GM,
Today's edition is just about people--people who are very different from myself, mind you. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than knowing you've pegged a person. On the rare occasions that I accurately understand the mentality of another person, I consider it an enormous moral victory. Let the stories begin.
STORY 1: On the road yesterday for work, I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. As I was walking from my car to the building, I noticed that a mildly obese woman was heading toward it from a different angle. I quickly realized I was moving much faster than she was and that I had a decision to make: "Should I hold the door open for this stranger who is clearly in no hurry to get there?" I decided to be a gentleman and hold it, but when I looked back to see how close she was, she was taking a breather! Again, this woman was mildly obese, not gargantuan. To me, the sight of a 200-pound woman bent over, struggling to breathe, in the middle of a 50-feet walk was perplexing.
STORY 2: I saw an Alabama McDonald's advertise an "Eg McMuffin" on the marquee. Did they lose the letter, or is that a subtle clue that what they're serving didn't come from a chicken at all?
STORY 3: For the second time this year, someone cut me off in traffic to the point of almost causing a wreck, and they promptly gave me the finger! I didn't even react poorly. I didn't have time to! Was this a preemptive maneuver? "Yeah, you're not gonna like that, bitch! And don't bother getting upset, 'cause here's what I got for ya!" Strangely enough, I told a friend about it, and he said the same thing has happened to him! Are they picking on us for driving Hondas???
-JW
JW,
Don't get me started on slow walkers. I lived for a few years in New York City, and while Chinatown was one of my favorite neighborhoods, I learned very quickly that extra time had to be allotted when visiting. Why? Because Chinese people have entered into a pact with one another to do the following things:
1) walk at less than half the speed of other races;
2) move in whatever the exact opposite of single file is.
As you know, the politics of passing people (your cutter-offer and finger-giver notwithstanding) are delicate at best. Hesitant to leave the sidewalk in favor of the busy street but unwilling to bust through the three inches of space between the walkers, I found myself enacting a parody of slow-walking just behind them, practically raising my knees to my chin at each step! Did I get some funny looks? Sure, but nothing compared the guy in the Kim Jong-Il T-shirt.
Sadly, walking too quickly has its consequences, as well. Like you, I sometimes hold doors for members of the opposite sex. I was doing so once at the top of a stairwell when the senior citizen to whom I was extending the courtesy ran to catch up with me. I suppose she didn't want to slow me down--after all, I'd already been standing there for two seconds. As she bounded forth, her feet abandoned her, and she fell to the stairs beneath. Hard. And then she slid halfway to the next landing.
The lesson, I think, is that politeness is passive-agressive at best, downright harmful at worst. Your guy on the road had the right idea.
-GM
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Erasing the Games
JW,
I read with dismay your claim in Friday's post that "as far as the NCAA and [the University of Michigan] itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen." Seriously, enough with the jokes.
After all, you can't possibly be arguing for the punitive value of the most ridiculous "discipline" in all of sports. You can't possibly believe that Michigan fans stopped celebrating their Final Fours when the verdict came down, or that Webber, Howard, and Rose felt any less proud of what they'd achieved. Yeah, the program took some hits several years later. Sure, they wiped away some records and took down a banner or two. But isn't it true in the end that the Internet is the real record book? That the banners hang in our hearts?
A stupid line, maybe, but not a false one. Consider, for example, the fate of my beloved Memphis Tigers, whose close call in 2008 remains the most vexing, intolerable moment of my sports-watching life. Take away Mario Chalmers' three and we're national champions, and I'm here to tell you that the NCAA could dismantle the program piece by piece (and they might) without altering my happiness one bit. A Final Four banner? A scholarship or two seven years from now? A season of postseason ineligibility? All would pale in comparison to that win.
Of course, my position is based on the assumption that college sports are hopelessly corrupt, and that college athletes are amateurs only to the extent that they aren't directly paid by the NCAA. Change that and I might sing a different tune.
-GM
GM,
I admit that I view the Fab Five differently than steroid pushers, and almost anyone would have to admit as much. On the court, Chris Webber, Juan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and that other guy (I never remember the other guy) were good enough to get to the Final Four two straight years. Maybe they wouldn't have been at Michigan were it not for the corruption, but it takes a greater mental stretch to deny them their accomplishments than it takes to deny David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez theirs.
I did mention Ben Johnson and Floyd Landis, and those are completely valid comparisons. Those guys probably won because they cheated, and they cheated. So the respective governing bodies thought it over and, without hesitation, stripped the sprinter and cycler of their awards. All of a sudden, though, because baseball doesn't operate with a clock and because nobody knows for sure which home runs were the result of the juice, some folks are willing to just ignore the offense altogether. I refuse to be in that camp, though. Can we safely assume that steroids provide unfair advantages for those who cheat and at the expense (in this case, a literal expense) of those who play by the rules? Yes. The penalties should logically follow. "Oh, you cheated? Yoink! I guess that trophy isn't yours after all."
When I watch baseball, I can usually manage to look past the fact that many of the players are cheating on their wives. I can briefly forget that they're making staggering, undeserved sums of money because fans don't know when to say no to absurd ticket prices and corporations get a kick out of see their names on ballparks. I want each swing to be real, though. I want to know which players are great, which teams are better, and who really is capable of amazing physical feats. Without that small assurance, we're just watching overpaid circus freaks run around a square.
-JW
I read with dismay your claim in Friday's post that "as far as the NCAA and [the University of Michigan] itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen." Seriously, enough with the jokes.
After all, you can't possibly be arguing for the punitive value of the most ridiculous "discipline" in all of sports. You can't possibly believe that Michigan fans stopped celebrating their Final Fours when the verdict came down, or that Webber, Howard, and Rose felt any less proud of what they'd achieved. Yeah, the program took some hits several years later. Sure, they wiped away some records and took down a banner or two. But isn't it true in the end that the Internet is the real record book? That the banners hang in our hearts?
A stupid line, maybe, but not a false one. Consider, for example, the fate of my beloved Memphis Tigers, whose close call in 2008 remains the most vexing, intolerable moment of my sports-watching life. Take away Mario Chalmers' three and we're national champions, and I'm here to tell you that the NCAA could dismantle the program piece by piece (and they might) without altering my happiness one bit. A Final Four banner? A scholarship or two seven years from now? A season of postseason ineligibility? All would pale in comparison to that win.
Of course, my position is based on the assumption that college sports are hopelessly corrupt, and that college athletes are amateurs only to the extent that they aren't directly paid by the NCAA. Change that and I might sing a different tune.
-GM
GM,
I admit that I view the Fab Five differently than steroid pushers, and almost anyone would have to admit as much. On the court, Chris Webber, Juan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and that other guy (I never remember the other guy) were good enough to get to the Final Four two straight years. Maybe they wouldn't have been at Michigan were it not for the corruption, but it takes a greater mental stretch to deny them their accomplishments than it takes to deny David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez theirs.
I did mention Ben Johnson and Floyd Landis, and those are completely valid comparisons. Those guys probably won because they cheated, and they cheated. So the respective governing bodies thought it over and, without hesitation, stripped the sprinter and cycler of their awards. All of a sudden, though, because baseball doesn't operate with a clock and because nobody knows for sure which home runs were the result of the juice, some folks are willing to just ignore the offense altogether. I refuse to be in that camp, though. Can we safely assume that steroids provide unfair advantages for those who cheat and at the expense (in this case, a literal expense) of those who play by the rules? Yes. The penalties should logically follow. "Oh, you cheated? Yoink! I guess that trophy isn't yours after all."
When I watch baseball, I can usually manage to look past the fact that many of the players are cheating on their wives. I can briefly forget that they're making staggering, undeserved sums of money because fans don't know when to say no to absurd ticket prices and corporations get a kick out of see their names on ballparks. I want each swing to be real, though. I want to know which players are great, which teams are better, and who really is capable of amazing physical feats. Without that small assurance, we're just watching overpaid circus freaks run around a square.
-JW
Friday, July 31, 2009
One More Steroids Story. We Know. We're Sorry.
JW,
I'll be the first to admit that the post-2004 Red Sox overdid things a bit. The bandwagon jumping, the movie, the simultaneous success of Boston's other franchises--all contributed to the fact that a lot of people I know are positively gleeful about yesterday's news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs the season before (and probably the season of) their championship. Forget the fact that the '03 and '04 Yankees were practically batting with giant syringes. The Red Sox are tainted, and we're reinstituting the curse.
Here's the thing, though: I just can't bring myself to care that the Sox were juicing. I watched every minute of that ALCS. Hell, I watched every minute of the Wild Card round and the World Series. Our twenty-five guys beat your twenty-five guys, period. I don't care if they did meth between innings. They won. I saw it.
Bear with me for a moment while I explain. More than any other game, baseball works on three distinct levels. Aesthetically, it's far and away the most pleasing of our major sports. Its sights, sounds, and smells are enshrined in the American experience, and while the fact of steroid use may offend our notion of purity (itself an absurdity), it doesn't change the perfection of the grass, the crispness of the uniforms, or the crack of the bat. Without the aesthetic beauty of baseball, the regular season wouldn't exist as a spectator event. The games mean nothing. Who would go?
Secondly, and most importantly for the purposes of our discussion, baseball works because we care who wins individual games . . . down the stretch and in the playoffs. As such, we're concerned about fairness. Or are we?! After all, it's no accident that the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't won the World Series since 1979. Consider the fact that the difference in 2009 payroll between the top spender (the Yankees) and the bottom (the Marlins) is over 164 million. In last season's NFL, by comparison, the spread was 68 million. In the NBA, it was 56. Simply put, the gripes of even a squeaky clean Yankees team would be nothing compared to those of the Milwaukee Brewers. They got outspent in 2004 by 155 million.
Finally, baseball works on a historical level. Even I'll admit that it's fun to sit around arguing about which era was more dominant, which players most clutch. Sadly, the very notion of comparing players from different eras is a fallacy. I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but factors like the historical game's racial barrier, the vast improvement in conditioning regiments, and the watering down of the leagues through expansion (to name just a few) have made inter-era comparisons ridiculous. Hell, forget inter-era. The ballparks are different sizes! What, exactly, are we supposed to be comparing?
Rather than parse our many asterisks, future generations (quite comfortable with their own performance enhancing drugs, by the way) may wonder what the big deal was. After all, athlete are no longer role models so much as emblems of the highest possible financial and cultural success. And success requires sacrifices. Even ones that make the rest of us a little queasy.
-GM
GM,
I don't care for your attitude. Let's get some things straight. One, steroids have been on baseball's banned substance list since 1991. Well, so was cocaine, but few would consider that type of usage to be cheating the game of baseball. So there's an argument that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds did nothing but break the law and that they didn't actually cheat. It's a poor argument, but it has a hint of legitimacy. It wasn't until 2002 that the slowest, weakest, most indecisive commissioner I've seen in my lifetime, Bud Selig, managed to begin penalizing players for positive tests. Even then, it was a joke, but there was no mistaking it--baseball's stance was that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was cheating, just like a spitball or a corked bat.
Ask Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, and the Michigan basketball program what happens when you cheat. All of a sudden, you didn't win! That's right! All of a sudden, there's some "retroactivity" in the bullpen. Not everyone on those Wolverines teams were cheaters, but as far as the NCAA and the university itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen. I have a problem with your "our guys beat your guys" attitude--starting with the fact that you have no reason to be a Red Sox fan. But I disagree with it anyway. They scored more runs, but if you cheat, and you get caught cheating, no matter when, you don't win. It's only baseball's stubbornness that prevents them from taking away Alex Rodriguez's 2003 MVP award. He was caught cheating that year! Imagine if the Tour de France rules committee said, "Floyd, we realized you cheated and that your cheating probably allowed you to win, but we're gonna let you keep your title." Would anyone ever, ever have reason to believe in the legitimacy of a race again?! Would they even keep watching???
I demand the same type of integrity from baseball (and demanding that baseball keep up with professional cycling's character isn't asking all that much). My respect and interest for the game has withered significantly--not because players tried to get an edge, but because the sport has repeatedly failed to drop the hammer. To my knowledge, no member of the 2004 Red Sox has a positive test from 2004. The same goes for the 2007 club. As soon as they find one, though, they're stripped of their title in my mind, and baseball should impose the same penalty. It is a big deal.
Finally, to answer your point about fairness, I'll talk to you like I would a liberal:
Not everything is going to be equal. Some people are dealt better hands than others. Let's look to be fair first, equal never. There is a difference.
-JW
I'll be the first to admit that the post-2004 Red Sox overdid things a bit. The bandwagon jumping, the movie, the simultaneous success of Boston's other franchises--all contributed to the fact that a lot of people I know are positively gleeful about yesterday's news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs the season before (and probably the season of) their championship. Forget the fact that the '03 and '04 Yankees were practically batting with giant syringes. The Red Sox are tainted, and we're reinstituting the curse.
Here's the thing, though: I just can't bring myself to care that the Sox were juicing. I watched every minute of that ALCS. Hell, I watched every minute of the Wild Card round and the World Series. Our twenty-five guys beat your twenty-five guys, period. I don't care if they did meth between innings. They won. I saw it.
Bear with me for a moment while I explain. More than any other game, baseball works on three distinct levels. Aesthetically, it's far and away the most pleasing of our major sports. Its sights, sounds, and smells are enshrined in the American experience, and while the fact of steroid use may offend our notion of purity (itself an absurdity), it doesn't change the perfection of the grass, the crispness of the uniforms, or the crack of the bat. Without the aesthetic beauty of baseball, the regular season wouldn't exist as a spectator event. The games mean nothing. Who would go?
Secondly, and most importantly for the purposes of our discussion, baseball works because we care who wins individual games . . . down the stretch and in the playoffs. As such, we're concerned about fairness. Or are we?! After all, it's no accident that the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't won the World Series since 1979. Consider the fact that the difference in 2009 payroll between the top spender (the Yankees) and the bottom (the Marlins) is over 164 million. In last season's NFL, by comparison, the spread was 68 million. In the NBA, it was 56. Simply put, the gripes of even a squeaky clean Yankees team would be nothing compared to those of the Milwaukee Brewers. They got outspent in 2004 by 155 million.
Finally, baseball works on a historical level. Even I'll admit that it's fun to sit around arguing about which era was more dominant, which players most clutch. Sadly, the very notion of comparing players from different eras is a fallacy. I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but factors like the historical game's racial barrier, the vast improvement in conditioning regiments, and the watering down of the leagues through expansion (to name just a few) have made inter-era comparisons ridiculous. Hell, forget inter-era. The ballparks are different sizes! What, exactly, are we supposed to be comparing?
Rather than parse our many asterisks, future generations (quite comfortable with their own performance enhancing drugs, by the way) may wonder what the big deal was. After all, athlete are no longer role models so much as emblems of the highest possible financial and cultural success. And success requires sacrifices. Even ones that make the rest of us a little queasy.
-GM
GM,
I don't care for your attitude. Let's get some things straight. One, steroids have been on baseball's banned substance list since 1991. Well, so was cocaine, but few would consider that type of usage to be cheating the game of baseball. So there's an argument that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds did nothing but break the law and that they didn't actually cheat. It's a poor argument, but it has a hint of legitimacy. It wasn't until 2002 that the slowest, weakest, most indecisive commissioner I've seen in my lifetime, Bud Selig, managed to begin penalizing players for positive tests. Even then, it was a joke, but there was no mistaking it--baseball's stance was that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was cheating, just like a spitball or a corked bat.
Ask Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, and the Michigan basketball program what happens when you cheat. All of a sudden, you didn't win! That's right! All of a sudden, there's some "retroactivity" in the bullpen. Not everyone on those Wolverines teams were cheaters, but as far as the NCAA and the university itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen. I have a problem with your "our guys beat your guys" attitude--starting with the fact that you have no reason to be a Red Sox fan. But I disagree with it anyway. They scored more runs, but if you cheat, and you get caught cheating, no matter when, you don't win. It's only baseball's stubbornness that prevents them from taking away Alex Rodriguez's 2003 MVP award. He was caught cheating that year! Imagine if the Tour de France rules committee said, "Floyd, we realized you cheated and that your cheating probably allowed you to win, but we're gonna let you keep your title." Would anyone ever, ever have reason to believe in the legitimacy of a race again?! Would they even keep watching???
I demand the same type of integrity from baseball (and demanding that baseball keep up with professional cycling's character isn't asking all that much). My respect and interest for the game has withered significantly--not because players tried to get an edge, but because the sport has repeatedly failed to drop the hammer. To my knowledge, no member of the 2004 Red Sox has a positive test from 2004. The same goes for the 2007 club. As soon as they find one, though, they're stripped of their title in my mind, and baseball should impose the same penalty. It is a big deal.
Finally, to answer your point about fairness, I'll talk to you like I would a liberal:
Not everything is going to be equal. Some people are dealt better hands than others. Let's look to be fair first, equal never. There is a difference.
-JW
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Aiming For a Fat, Free America
GM,
Now that the Democrats control absolutely everything in this country except local radio, it looks like there's an actual possibility that we'll see the day of federal fat taxes. Lucky folks like you and I had actual parents to limit our junk food intake, but, realizing that some have still not realized the dangers of excess calories, Uncle Sam may soon assume the role for the rest of the population. As I try to process this and determine which likely liberal motivation would aggravate me the most, I think of a few possibilities.
1. The social agenda to save the world from itself. I've heard the left utter phrases like "Some people don't know better" and "People of color are at higher risk for diabetes." While we're at it, why not institute a "didn't look both ways before crossing the street" tax? After all, it's dangerous, and if the citizen-appointed, self-expanded federal government can't guide us as individuals to common sense, who can?
2. To add fairness to the system. This is clearly the most noble. Perhaps some liberal is out there thinking, "Of course we need to socialize health care, but if we do, we better make sure the sicker people pay more." This can't be the primary reason for wanting a fat tax, can it? I thought the left preferred equality to fairness, so what's the point of socializing health care if we're going to hold people personally accountable for their actions?!
3. To raise $522 billion to "help offset the cost of Obamacare." Now here's a liberal agenda I can believe. Make up for unwarranted spending with unfair taxing.
Some are suggesting that companies, rather than consumers, pay a tax for producing fatty foods, which is even more offensive to any supporter of the free market. But regardless of who pays the initial tax, the cost will be split between the producer and the consumer, with the ratio depending on the steepness of the demand curve. To simplify, McDonald's will definitely effectively pass some of the tax onto the patron if it is taxed for making Big Macs. If it turns out, though, that Big Macs are like gasoline and will be demanded regardless of the price, it will pass almost all of that tax onto the consumer. It works the other way around too, assuming the feds tax consumption. This means people who were smart enough to take advantage of this nation's discipline problem won't be printing money anymore, and that's an
-JW
JW,
I'm torn between so many avenues of disgust, I hardly know where to begin. Yes, this nation is morbidly obese (see Mart, Wal), but just as laws can't make us moral, so taxes can't make us thin. We hear a lot about poverty these days, but the fact of the matter is that Americans are still wealthy enough to live almost entirely on nicotine and lard. Tax us all you want, but we're not going to stop smoking or eating burgers.
Sadly, this means that a new tax on junk food is probably the least of our worries. The next step will be
While I could go on about this at some length, I'd like to turn my attention to the abject stupidity of the American citizenry. My goodness! As recent polls have made clear, Americans believe overwhelmingly that "the quality of their own care [will] decline if the government [creates] a program that covers everyone." Yet the 69% of respondents who answered thus are joined by the 55% who think that Obama's ideas on the subject are better than anyone else's. Do they not know what he believes?! Are they so resigned to getting screwed that they're supporting Obama's plans over some unwritten, devilish alternative? Or, as I suspect, are they simply unable to understand the correlation between ideas? Or the economic fact of scarcity?
As always, Americans want full plates, free healthcare, low taxes, and endless choice. I predict we end up with none of those things.
-GM
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Not My Favre-orite
JW,
As you know, and as our readers have begun to guess, I’m a man of many contradictions. A (rebel) flag-waving Southerner, I dislike most Southern states. A college-educated twenty-something, I detest Barack Obama. A hearty fan of the political invention that was good ole’ boy George W. Bush, I roll my eyes at legitimate good ole’ boy Brett Favre.
Why the attitude? Perhaps it’s due to the potential ending of the Favre news-cycle-that-wouldn’t-die, a culture-defining moment on par with the lunar landing. Now that Favre seems ready to fade into the Mississippi sunset, I’m ready to declare something shocking. Excellence aside, I don’t particularly like the guy.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Disliking Favre is like disliking fireworks: You’re okay 364 days a years, but once every July you’re just an a--hole. Here’s the thing, though. Favre is one of those guys whose legend has so far outpaced his actual accomplishments, they’re barely visible in the rear-view mirror. Yes, he’s great. Perhaps he’s even in the discussion for best ever. But he’s disgustingly, almost religiously admired by all, and he’s been the subject of waaaaay too much sports journalism. In the end, doesn’t that outweigh the good?
Look, I know the overexposure isn’t all Favre’s fault. Al Michaels, John Madden, and the rest of the fawning cretins who’ve covered him for the past eighteen years are largely to blame, as are the ESPN producers whose Favre-watch marathons have turned the guy into the sports equivalent of Chandra Levy. He practically has his own Sportscenter logo, for heaven’s sake! All joking aside, you’ve got to admit that sportscasters’ love of Favre is the most self-referential love the world has seen since George Foreman named his sons. Consider, for example, the following praise, edited for clarity:
“Favre hasn’t missed a start in all this time [that I’ve been covering the league].”
“I just love [talking about] that guy [for money].”
“He’s such an ambassador for the game [because he’s always in the news].”
“Everyone’s going to miss him [until Tom Brady’s first game back].”
I could go on, but I’d only be contributing to the problem, adding to the trillion words that will be written about the man between now and his inevitable 2010-2011 comeback. So perhaps I’ll leave it at this. Favre will be remembered not for his records (many of which Peyton Manning will surpass) but for his endless, dreadful waffling. For someone who did everything on the field but over-think things, that’s pretty sad.
-GM
GM,
How much can one really like a professional athlete anyway? You might watch a guy and say, "Man, I love the way he hustles," or, "His athleticism is unbelievable," or, "I'd love to just sit down and have a few beers with him." In those ways, I suppose it's possible to like LeBron James, or Phil Mickelson, or Manny Ramirez, or Brett Favre. When it comes down to it, though, we know very little about these guys as people--well, individually at least. Collectively, though, we can all assume they suck. Think about it. These are people who have had their egos stroked and fed since they were children. Few societies offer social rewards like ours to athletes. Right now, there are thousands of high school quarterbacks who are being given every possible indication that they're better than their peers, and most of them won't even play in college. Imagine a kid with pro potential! Is there any way he's not being shaped into the most arrogant bastard in his county?!
So what's to like about Brett Favre? Well, he wears Wrangler jeans (the FTC requires spokespersons to actually use the product they endorse), has a Southern accent (which seems to go well with football), appears to have fun playing the game, is not a criminal, and looks like he's actually trying to answer questions candidly when the media ask them. These things alone have caused many to love the man. They have caused me to assume he possesses higher character than most of his league mates. But I never doubted that he thought a lot of himself--even enough to make entire cities hold their breaths while he took his time. To be honest, I'm going to miss the drama. It was the only saving grace for ESPN programming in July last year. No offense, Title Town, USA.
-JW
As you know, and as our readers have begun to guess, I’m a man of many contradictions. A (rebel) flag-waving Southerner, I dislike most Southern states. A college-educated twenty-something, I detest Barack Obama. A hearty fan of the political invention that was good ole’ boy George W. Bush, I roll my eyes at legitimate good ole’ boy Brett Favre.
Why the attitude? Perhaps it’s due to the potential ending of the Favre news-cycle-that-wouldn’t-die, a culture-defining moment on par with the lunar landing. Now that Favre seems ready to fade into the Mississippi sunset, I’m ready to declare something shocking. Excellence aside, I don’t particularly like the guy.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Disliking Favre is like disliking fireworks: You’re okay 364 days a years, but once every July you’re just an a--hole. Here’s the thing, though. Favre is one of those guys whose legend has so far outpaced his actual accomplishments, they’re barely visible in the rear-view mirror. Yes, he’s great. Perhaps he’s even in the discussion for best ever. But he’s disgustingly, almost religiously admired by all, and he’s been the subject of waaaaay too much sports journalism. In the end, doesn’t that outweigh the good?
Look, I know the overexposure isn’t all Favre’s fault. Al Michaels, John Madden, and the rest of the fawning cretins who’ve covered him for the past eighteen years are largely to blame, as are the ESPN producers whose Favre-watch marathons have turned the guy into the sports equivalent of Chandra Levy. He practically has his own Sportscenter logo, for heaven’s sake! All joking aside, you’ve got to admit that sportscasters’ love of Favre is the most self-referential love the world has seen since George Foreman named his sons. Consider, for example, the following praise, edited for clarity:
“Favre hasn’t missed a start in all this time [that I’ve been covering the league].”
“I just love [talking about] that guy [for money].”
“He’s such an ambassador for the game [because he’s always in the news].”
“Everyone’s going to miss him [until Tom Brady’s first game back].”
I could go on, but I’d only be contributing to the problem, adding to the trillion words that will be written about the man between now and his inevitable 2010-2011 comeback. So perhaps I’ll leave it at this. Favre will be remembered not for his records (many of which Peyton Manning will surpass) but for his endless, dreadful waffling. For someone who did everything on the field but over-think things, that’s pretty sad.
-GM
GM,
How much can one really like a professional athlete anyway? You might watch a guy and say, "Man, I love the way he hustles," or, "His athleticism is unbelievable," or, "I'd love to just sit down and have a few beers with him." In those ways, I suppose it's possible to like LeBron James, or Phil Mickelson, or Manny Ramirez, or Brett Favre. When it comes down to it, though, we know very little about these guys as people--well, individually at least. Collectively, though, we can all assume they suck. Think about it. These are people who have had their egos stroked and fed since they were children. Few societies offer social rewards like ours to athletes. Right now, there are thousands of high school quarterbacks who are being given every possible indication that they're better than their peers, and most of them won't even play in college. Imagine a kid with pro potential! Is there any way he's not being shaped into the most arrogant bastard in his county?!
So what's to like about Brett Favre? Well, he wears Wrangler jeans (the FTC requires spokespersons to actually use the product they endorse), has a Southern accent (which seems to go well with football), appears to have fun playing the game, is not a criminal, and looks like he's actually trying to answer questions candidly when the media ask them. These things alone have caused many to love the man. They have caused me to assume he possesses higher character than most of his league mates. But I never doubted that he thought a lot of himself--even enough to make entire cities hold their breaths while he took his time. To be honest, I'm going to miss the drama. It was the only saving grace for ESPN programming in July last year. No offense, Title Town, USA.
-JW
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
