice demeaned the ideals for which the man himself strived. Thanks to the members of his family, who have refused to be silenced by military brass, most of us have known the truth behind Tillman’s death for some time. But what makes this piece remarkable is its ability to convey that truth — and Tillman’s fiercely independent personality — to a wider audience. As Smith points out in the last paragraphs of the story, facing Tillman’s death, and his life, honestly is about the least we can do to honor his service. Although the piece is in some ways apolitical, its implications are obvious. The piece casts deserved blame on the Bush Administration and the U.S. military for their repeated cover-ups of the real cause of Tillman’s death, but also points toward larger problems with our political speech that have been very much on view in recent days during our nation’s remembrances of 9/11. If Pat Tillman’s story teaches us anything, it’s that the symbols being used so callously by politicians of all stripes — but most often and most callously by the current administration — to promote war and extend political power represent a contemptible misuse of human lives that borders, in the end, on fascist propaganda. Whether the subjects at hand are Pat Tillman, Private Lynch, or the victims of the 9/11 attacks, we need to find a way to deconstruct the political mythology driving our country deeper into this endless, losing war. This article, in a mass-market sports magazine, is a start. But there is a long way to go. 08.03.06
The Full MoonKing Kaufman, Salon’s sports columnist, is dependably excellent, especially when he writes about the third rail of professional sports in America: race. When I interviewed him last year for this blog, I asked him why the issue of race resonated so strongly with him. He responded:
I’m a white guy who makes his living writing about athletes, many or most of whom (depending on the sport) are black. And they make their living performing for crowds that are mostly white, and are covered by a media dominated by white people, such as me. Just that set of circumstances alone is tangled and fraught enough to take a lifetime to figure out. Add in that sports have traditionally been both at the vanguard of minority advancement and lagging far behind the mainstream. Think of the black jockeys and boxers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, etc., and also of the still painfully slow integration of front offices and coaching ranks in some sports, or the whole native American nickname and mascot thing.
 Photo courtesy of NCAAIn today’s column (click through the ads to see it), King addresses another aspect of that slow process of integration when he highlights the fact that Warren Moon is about to become the first black quarterback inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. King finds that some sportswriters are minimizing this fact, because it highlights the racial struggles Moon went through during his career:
He had to listen to racist taunts from the stands as a high school and college player. He had to go to junior college because college coaches didn’t think blacks could play quarterback. He had to go to the Canadian Football League because NFL coaches didn’t think blacks could play quarterback.
What I can’t get over is that Warren Moon is only six years older than I am, and we grew up in the same city, and it wasn’t in the South. He led the University of Washington to the Rose Bowl in 1978, before the Huskies became Pasadena regulars. He dominated the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos. And then, as a 27-year-old rookie — about five months younger than Jackie Robinson was when he made his long-delayed major league debut — Moon started an NFL career that lasted 17 seasons. You couldn’t watch Moon, athletic and strong-armed, play quarterback at Washington and not think he at least had a chance in the NFL. He went undrafted not because teams didn’t think he could play in the league, but because he’d made it clear he only wanted to play quarterback. His longtime agent, Leigh Steinberg, has said Moon probably would have been a third- or fourth-round pick if he’d agreed to play some other position. This isn’t how the NFL, always ready to bend history to suit its purposes, seems to remember it. In his column on NFL.com, Gil Brandt, the longtime director of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, writes, “Moon, at just under 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, was an athletic blend of fast legs and a strong right arm. It just took the arm a little longer to get there. And that’s what made Moon so difficult to scout as a college player … and probably why he had to go to a J.C. and to Canada to prove his talents to those at the next level.” (Ellipsis his.) Yeah, Gil, sure. That’s probably why. That a forty-nine year-old man has just become the first black quarterback in the Hall of Fame is a measure of how far we have to go. As King notes, the first step towards getting there involves an honest look back at Moon’s career. Update: This post reminded me of an earlier one about an Asian college player trying to make it into the league: Racism in the NFL. Timmy Chang, the subject of that piece, was picked up by the Eagles last year, but sent off to play a season in Europe. He may get his chance this year as a third-string backup to Donovan and Jeff Garcia. He’s currently on the roster. 07.18.06
Pre-1990 Sports Card PortraitureEliot Shepard, who runs the acclaimed photoblog Slower.net, has come up with an absolutely brilliant idea: a flickr group dedicated to the art of Pre-1990 Sports Card Portraiture. So often, we miss what is right in front of us; I looked at baseball cards throughout my youth without registering them as photographic objects. Perhaps that was due to their ubiquity or to my age; or, perhaps, I’m not “slower,” only slow. Good photographs often perform a defamiliarizing function: they make the things we know seem strange and uncanny. And therein lies the wonder of Eliot’s idea: once you consider the commercial portraits on baseball cards as art, you’ll never see them the same way again. If you have some cards lying around, I encourage you to take them out and view them with new eyes. From the wild hairstyles to the unkempt mustaches to the sometimes penetrating stares of the players, old sports cards offer a veritable treasure trove of overlooked pop-culture art. Here is my first contribution to the group:
. . . and here is a set of all the cards I’ve uploaded. 07.12.06
The Spectacle of ZidaneZinedine Zidane’s headbutt of Marco Materazzi has become something of a Rorschach test. In the face of his rash and perhaps inexplicable act, we pass judgment and attempt to find meaning. But, in the end, our accounts of his behavior reveal more about ourselves than they do about the incident itself. The snarky fan of pop culture greets the headbutt sarcastically, seeing it as an opportunity for cheap laughs. The reserved soccer purist hails it as tragedy, and bemoans the disgraced end of Zidane’s career. The French-leaning fan awaits explanation — one that will come, apparently, later today. [update: here it is] And the fan of the beautiful game rues the violence of the act, and condemns Zidane for a moral and ethical failure. Of all these reactions, I find the last one — made in this case by Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise (though she is certainly not alone in her assessment) — to be the most grating, because it abstracts the incident from the specific context in which it occurred. Although one might be hard-pressed to get Americans to agree, soccer is a violent sport. As fans, we tend to see the shoves, pushes, elbows, and spikings that routinely occur during games as aberrant acts, distateful sidenotes to the “real” action on the field. But much of the game, at least on the professional level, involves that kind of physical contact. There is a game within the game, and it is one that all soccer players play: how much physical contact can one get away with without being called for a foul or receiving a card? Like it or not, moments of brute violence are part of the fabric of the sport. Was Zidane’s headbutt so different from other acts of violence in the sport that he should be singled out for failing as “a captain, a sportsman, and a human being”? Think of Wayne Rooney stepping on Renaldo’s groin. Or think of a subtler foul — Peter Crouch’s goal against Trinidad & Tobago. Take a look at the video. Was Crouch’s violent hair-pull categorically less violent than Zidane’s headbutt? Or was it only less visible, less dramatic? The difference, I think, has more to do with the position of the spectator and the nature of the spectacle than it does with the moral worth of the players involved. To condemn Zidane as a human being is to turn a blind eye to the true nature of the game as it is played, rather than as it should exist on some Platonic level of existence. Update: Here’s a terrific response to Lindsay’s posts, by Helmut at Phronesisaical, that addresses them on a philosophical level: Some thoughts on verbal taunting and violence. Helmut writes:
My own view is that verbal taunts come in different forms and of varying severity. The distinctions are ethically significant, but drawing an ethical boundary between what’s severe and what’s not is a very difficult matter. So is drawing an arbitrary line between verbal insults and physical response. In Just War Theory, we talk about the question of proportionality. Usually this refers to the severity by which an aggressive act is countered, and the moral requirement not to respond out of proportionality to the aggressive act. The Iraq War, for instance, is all out of whack in regard to proportionality and thus the political need to exaggerate the severity of the initial threat. In general, however, proportionality is difficult to gauge - if you hit me in the face and I kick you in the crotch, is my act proportional? They are different acts, for sure. If you say something heinously racist at me and I shove you, is that proportional? How about if a daughter or wife suffers years of terrible, degrading verbal abuse, suffering psychologically as a consequence, and finally reacts by killing the father or husband?
If we’re using a notion such as proportionality to think about the relation between verbal abuse and physical reaction, it’s simply unclear that there are not proportional degrees of verbal abuse and physical violence. Lindsay wants to draw a clearcut line there by abstracting from context. This move works only in the cool confines of the academic classroom. Go on and read the rest. 07.09.06
The Reviews Are In!
“An astonishing act of impudence and unsportsmanlike conduct!”
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