Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue. -Moliere

I am the proud owner of a blue iPod mini that I received as a Christmas present in 2004. Now every time I use it, I feel like Josh Baskin toiling away on his turn-of-the-century Macintosh. The reason for this being that I’m reluctant to invest in a new iPod until I know for sure that an even better one won’t hit the shelves 40 minutes later. 

Similarly, I’ve been biting my tongue on the almost comical sequence of Yankees plights because I know it’s only a matter of time before a new chapter is added to the ever-growing anthology of controversy.

Seeing as in the last month, the Yankees have been seated in steroid use, an unflattering tell-all from their ex-skipper, and financial scam victimization, I’m feeling confident that there are not a lot of available scandals left that can plague them. 

Which means I can take advantage of this media respite to express my disapprobation at the Holy Grail of baseball stories.

(Actually, I was just waiting for A-Rod to get to the second half of his sentence before I started writing.)

Although some have lambasted ARod’s inexplicable self-imposed insistence on digging the biggest hole in the history of life, I for one was grateful for his unerring aversion to lucid articulation.

When ARod’s pregnant pause turned out to be of the Nadya Suleman persuasion, I was appreciably thankful for the bought time. The 791 minutes (or ~37 seconds) in between addressing his teammates and thanking them afforded me the opportunity to do my taxes, catch up on some correspondance, and establish democracy in a third world country. 

Not to mention that ARod’s second foray into the art of making absolutely no sense at all, ensured at least another 4 days of media frenzy, which meant that my first chance to weigh in on the story isn’t falling squarely in the “old news” depot. So again, thanks, Alex. 

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks combatting the rampant facebook frenzy documenting the polarizing nature of the story. Maybe polarizing isn’t the best word, actually, since that would suggest there’s more than 3 people on my humble pole-abode. 

As one buddy pointed out in an email: “You certainly didn’t choose the easy route when you elected to become an online superhero defending all things pinstripe. You should at least get free fountain drinks for all the hard work.” 

The chief problem with spearheading the Crusade Against Haters is that my client is guilty. ARod did indeed admit to using steroids, so to speak. (Perhaps the most beautifully candid line in this whole sordid ordeal is Cashman’s hilarious, “I don’t think that Alex is very good at communicating, to be honest.” In the docket of historic understatements, file that one alongside the penetrating questioning from the reporter at the 1956 World Series, “Mr. Larsen, was that the best game you ever pitched?”)

But despite the damning evidence, I’m finding the entire treatment of “A-Roid” ludicrously unsavory. And unjustly divisive. Evidently, you’re either with him or against him, and that amounts to being either for steroids or against them. And even more overreactionary, that means you’re either righteously upstanding or morally despicable.

It’s amazing how swiftly I’m dismissed when I purport the unfairness of it all. “He brought it all on himself,” I was told last night. “The media isn’t killing him. He did it himself.” I thought about this. My buddy’s right. The news isn’t reporting anything that isn’t true, more or less. But then I thought about something else.

This past election has demonstrated many things about this country, not least of which is that the power of journalism is otherworldly and more profoundly powerful than we had ever thought. When America became outrageously obsessive about 2 men, when we spat vitriol at each other while debating the merits of each candidate, what did we use as our supporting points? 

The simple fact is that everything we knew about O and Mac, was what was presented to us in the media. Unless you’re Cindy or Michelle, you know nothing more than what you’ve read online. And this makes the media so dangerously influential that it’s ignorant to dismiss its role in shaping our perceptions of people we know nothing about.

How CAN this be fair? The inception of the whole brutal scandal is firmly entrenched in unfairness. He took an anonymous test, was contractually guaranteed confidentiality. He felt safe in this arrangement, especially since steroids at the time weren’t a punishable offense in Major League Baseball. 

Then his, and only his, name was leaked. Allegedly by 4 sources that have not been made public. Does it bother anyone else that the results of an anonymous test from 6 years ago can be illegally obtained and fed to the media like Mason Verger was fed to the hogs, but yet the names of those who got the proverbial ball rolling are more mysteriously obscured than Deep Throat? Not to mention the 103 other ‘guilty’ players on the list who I have to assume are sweating like dyslexics who’d like to solve the puzzle, Pat. 

So for the world to get up in arms upon hearing it called ‘unfair’ is–quite frankly–inane.

What’s worse, it’s flagrantly hypocritical and insidiously unnerving.

The same public that’s gasping in horror and indignant with disappointment, the same public that’s weeping with no tears over the apparent demise of the game…is the same society that celebrated baseball’s resurrection in the late 90’s.

It’s the same fanbase that indulged in the excitement and basked in the glare when the sport rose up like a phoenix at the hands of McGwire and Sosa. The same moralists who ignored what we all knew in our heart of hearts what was behind the great HR race in 1998.

Steroids, for all intents and purposes, didn’t just fortify the juicers’ stats. It fortified our emotional investment in the sport. Does that make its criminal implications justifiable? No. But it makes it unassailably pharisaical for us to sharply condemn the same behavior now. It’s like that scene in Encino Man, when Sean Astin tries to get rid of the caveman and Pauly Shore launches into the high point of his career. By keeping it real:  

“You’re the one who weazed off his gig the whole time…cuz you thought maybe he’d get you somewhere. Now the guy gets a little crusty and you’re gonna bag him.”        

So, you know. There’s that. Think about it.

“It’s just that A-Rod was supposed to be the one who was above it,” my buddy argued last night.  ”We all wanted him to be the guy who broke the home run record cleanly.”

And in the docket of historic cock-and-bull stories, that line was filed right next to the same buddy’s assertion that he’d “rather go 18-1 and lose the Super Bowl than 14-6 and win.”

You gotta be f-ing kidding me. A bleeding heart Red Sux fan like this guy doesn’t want A-Rod breaking the HR record any more than he wants to see Manny in pinstripes. 

And something tells me this isn’t an attitude monopolized solely by Boston freaks. The highest paid player in baseball who plays for the most hated team in the league–yeah, I know, everyone was reallllly pulling for him. Much in the same way I’m enthusiastically rallying behind mercury poisoning. 

As far as the consensus goes, this couldn’t have happened to a better athlete. How hard had it been for the vast majority to ever concede A-Rod’s irrefutable talent? NO ONE liked giving props to the guy who not only had his obscene salary working against him, but worse, his uniform.

That quandary has since evaporated, leaving everyone with the liberating freedom to excruciate the man whose MLB franchise cap was always in the shadow of Damocles’ sword.

More than ever, the past few weeks have demonstrated the inconsistency hallmarking the so-called value sets that the public has shielded itself with. A-Rod’s admission of guilt and apology was, in essence, the most perfectly crafted move. He confessed. He apologized. And he did so early in the game.

And before the crazed critics unleash their fury, consider a month ago when our beloved Commander-in-Chief made a regrettable 1st round draft pick for the Treaurer spot.

The guy slated to manage the nation’s bank is revealed to be your garden variety tax evader. Obama took swift accountability: “I screwed up.” At most, I rolled my eyes at the whole thing. But the public response to this was sheer absurdity.

From one blog: 

“What a breath of fresh air. Thank you President Obama for admitting your mistakes and having the guts to admit it on national TV. In my books, you are off to a good start!”    

I’ve gotten somewhat used to the chemical dependence on double standards, from the $170 million dropped on the Opening Day party to the minor pecadillos in our Prez’s past and even current time, that would equate to an open season field day if they were done by anyone else. It’s standard operating procedure for America. But that doesn’t give us carte blanche to practice hypocrisy at every corner of rousing media hype.

If we’re ready to not only forgive Obama, but lionize his culpabaility, than we should disseminate the same forgiveness for someone with a less nationally consequential snafu.

But the fact is, it truly is immaterial what comes out of A-Rod’s mouth at this point.

The unwavering truth is that there is absolutely no combination of words he could string together that wouldn’t dig him into a deeper hole. Hell, Tony Robbins armed with a lantern and GPS system, couldn’t guide A-Rod outta this mess.

It’s particularly interesting to observe how harshly he’s being come down upon for each and every attempt to offer an explanation for why he took drugs. “I can’t believe he continues to blame it on the culture!” “Excuses, excuses! You broke the goddamn law, buddy! Shut the f up!”

But maybe we should consider the possibly that The Culture Defense isn’t some nebullous justification and deflection. Why? Because A-Rod is not the first, and won’t be the last, to paint the picture of the culture that facilitated steroid use. 

From Mike Schmidt, HOFer: 

“A term I think that has been overused a lot, and definitely by Alex, is ‘culture’ — culture of the era that you played in,” Schmidt said. “We had a culture when I played and a culture in the years when Babe Ruth played. In the ’60s, there was a culture. It’s that way in life. In hearing everybody, that was the culture of the mid-’90s and early 2000s and the temptation had to be tremendous for young men playing Major League Baseball back then. It’s part of the evolution of the sport of baseball. It’s unfortunate now.”        

Exactly how many ballplayers are engendering this steroid zeitgeist…we can never be sure. But “defamation of the game” seems like a hefty charge to slap on A-Rod’s legacy considering the fact the Steroid Sensei himself has estimated 85% of the league to be juicing.

(Remember when that news first broke when “Juiced” hit the stands? Every sports fan was laughing so hard, we could have collectively drowned out the Daytona 500.) 

And so our guffawing subsided when little by little, the former Bash Brother turned out to be, well, not wrong. (Nothing is quite so humbling as being in a position where this guy gets to say “I told you so.”)

Ken Caminiti. David Wells. Jose Canseco. All went on record estimating that at least half of the league uses steroids. Do I think it’s right to blame peer pressure? No. But I can understand what these athletes are getting at when they blame the times. 

My dad, for example, is the picture of conservative Italian-Catholic: college accounting professor, barely drinks, perenially sporting a collared shirt–very reminiscient of the father in the Wonder Years. Then one day I’m looking for a chicken alarm clock in the basement and find a picture of him when he was 20–beads, flower patch on his bellbottoms, weird Jesus-like sandals.

That right there makes me more receptive to the Swept Up in The Culture defense. It happened to the greatest man in the world just as easily as it did the greatest ballplayers in the world. 

After culture, A-Rod claimed the pressure to excel reared its ugly head. And once again, I don’t see why this remark is so detestable. Imagine you get recruited to be the Creative Director of your marketing agency, straight out of high school. You’re touted as this prodigy whiz kid. You’re also the most expensive employee on the payroll, and every single one of your older, experienced, less talented coworkers knows it.

And on the end of your first day on the job, after you’ve spent all afternoon under the scrutinizing glare of the envious cynics waiting for you to either fail or prove your worth, someone offers you something that will assuredly make you more creative, sharper, and more efficient. It’s undetectable, it’s unpunishable. Maybe you take it, maybe you don’t. But try telling me that doesn’t make A-Rod’s seemingly flimsy excuses more comprehensible.

To be clear, I’m not advocating steroid abuse. What I AM taking issue with is the hypocritical attack on what I believe to be one of the greatest athletes ever. Was he only great because of the roids? No. And everyone knows that. But everyone is also unduly thrilled to have this irrefutable confession on their side in their gleeful rejections of his talent. 

A-Rod didn’t need drugs, but he did them anyway. Did Bill Belichik need to tape the Jets to beat them? No, but he did anyway. He lied about it, then got caught. And even though we all know sideline taping is going on in every NFL team, the Patriots were the ones branded with the scarlet C. 

Was New England only good because they cheated? Of course not. But all the public needed was one cold, hard sin. Just one. And then we can ignore the nagging thought in our heads that maybe we hate the Pats because they’re good.

Spygate handed us our ace–it’s not that we’re bitter haters! It’s that they’re low-life cheaters! And as an added bonus, Spygate could be leveraged into a bigger shadow of doubt. Did the Pats ever really have a dynasty? Now we’ll never know, so throw some asterisks on those years, too. 

It used to be that society sated its need for moral superiority by actively championing the underdog. But maybe that ideal has been replaced by demonizing juggernauts. It’s not enough for them to be taken down, they need to be stripped of their dignity and spirit.

We’ve come to embrace this belief that perfection is terrifying and that the sooner we can capitalize on its armor’s chinks, the better. But this mentality is derived from an empty tautology–the idea that if the greatest fall, then we somehow have something to gain.

The fact is, the failures and successes of someone else have absolutely zero effect on our own. 

Which is why I don’t think A-Rod should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. 

The opposition argues that A-Rod doesn’t deserve the honor of being celebrated alongside the likes of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. But baseball is a game of numbers, and it’s not graded on a curve. If A-Rod juiced every day from the second he hit puberty, if he hit 95 HRs in one season, and batted .469…does that have some kind of deflating effect on Ty Cobb’s BA? 

The numbers punctuate the sport’s rich history. We can’t begin tempering these statistics with our own loose equations built on cultural impact. I think it was best said in Derek Zumsteg’s “The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball”: 

“The argument about the integrity of records is overwrought. A record is only a story of what happened. A hitter on steroids hit those homeruns, just as a spitballer struck out those hitters and a bat corker got those extra hits. The statistics aren’t tainted; they just require us to remember their context, as has always been true. Every era’s statistics are skewed.”        

Baseball during segregation. Oversized ballparks. Trick pitches. Would Lou Gehrig pile on the hitting stats like he had if he was facing today’s pitching aces? What about Gaylord Perry? Would he have even been a household name without his outlandishly illegal go-to pitch? Should he be booted from the Hall? Should Gehrig’s numbers be qualified with an asterisked footnote: “All white league”? 

Bottom line: we only know of 3 years A-Rod juiced. Which means that the years he was presumably clean demonstrate that he was Hall of Fame caliber before he “cheated.” He belongs there. And furthermore, A-Rod’s still playing ball. If MLB doesn’t want to ban him from the sport, then Cooperstown shouldn’t ban him from the Hall. 

(Speaking of, Pete Rose makes me sick.)

So, there it is. In the words of Will Ferrell post-debate in “Old School”: What happened? I think I blacked out. 

(Now, there’s an excuse I would like to see more of.  And if at all possible, perhaps less of the throw-your-relative-under-the-bus fad that’s sweeping professional sports.)

Fifty more days til Opening Day in the Bronx. And only 40 days til the first Yankee game (at Baltimore.) So enjoy the next month and a half, haters. You can use the Yanks’ electromagnetic attraction to controversy to stymie your own burgeoning insecurities. Marinate in another person’s mistake, and excoriate the “morally reprehensible” people who defend him. 

Go ahead. It’ll be twice as vindicating when the Yankees are the 2009 Champions.  

 “Winning is nice if you don’t lose your integrity in the process.” –Arnold Horshak, Welcome Back, Kotter

Forget steroids. Forget asterisks. Forget gambling, sideline taping, dogfighting, DUIs, and firearm possession. While they all are the headlining stars of the dramatic Demise of Sports feature film, they are also eclipsing other infractions that may be technically legal, but are much more cancerous.

The most salacious sins and underhanded offenses occur squarely in the gray area, the insidious trap of loopholes and defendable vices. On the contrary, performance-enhancing substances and criminal misdemeanors stack up neatly in the black and white areas, the right and wrong silos.

As disgraceful as these wrongdoings may be, at least they uniformly recognized as unacceptable. But when it comes to things like basic humanistic integrity and moral fiber, there’s no irrefutable litmus test.

Word of Joe Torre’s controversial contributions to The Yankee Years have been lighting up the news reels for the past week, sparking heated discourse with fans of every team as to what this does to Torre’s once-ennobled reputation.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of A-Rod or Steinbrenner, and regardless of what kind of tyranny Torre was subjected to at his players or boss’s hands, he was out of line.

This is a manager who made no bones about his disapproval over David Wells’ notorious Yankee memoir, Perfect I Am Not.

“What happens in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse” was the Skipper’s fundamental golden rule, and he was ticked off that Wells didn’t honor it. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone, Joe.

No, he’s no longer sporting pinstripes. Yes, he was thrown under the bus. And no, technically he has no remaining obligation to his old stomping grounds. But the fact that so many Yankee fans feel betrayed is evidence enough that what he did, quite simply, wasn’t right.

Does it matter if there’s an explanation, or he can produce a viable defense? It certainly won’t when we see No. 6 on some new outfielder, instead of Monument Park.

You’re better than that, Torre. C’mon.

But it’s not just this. There’s a whole legion of slime in need of watching the final monologue in Scent of a Woman.

The other New York club isn’t any stranger to stomach-punching either, as demonstrated in the abhorrent firing of Willie Randolph last year. Firing a guy’s one thing. Breaking the news circa midnight in effort to sidestep morning press, when the firee’s on the opposite coast and about to fly home…despicable.

I don’t care if the Mets were 0-68 at the time. Nothing should transcend basic respect.

And what of the girl’s highschool basketball team that won 100-0? What kind of coach allows this? What kind of people were in the stands that didn’t storm the court in protest? And what kind of girls continue to take jump shots from behind the arc, even after a 30-point lead, let alone the fourth quarter?

These lapses in empathetic decency are perhaps more disturbing because the game isn’t on the line, literally. It’s not about cutting corners to get a win. It’s about personal vendettas and ulterior motives. 

How would the Mets franchise have suffered if they waited ’til Willie was back in New York? What did Torre have to gain by airing the locker room banter? Book sales? He doesn’t need the money.

An unnecessary evil, this kind of departure from basic class speaks volumes. 

I know what I’m dealing with with sports, and I don’t expect or even want it to be akin to some kind of summer camp, arm-linking, fireside, friendship celebration. I think bench-clearing brawls are entertaining. I think throwing a 65-year old man to the ground is crossing the line.

Breaking up a double-play by sliding hard into second is part of the game. Stealing second when up by 10 has no place in the game. Laying down a bunt during a perfect game when the score’s 2-0, is the right thing to do. Staying out of the game to preserve your batting average when the batting title’s at stake is pathetic.

Sports don’t exist in a vacuum, so it’s unrealistic to hold them to impossible standards. The game will never be immaculate, it never was and never will be. Every legend has a transgression to his name, whether it’s Babe Ruth’s carousing and drinking, Michael Jordan’s gambling, Larry Bird’s absentee fatherhood, Ty Cobb’s existence, etc…I don’t ask for or expect sports to be unblemished, or even close to it.

What’s tarnishing the integrity of the game isn’t the rampant yet ambiguous drug use. It’s the general dereliction of fundamental class. Sports were born from the spirit of competition, but are morphing into a Lord of the Flies-esque cut-throat war.

The bottom line, the grey area of anything grants its inhabitants immunity from culpability. There are no rules delineating the right and wrong way to handle things. You can technically get away with passing on fourth down when up by 30. There’s no law against exposing your team’s dirty laundry. And no jury will convict you for humiliating someone.

I remember in my old neighborhood, there was a short little stone tunnel/overpass-type structure. I think it was more for aesthetic purposes, because nothing really went over it, per se. It was right in the middle of residential, two-way side street, but it was only narrow enough for one car to pass through. It was an exercise in chivalry and courtesy, almost, whenever you saw another car through the other side.

You just waited for it to go through, or vice versa. Then one day, they put a traffic light up on either side of it, and my mom hated it because whenever someone had let her go through the little breezeway, she considered it a mini-celebration of human decency.

I know, it’s a stretch, but I empathize. I get like that if someone gives up their subway seat. But the point is, the traffic light made the grey issue a black and white one. No one technically has the right of way in that type of situation, but it relied on an unwritten code.

A moral rubric will never be published, nor should it, as doing so will effectively transform “ethics” into “laws.” However, as it is, as nebulous as ethics may be, they still pull rank on whatever else is at stake, whether it’s a job, a game, or money.

Maybe time has eroded the honor of the game. Maybe it will never be played with the class it once had. Or maybe athletes back then knew the spirit of the game was a function of the players themselves.

Ted Williams knew. He played a double-header against the Philadelphia A’s in 1941, when he could have locked up his .400 by simply passing on the at-bats. But instead he went 6 for 8 and ended the year on .406.

He stood to gain nothing. But he knew how to play the game. He knew it wasn’t about what you can get away with, and what’s admissible by the official rulebook. Because when it came down to it, he was willing to risk losing a record before he’d risk losing his integrity.

And that’s the way the game should played.

“A woman with a woman’s viewpoint is of more value when she forgets she’s a woman and begins to act like a man.” –Leonor Kretzer Sullivan, American Congressman

On January 20, 2009, the first African American President of the United States was sworn into office. The country wept with pride, hope and relief, with a renewed faith in their nation for breaking down barriers. It was a truly monumental occasion in American history.

Except for the fact that we elect a president every four years.

The fact that politics has mushroomed into some kind of chic cachet demonstrates that this election is considered exponentially more remarkable than any other.

There’s no disputing the reason behind this—but I thought it wasn’t about race. I thought it was about Obama’s commitment to change and his promise of hope.

Why is it a big deal that he’s black? Why not be excited because you’re glad his policies were victorious?

This celebration/dismissal of preconceived prejudices is the same dialectic framing women sportscasters. People’s accomplishments should not be qualified by their rarity or the adversity behind them. Our achievements are what they are and should not be measured by cultural variables. 

That being said—all things being equal, I unquestionably prefer men.

That does not make me a sexist. It makes me someone interested in the glib, conversational voices of a gender that essentially was born into sports. It’s not a groundbreaking theory that generally, men know sports more than women do.

I can already hear the indignant huffing and puffing of self-professed female sports nuts:

“Listen, clown. I won my fantasy baseball league, and I played with all tough guys.”

“Yeah, well, my cousin Edmond thought ‘icing’ was a Rachel Ray special episode until I explained it to him.”

“Back up there, do the words Pam Oliver mean anything to you?”

Please realize, I said, “generally.”

Put it this way. Remember Sports Illustrated for Women?

Yeah—neither do I. That’s because I have gummy bears that have lasted longer than this defunct periodical. The problem with this type of desperate niche is that it overlooks a significant insight: Women don’t like sports.

However, those that do like sports, like sports in general. They don’t want or need to have sports tailored to their sex. 

The book Differentiate or Die by advertising genius Jack Trout talks about why this type of marketing to seeming untapped niches isn’t necessarily the brightest move:

“Successful firsts aren’t tricky,” he said. “They tend to be good ideas. Conversely, unsuccessful firsts tend to be bad ideas. R.J. Reynolds spent a fortune on the first smokeless cigarette. This is the antithesis of common sense. Their theory was that smokeless cigarettes would appeal to nonsmokers. Unfortunately, nonsmokers don’t buy cigarettes. Something like $325 million went up in smoke (or non-smoke) with the dismal launch of Premier cigarettes…Premier may have been a first, but it was just plain stupid.”

Whether you’re smoking or following sports, you don’t want a skewed version of either. I will take a man reporter over a female 10 out of 10 times. It’s not because men necessarily know more. In fact, plenty of times sports knowledge coming from women edges out those of men.

The thing is, I don’t need or want to hear every fact ever about a running back—I just want pithy, conversational, unaffected analysis.

The reason I never get this from women is because their reports indicate they don’t identify as a sportscaster. They categorize themselves as female sportscasters. 

The glaring difference between them is that men have nothing to prove. That makes them sometimes sloppy, but ultimately likable. Women do have something to prove, which makes them ultimately successful and often unentertaining. It’s like watching a boardroom scene in The Apprentice, or something along the lines of that. 

After being absent from the scene for so long, women deliver their commentaries with noble ambition and meticulous accuracy. Kudos, ladies. 

But no matter how much you know, no matter how hard you try to dodge the stigma, it still comes across to me as impersonal and trying too hard. Both are understandable, but not something I care to mix with the effortless leisure of watching the game.

I have to assume it’s the equivalent of starting a new job and going to your first status meeting. The account workers are irreverent and confident because they understand the office character. They know the parameters of what’s considered appropriate, what employees respond to and so on.

Even if the rookie is coming to this meeting with a stellar resume to her name, she’s still a little reticent to immediately hop into this dynamic. Instead, she wants to showcase her capability and establish herself in the pecking order by demonstrating she belongs there.

She has something to prove, but impressive as it is, it’s boring. No matter how ridiculous Boomer sounds, no matter how melodramatic Gus Johnson seems, and no matter how manic John Sterling can be, I still prefer their easy-going, honest, and seamless game coverage. 

I want to hear Sterling’s bubbly and often substance-less celebration of a grounder to short that he describes as “nearing the warning track,” more than I want to hear Suzyn Waldman’s rattling laundry list of every radar gun count of every pitch thrown since the turn of the century. 

If a woman has decided to pursue a career in sports journalism, her qualifications and performance should be held to the same standards as men. That means recognizing that they need to stop perceiving themselves as minorities, because the fact is, they chose to be there.

I’m frankly sick of hearing girls start any fantasy league story with, “I’m the only girl in the league.” 

Why does that matter? If you like the sport, then what difference does it make? Constantly bringing your gender to everyone’s attention proves your love of the game is punctuated by your love of the fact you’re a girl who loves the game. 

If women want to be considered as equals in the sports industry, then why do they perpetually imbue their work with reminders of their sex? If they want to be seen as a professional journalist and treated like one, then what difference does it make that you’re a super-brave, independent girl tackling the intimidating world ofMonday Night Football?

One thing I will never have to be subjected to when a man’s delivering the score is the scary hi-def portrayal of “When makeup attacks.” The ever-improving level of clarity characterizing new plasma screens is quite beautiful when it means that I am able to see the skate marks on the ice. It loses its cachet when it means I am distracted by nickel-sized pores stuffed with bronze-toned concealer.

Women should take their cue from Terry Griffith, the underrated 1980s B-list movie character in Just One of the Guys. She chopped off her locks and de-feminized herself so she could be taken seriously as a writer.

I don’t want to see this happening at the 50-yard line, but maybe women should adopt the mentality that the proof is in the pudding. She wanted to write, so she did. She didn’t care that no one knew she was really a girl. Do it for the sake of doing it. Be a sports fan without perpetuating a stifling prejudice.  

I’m not saying it’s an industry that should be exclusive to men, but I’ll opt for the bumbling male every single time for the same reason I didn’t like Lost in Translation, Vanilla Sky, or Taxi Driver. I don’t care how impressive the cinematography is or how sophisticated the script is or how challenging the production was. When it comes to entertainment, I’m not deep enough for subtext. Give me Vince Vaughn playing video games over Scarlett Johansson transcending existential barriers any day of the week.

Especially if that day is Monday night.

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.“ -Benjamin Franklin

The New York Yankees showcased their latest holiday impulse buy yesterday when they introduced 1B Mark Teixiera to their $223 million toy chest. Coming on the heels on the A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia purchases, the Yankees are undoubtedly making an unabashed statement to the rest of Major League Baseball. But in the context of the ever-disintegrating economy, their off-season spending binge does not connote aggressive World Series campaigning so much as it invokes the contempt and ire of fiscal-conscious Americans.

The Yankees have ruined baseball. They buy their team. They’re greedy minions of Lucifer and shameless Bob Crachets squashing the smaller market Tiny Tims under the heels of their cleats. They’re flagrantly destroying the National Pasttime one cool million at a time. 

They’re also just playing by the rules. 

The phrase “salary cap” has been whined and screeched so many times in the past month that I have no doubt a generation of December-born children will have it listed as their first words in their baby books. This right here is why I continue to be utterly baffled by the outlandish backlash towards the Bronx Bombers. 

There’s no salary cap. And until there is, the Yankees can max out their corporate card every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They have the money, they fill their seats every year, they sell hot dogs at $8 a pop, they cater to consumer idiots like myself who need their team logo on everything from a ski cap to a stapler. And it pays off. 

Whether or not these blockbuster acquistions will indeed lead the Yanks to the playoffs is a moot point. What IS relevant is that if the Yankees wanted to spend their multimillions in revenues on foam cowboy hats, beer, and pinwheels, then go live the dream. 

Unfortunately for them, their legal, rule-abiding, and sound investments have exposed them as the Anti-Christ. Less affluent teams are crying it’s not fair, their fans spitting vitriol at the vile Evil Empire for–God forbid–subscribing to capitalist tenets of amassing personal wealth. They can hate on New York for a lot of things, but this ain’t one of them, because the New York Yankees are under no obligation whatsoever to pander to poorer teams.

Major League Baseball is a business. It’s not Little League. It’s not pick-up ball in Central Park. It’s a corporate empire that millions of people enthusiastically endorse because we love the game. And it’s naive to bemoan the way our pasttime’s been marred by greed, because it is impossible to put a cap on competitive spirit. It’s the impetus driving the game itself, and it’s the impetus fueling the economic market. 

It’s ironic that so many use the financial crisis as the linchpin of their criticisms. If you want baseball to be the innocent institution seen through rose-colored glasses, then why tether the Yankees to the faltering economy? Last I checked, even their worst investments (read: Pavano) weren’t leaving millions jobless. What the Yankees decide to blow their cash does not exacerbate the damage done by Wall Street. And just because we’re bitter about penny-pinching doesn’t mean it’s the Yankees’ place to tread lightly around our sensitivities by not rubbing their fortune in our face.

Consider this business model: Say I own my advertising agency and am looking for the #1 creative copywriter in the industry. A good one is unquestionably worth his weight in gold, as a talented writer is at the heart of any successful marketing campaign. So I bring in the best for an interview, and he wants half a million dollars. Maybe I think, “Ehhh, kinda steep, but what this guy can bring to the table is worth that and then some. Sold.” Or maybe I think he’s sniffing glue, and there’s no way a single employee is that indispensable, so I just wish him well in whatever other opportunities he pursues. Or maybe it’s moot, since I simply don’t have that kind of money.

Said writer can take the job and let the chips fall where they may or insist he’s worth that much and pitch himself to another agency. And maybe every other agency tells him he’s a few crayons short of a box if he thinks he’s gonna get that kind of salary in this economy. And at that point, he can resign to accept a lower rate. But if there’s one agency who’s willing to meet his demands, then more power to them. He could be a dud, or he could be a star. Maybe I’d kick myself for not hiring him, or maybe I’d wish I had had the resources to take him on. But I can’t curse the company that brought him on board. The only thing I can do is work with the pool of applicants I have and hope their success generates enough income to someday be in a position to afford this caliber of talent, if I even want or need it by then.

So people can fault the Yankees for their decision making. Is it, in fact, wise to continue acquiring “trendy” athletes? Should they throw their efforts into cultivating a farm system? Perhaps. But that’s not the criticism shaping the seething response to the off-season spending. 

Are they really “bad for baseball” as haters everywhere continue to purport? In an economic sense, their extravagance most likely pays itself off throughout the rest of the league. For teams that couldn’t fill their stands if they were equipped with free porn and strip steaks, the Yankees are invaluable–they sell out 81 road games. Read that sentence again. If you’re a shareholder in the Kansas City Royals, you’re counting down til the Yankee Series like it’s the 15th of the month. 

And as one of only two teams that pay a luxury tax, the Yankees have paid handsome dividends to the league. This doesn’t even speak to the revenues from Yankee-Hater product sales, from the legions of articles and books that have been disseminated outlining the pervasive iniquity and corruption found in pinstripes. The legions of part-time sports fans that only root against the Yankees, and never for a team, prove that there’s no such thing as bad press.

Are the Yankees “bad for baseball” in a more tangible sense? Are they monopolizing the talent and making it virtually impossible for any other franchise to see even a fraction of the success the Yankees have? Ask Tampa Bay. Or the Red Sox. Or any other team that has managed to SOMEHOW “beat the odds” and have a winning, successful season despite the Yankees’ best efforts to acquire every player in the league. Philadelphia may have some dissenting opinions on this matter, as well. 

For the media and haters to condemn the Yankees for spending is nothing new. If not for the economic collapse, this would be “Yankees being Yankees.” But because of it’s timing, the Yankees have been made not only scapegoats for small market teams’ holes, but also the enemy of a communist society. Why should MLB “spread the wealth”? Where is my incentive to advance on the corporate ladder and someday make a $250,000 a year, if I know that the second I reach this mark, half of my paycheck is going to be used to spread the wealth? 

The dire straits of America’s economy may be critical, but they’re not the Yankees’ problem. Nor any other team. Because of Wall Street’s insatiable greed, I have to pay 18% tax on non-diet soda. Because fat people can’t join a gym, I have to pay extra to help the economy and minimize the country’s obesity risks. Now the sports-viewing world is saying that because of the financial collapse, the Yankees have to put the brakes on their spending because not everyone is as well off as them. Karl Marx would be so proud. 

If MLB wants to enact a salary cap, then let them. But if they’re going to continue to hang from the Yankees’ flush coattails, then the rest of the sports contingent should recognize the Yankees are doing nothing more than honoring their constitutional right to prosper.  

“The fan is the one who suffers.”
-Frank Robinson

When you’ve spent enough time screaming at the TV in public or when you have worn enough team-branded clothing, you become known as the sports you support. You become the first person people think of when your team loses or wins, which means the sound of 489 text messages coming in at the same time runs the gamut from “Merry TEIX-mas!” or “%&#!! Did we really just give up a four goal lead to the Caps?”
And it means when the Giants beat the other NFC juggernaut known as Carolina, in OT, to win homefield advantage throughout the playoffs, the camaraderie between fans is punctuated by “GREAT game on Sunday!” for days.

But unfortunately, I could offer no additional game commentary to any of these enthusiastic outreaches. Why? Because I saw approximately eight percent of the game.

I did not see the game go into OT, Carolina’s missed FG, or Brandon Jacob’s winning TD. Did not do shots with my two younger sisters who came out solely to spend time with their older sister. Absent for all of it.

I almost wish it was because I was working Sunday night, or because I was abducted by pirates. Really anything other than the reality that I was sitting in a bar bathroom, trying to gauge the game based on the sounds I could hear erupting from people in the bar actually watching the game.

I missed the Giants’ game of the year because they scored their first touchdown while I had been in the bathroom. And when I came out and continued to watch the game as convention would dictate, they did not score.

To my warped senses, this translated into one thing only: the obvious and logical conclusion that the Giants would never score again unless I kept remained right where I was.

Maybe I would have conducted some control experiments on this theory if we were, say, playing Seattle in October. But this game was entirely too important to entertain my own selfish desire to watch it. So I took one for the team, while a bar full of people most likely assumed I had just eaten really bad wings.

I realized when I was going to bed that night how jealous I was of my sisters, because they have not an ounce of vested interest in football. One actively loathes it and the other is indifferent, although she did graciously agree to wear the Giants hat I forced on her because I said it would be lucky.

I was envious of the simple fact that they, who had about as much interest in the Carolina game as they would have if they had been watching the local weather forecast on a loop, got to watch that game.

And when I finally retreated to bed mere hours before I had to get up and get ready for work, it just made me think (with an acute, sad awareness) how much easier life would be if I just did not like sports.

It is worse than an addiction. People have successfully gone through rehab, quit smoking, given up alcohol. But have you ever heard of someone successfully diluting their passion for his team?

The truth is, we are too far gone.

But what if I could? What if there were Betty Ford clinics for sports fans? How, exactly, would my life be different if I was able to temper my irrational emotional investment in my teams?

And after musing about this, with the Panthers game still at the forefront of my mind, I came up with this…:

THE TOP 10 WAYS MY LIFE WOULD BE EASIER WITHOUT SPORTS

1. I’D BE ABLE TO WATCH THE GAME.

I remember during the infamous Bug Game two years ago, when the Yankees ultimately lost to the Indians amidst a sea of terrorizing midges, during the last inning of the game, I had curled up in a ball covering my ears, staring at the wall, and instructing my sister to watch the game but not to make any tell-tale exclamations.

15 minutes of this maniacal behavior later, my sister says, “Um, do you want me to tell you what happened? The game has been over. Pronk hit a walk off. Stop acting like a freak.”

2. I WOULD DRINK LESS AND SLEEP MORE.

It is a Catch-22, really. The only reason I was able to stomach the intensity of Super Bowl XLII was because I did not have enough faculties to be nervous. While I was relaxed enough to watch the pressure-cooker, I was perhaps too relaxed to remember anything that occurred thereafter.

And it is almost a lose-lose for sports fans when it comes to sleep.

“HOLY %^&*! The Sox just came back from 7-0 to avoid elimination in Game Four! Ok, I am hitting the hay.”

No. You do not want the feeling to end, and sleep would indeed end it.

Conversely: “Why, Mets, why? Why are you categorically averse to the post-season! I loathe you so much I am going to wash up for bed extra brusquely!”

3. MY WARDROBE WOULD BE CONSIDERABLY LESS LIMITED.

I wore my Plax jersey up until about three weeks ago. After the shooting fiasco, it was admittedly embarrassing to wear it out, but you cannot quibble with a good luck shirt. I was almost (almost) relieved when they dropped the Eagles game since it meant it was no longer lucky, and I could get a new shirt in good conscience.

And the rest of my clothes are governed by a similar code. My Drury sweater–collecting dust (lost every game I attended with it.) Anything article of clothing I wore to Yankee Stadium on October 20, 2004–shoved in the dark corners of my closet. Adjustable hat–game-watching staple. Giants helmet–so lucky I am scared to touch it unless absolutely necessary.

4. I WOULD PROBABLY BE MORE INTERESTED IN POLITICS.

I watched the Rangers-Islanders game on November 4th instead of the returns. I do not understand the allure of broadcasting the vote count updates. I asked someone, “can’t you just wake up tomorrow and find out who won?” He countered, “Can’t you?” Touche.

I guess the returns are what StatTracker is to me. And after Obama won, the cheers and screaming outside my apartment were indistinguishable from what NYC sounded like when the Giants took down the Patriots. I have to assume the rambunctious celebrators did not follow sports. Because if they did, they would know what it feels like to win a World Series or Super Bowl. And this feeling of triumph and glory would not be a novelty to them.

5. I WOULD HAVE MORE PROFESSIONAL CREDIBILITY.

I do not think it is entirely fair that my outside interests define me at work. Just because my coworker is pregnant does not mean I print out Baby Hot Stove articles for her, aka birth announcements, and tape them on her door.

Or if I was leaving work early for some recycling fundraiser or manatee charity ball I would be responsible and professional. But I feel like when I say I have to leave early for a game, people think I am cutting out to go play in the dirt and eat bugs or something.

What is worse, a few months ago we won a new account, and I was told my interaction with the client would be extremely limited: “Well, he is a huge Red Sox fan. We told him our copywriter was a big Yankees fan, and it did not go over well. Is there any way you could pretend to be a Boston fan?”

“Sure. Is there any way you could pretend to worship Satan?”

5A. I WOULD HAVE MORE CREDIBILITY WITH SIGNIFICANT OTHERS.

“You didn’t watch the game?”

“No.”

“Because you were in the bathroom.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…well, then I guess you didn’t see the interview with Coughlin.”

“No.”

“Yeah, he kept getting asked about his offense in the second half, and how the defense worked Steve Smith, and he just goes, `I can’t say enough about this team. But none of this game goes our way without Kris locking herself in a public restroom.’ Seriously, I don’t know how to explain you sometimes.”

6. I WOULD KNOW PEOPLE BY THEIR REAL NAMES AND NOT THEIR FANTASY ONES.

I play in a baseball league with a bunch of guys who I see once a year, if that. A few of them I do not think I have ever met, actually. And when their names come up in conversation, I have little to no idea of who they are…until someone recognizes my perplexed expression and says, “It’s DirtyBirds, you guys had that tiff over Torii Hunter” or “You know Gil…’Suck on this 1 Time’? He had the awful Manny/AJ/Dice-K team.”

7. I WOULD USE FACEBOOK FOR NORMAL PURPOSES (LIKE STALKING PEOPLE I HAVE MET IN MY SINGLE-DIGIT YEARS?) RATHER THAN USING STATUS UPDATES AS A PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE (OR JUST PLAIN AGGRESSIVE) VEHICLE FOR SLINGING MY CONTEMPT AT OPPOSING FANS.

Nothing good ever comes out of my mindless perusal of status updates. And despite the fact I am 27 years old and should have matured at some point in the last decade or so, I still cannot help myself:

“Liam is recommending good golf courses for the Yankees in October.”

“Kris would recommend some good golf courses to Brady for the rest of his playing career, but unfortunately he can’t physically do much more than catch up on his DVR.”

“Adam just learned from Roger Goodall that making snow angels is unsportsmanlike.”

“Kris thinks our first responsibility is to be a good person, which is why she doesn’t believe in taking extra bases or endzone dancing when winning by a lot.”

8. I WOULD BE LESS JUDGMENTAL AND PROBABLY HAVE MORE FRIENDS.

Over the summer, one of my buddies had a request: “I’m not watching games with you anymore unless you refrain from making fun of the Mets.”

Cut to us watching the Amazins relinquishing the standard 10-run lead at the hands of their formidable bullpen, as the Mets are want to do.

“Do the starters in Queens get paid more since they have to spot their relievers twice as many runs as other teams?…Ok, I’m sorry, sorry. I’m done now. Actually, Heilman probably has pretty good numbers in fantasy `holds.’ Seriously.”

“Ya just can’t let it go, huh. There’s something wrong with you. You have like Mets Tourettes or something.”

9. I WOULD ENJOY WEDDINGS MORE.

Since the onset of the Friends-Dropping-Like-Flies era, I have missed a Giants home opener, multiple NFL Sundays (thanks to non-JetBlue flights), Rangers playoffs, Yankee-Sox series, and worst of all, the last game at Yankee Stadium.

I love the fall, and I even love weddings. But the appeal of an open bar and seeing all my college buddies is compromised by being a bajillion miles in the air on return flights home. I told my mother that when I get married, it is going to be February 29th, because I only have to celebrate it once every four years, and also there is zero risk of stepping on anyone’s sports plans.

(She responded without skipping a beat, “So you’re getting married in 2012?? Ahh, from your mouth to God’s ears!”)

10. I WOULD BE GENERALLY LESS HIGH-STRUNG.

A few years I was in a bar, watching the Yankees in the playoffs while a guy next to me was doing the same with his Mets. After an hour or so of our staggered cheers and groans, he said, “I miss watching them play some Brewers game in July.”

I knew exactly what he meant. In the summer, I am listening to radio broadcasts of the Yanks on the beach, and life is good. Autumn comes, and I am a cracked out lunatic who goes into cardiac arrest with every pitch.

Which is why I pay little to no mind to the Hot Stove or off-season rumors. I spend the tail end of any season twisted up in knots. After a few weeks of coaxing my muscles out of tightened stress, I can take a sabbatical from all of it. Til opening day, at least.

I suppose this could all be traced back to my years watching sports with my dad, having no idea what was going on, my dad explaining to me how many the bad guys needed to lose by, how many “tries” to get a “down,” and making screaming at the TV look cool.

Is it worth it? Sometimes I wish I just had an amicable appreciation of the sport. I could root for the Sox when the Yanks are out of it, because it would make my boyfriend happy. I could get draft-day-giddy over a tight game, and not public-speaking-nauseous.

But then again, exchanging the ice water in our veins for tepid ginger ale is a high price to pay for being boring. And if I start to question the weight we assign to every game, I shall recall the sage words of an East Asian proverb, and know this madness is all truly worth it:

“There are no fans in hell.”

Game on.

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”–Orson Welles

My dad tells this story of his friend’s big night at the craps table in Vegas. It was one of those scenes that generally doesn’t exist in reality–the casino’s population all concentrated around this one table, my dad’s friend spurred on by the rallying cries of everyone around him.  He was holding court, throwing more and more colored chips on every space of felt left on the table, which at that point looked like the streets of New Orleans at the height of Mardi Gras. The story is legendary, as the entire table was up thousands of dollars.The thing with craps that I never understood is the feverish disappointment when the hero tossing dice inevitably rolls a 7 and everyone craps out. What did everyone think was going to happen? What if he leaves the table when he was still hot and setting the world afire? Would we nod understandably or reproach his cowardice?

An athlete like Jamie Moyer, for example, can either watch his team record the final out to capture their first World Series title in 28 years, get all his teammates to write down their email addresses so he can stay in touch, and drop off his 2008 World Series Champion uniform at the dry cleaners before heading home to watch “The Shield” on DVR.

Or he could parlay the glory of capturing a title into next season, and maybe for as many seasons as it takes him to rack up another 54 W’s. Maybe October 29, 2008 handed Moyer the ideal opportunity to cash out his chips. But it also could have reinforced everything he loved about the sport, enough to make him let his winnings ride.

At 46 years old, Moyer is teetering on the brink of Kevin Brown-status. Although I can’t speak with any authority (barely an educated guess, really) on what’s going through Moyer’s mind right now, the issue of whether to return next season most likely is making some kind of cameo.

To assist him, I’ve sifted through some case studies on athlete retirement and unretirement, assigning each impressive instance of career waffling with a highly coveted award to commemorate it.

The winners are…

The Britney Spears “Gimme More” Award for Juggernaut Comeback that Flatlined at Mediocrity

Michael Jordan. He should have stopped after comeback #1, when he shed he minor league baseball pipe dreams in favor of leading the Bulls to 3 straight titles. Did anyone think anything good was going to come out of comeback #2? Seriously. Besides the Wizards, anyway.

The Melvin Udall Redoing his Kiss to Waitress Carol at End of “As Good As It Gets” Award for Leaving Retirement to Finish Career the Way He Wanted To

George Foreman. Came back from second retirement to reclaim the heavyweight title at age 45, the one he had lost to Ali 20 years earlier. “I know I can do better!”

The Bill Clinton’s Second Term Award for Unretiring only to become Mired in Controversy and Scandal

Roger Clemens. Ugh. Told us all he was retiring after the 2003 season. Then the back page of New York papers were reading “What an Astro!” I don’t even know how many times he announced retirement since then. A lot, though. He comes back to the Yankees, pitches about as well as Aaron Heilman, and then becomes the center of a media steroids circus. And throws in some adultery charges for good measure.

The Michael Myers Award for Continually Resurfacing to Torture the Sports World

Jose Canseco. I used to love this guy, too. My first baseball hat was an Oakland A’s hat. Now look at him. He’d have been better off skipping the Juiced tell-all and just going straight to center square of Hollywood Squares. If I were an active player, I’d live in fear my name would be the one that the peg landed on when Canseco did his daily spin of the Steroid Accusation Wheel.

The Michael J. Fox Award for Unretiring with Flying Colors After Medical Hardship

Mario Lemieux. Retired because of lymphoma, then later returned to re-establish his dominance, netting the 2nd highest number of goals that year. Also saved the Penguins from bankruptcy and now remains the team’s principle owner.

The Elizabeth Berkley in “Showgirls” Award for Bold Comeback that Ended in Humiliation

Muhammad Ali. Comeback #1: Marked by the epic Joe Frazier fights. Comeback #2: Came back only to be handed his ass and dignity back to him by Larry Holmes

The J.D. Salinger Award for Consistent Success With Every Re-emergence

Phil Jackson. Called it a day in 1998 after topping off the 2nd of the Bull’s two 3-peats. Returned to the game a year later to coach the Lakers, taking them to their own 3-peat before calling it quits again. Returned to the Lakers the following year and brought them to the Finals 2 years after that.

The Paul McCartney Award for Playing Well After His Body Had All But Given Up, Making Fans Collectively Plead at the TV to Just Put Himself Out of His Misery

Patrick Ewing. By the end of a dominant career with the Knicks, he was dragging his leg around like Kathy Bates had had a go at it. He had been tough, formidable, and obscenely talented. His fans could recognize he was physically done and just wanted to fast-forward to the number-retiring ceremony.

The Bill Cosby Award for Retiring and Unretiring With Immunity on Account of Good Guy Status Combined with Lifetime Achievement

Lance Armstrong. Good for him. He beat cancer. He won the Tour-de-France a record-breaking 7 times. But tread lightly, buddy. They’re gunning for you.

The ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons Award for Converting Innocuous Charm into Self-Important Irritation so That Fans Gave Up Hoping He’d Retire and Just Flat Out Ignored Him

Curt Schilling. Please go away. Please, please, please. Or at least get fitted for one of those metal plates that Beetlejuice threw over Geena Davis’s mouth to keep her from talking.

The “Sister Act” Award for Unretiring to Coach A Bunch of Unguided Misfits into Glory

Bill Parcells. After spinning the mess of the Giants into 3 division titles and an 8-3 playoff record, Parcells retired.

Comeback #1: Coaxed out of retirement. Within 2 years, led New England to first playoff appearance in 8 years, then 3 years later led them to first Super Bowl. Left to coach Jets and similarly whipped them into shape.

Comeback #2: Was lured out of retirement again to coach Cowboys who were coming off 3 straight seasons of 5-11 play. Led `Boys to 3 winning seasons.

Comeback #3: Unretired for the ultimate challenge–the Miami Dolphins. Good luck.

The Al in “Step by Step” Award for Retiring Off the Scene So Inexplicably Early

Barry Sanders. After 10 years playing for Detroit, he decided it was time to retire. And by retire, I mean fax a letter to hometown newspaper announcing he was done. One of the best running backs in NFL history, he left with 15,269 rushing yards, 2,921 receiving yards, and 109 touchdowns (99 rushing and 10 receiving)–just inches from breaking the all-time rushing record. It’s a little like how my dad will stay up with me to watch an extra-innings game. And then in the 16th inning, with bases loaded and 2 outs, he’ll get up and announce he’s going to bed.

The Samuel L. Jackson in “Snakes on a Plane” Award for future HOF-er Joining a Comedic Mess

Brett Favre. After retiring in 2008, Favre unretired only to discover he was persona non grata in Green Bay. He got traded to the New York Jets who, as per usual, straddle the fine line between fortifying momentum and frantic disarray.

The New Kids on the Block Award for “This is gotta be a joke, right?” Improbable Return that Still Makes My Head Spin

Ricky Williams. Retired because it was easier than having someone else pee in a cup for him every time he got randomly drug tested. Unretired and apologized profusely to all his fans…only to fail drug test #29,108 less than a year later. This back and forth of reinstatement-drug policy violation went on for the better part of a decade. And now he’s back on the Dolphins. Hey, why not?

“The Bob Newhart Show” Series Finale Award for The Ultimate All-Time Retirement Swan Song

Michael Strahan. After the Giants won the Super Bowl, I remember saying to my friend Rob, “I’m scared that I’ll be at the altar of my own wedding someday and think, `Yeah, still not even close to as happy as I was on February 3, 2008.’”  I couldn’t even fathom a situation that could manufacture the same degree of euphoria I felt that night. And I have to assume Michael Strahan felt the same way when he announced his retirement shortly thereafter.

*   *   *

I can’t presume to know what goes Jamie Moyer’s head or any other athlete who’s confronted with the issue of retirement. The only thing I can compare it to is when I’ll go to the park and shoot the old b-ball around.

Of course, after about an hour of this, my arms are about as strong as the inflated tubemen outside a car dealership. So it’s really anyone’s guess where the ball’s gonna land. That’s around when I start saying to myself, “Ok, hit this 3 and then call it a day.” (Which soon becomes, “ok, just bank in this layup…”) Eventually, I’ll hit some nothing-but-net beauty, and instead of making good on all my deals with myself, I’m overly encouraged by this one shot and mistakenly think I’ve hit my stride.

The only thing I’ve ever hit is a number of deadened nerve endings from forcing my body to toss up what now feels like a watermelon.

If I multiply that sentiment by about infinity, I can begin to come to terms with athletes who refuse to give up the game, who won’t just throw in their cards, tip the dealer, and leave.

Deciding when to leave the table is about as critical decision as there is. It’s looking at the Jager shot on the bar after 5 hours of drinking, knowing that it could either make or break you.

It’s a decision that forces the athlete to consider who exactly he’s playing for: himself or the fan who financially supports him. Whose opinion is more compelling? We rally around our heroes and pride in their successes, as if we have a degree of equity in their glory, in exchange for the high price of emotional investment.

So when they crash, our anger is palpable, draining, and unforgiving. But how far can they take us, or will they take us? And what’s worse–when our heroes abandon us by choosing to retire…or when they stay at the party too long and go from star karaoke singer to the clingy, helpless drunk?

These aging heroes may not even consider what unretirement will potentially do to their legacy. They’ve seen their images go every which way in the course of their careers, so the threat of it being tarnished is eclipsed by the draw of once again suiting up.

Why do we return to our alma maters for alumni weekend? How often do you pass a little league game and think what you wouldn’t give to be the one playing instead of the one on the other side of the fence.

The vise grip of competition keeps us clamped to the table so securely that the win/loss chip count isn’t as important. When my dad comes back from poker night, he’s not giving us the rundown of how up or down he went. He’s going a mile a minute on his buddies Reilly and Danny and Harold and Dorey. He’s swearing off the game or singing its praises. He’s just happy.

So maybe when it comes to retirement, the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Leave the table too early, and you’ll always feel cheated. Leave too late–well, at least you’ll have the stories.

Everyone’s gotta crap out eventually. Except my dad’s friend in Vegas, who actually was escorted from the casino before his legendary roll ended…once cameras caught him urinating in the cup ledge. No one could figure out why he didn’t just use the nearby bathroom, until he explained it:

“You NEVER leave the table when you’re hot.”

“There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person whom in one impulse, one value, assumes ascendancy over all others.” -Milton R. Sapirstein

There are few things more aggravating than trying to escape mushrooming media hype of a story you just don’t want to hear. The internet is a demon the day immediately after your team blows Game 7, or your idolized all-star is caught in salacious mischief, or your star QB’s season-ending injury is documented in 14,000 different photo angles.

You’d think that New York City journalism would be so overwhelmed with news that it could avoid spinning out the same stories over and over. But as it stands, the only thing transpiring in Manhattan is the election. And the World Series. And trying to decide what’s less interesting is like trying to pick between sharing a cell with Omarosa or Andy Dick.
I’ve been able to sidestep the burgeoning political smoke and mirrors suffocating the country, but my nagging interest in baseball precludes me from shunning the World Series. After observing the heated lunacy punctuating the election, it made me think that the polarizing and divisive nature of politics that I’ve always scoffed at, is scarcely different from that of the nature of sports fans.

The relationship a fan has with his team is perennially challenged by rival fans, the dynamic is ever-shifting. Love for the players converts to contempt for the opposition’s loyalists. You can’t love both the Mets and the Yankees, or your credibility falls along the ranks of George O’Leary. DC natives are out for blood when the Cowboys come to town. And a little research uncovered an Ohio-Michigan couples group on Facebook…with a staggering 3 female members. (I have a few ideas that explain the notable absence of boyfriends, their failure to exist being one.)

The relationship a voter has with his party’s candidate is a push-pull balance of championing the issues and attacking the other party. While Obama and McCain battle it out in the inaccessible stratosphere of politics, the common citizens are left to either cheer them on, or spit vitriol at each other. The former may be nobler, but the latter is decidedly more gratifying.

And in both pools of sports fans and American voters, there may be people who advocate principles without assassinating characters. But I think the lion’s share of the bell curve houses those whose team/candidate loyalty is overshadowed by animosity towards the opposition.

It’s arbitrary, narrow, and sometimes illogical. But this mentality is also the only thing tethering non-Tampa Bay/Phillies fans to coverage of the 2008 World Series.

On paper, this matchup should be fantastic. But we’re two games into the Fall Classic, and I still can’t find even a small pocket of emotion around who will win. The Phillies are durable and hungry. Tampa Bay is feisty and young. In the words of my mom, “Yeah, Saturday was an exciting game until I realized I didn’t care.”

When your team is out, the only thing left to do is root against the enemy. And when the enemy itself isn’t someone particularly worthy of hatred, you look for the fanbase that is.

Certain cities, usually in the northeast, are subject to this kind of hater mentality. Philadelphia, New York, and Boston are like a murderers row of obnoxious fans, so when the hapless Phillies or golden Pats are in the playoffs, it’s not the team that haters are rooting against. It’s the people in the stands.

And while the Tampa Bay and Philly teams may be in dead heat stats-wise, their respective legions of loyalists couldn’t be more polar.

*  *   *

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

What do you do with a team that has about as many fans as there are players on the roster? What the hell is a Tampa Bay fan anyway? I can’t wrap my head around this. While my sister’s ex-boyfriend purports vehemently that he has ALWAYS followed this franchise, the fact that he isn’t a middle-schooler makes this argument less plausible.

Is the vague frustration over alleged bandwagoning enough to root against the Rays? If you need a reason to hate this nascent faction, it might be a better idea to direct your attentions to the catwalk, or oddly sterile playoff atmosphere in the Trop, or the blinding effects the brand new fleet of Rays jerseys have on the viewer.

I can understand hating Pink-hat wearers or Patriots fans who popped out of the woodwork post-1994, but the Trop motley crew is inexplicably exempt from this contempt. It’s like in Teen Wolf when everyone gets into Wolfmania when the Beacon Town Beavers start making a championship run, their all-star talent in the form of a 17-year-old werewolf. It’s too weird and surreal to think about.

Not to mention there’s also the age-old adage that you never root against a team whose largest crowd was under 50,000…and for a New Kids on the Block concert.

Sure, the cowbells are giving the Thunder Stix a run for their money in the campaign for All-Time Irritating fan props. The Rayhawks are obscene. The poster signs held up at the stadium read like loose translations of a foreign language. And the Trop’s highlighted feature? “The only stadium in the world with live cownose rays.”

(Say what you will about the Trop, but at least you’re not taking in a game where the cownoses aren’t live.)

And in the Chutes and Ladders game of team likeability, the Rays were cleared a path to higher grounds. Outside of winning 8 gold Olympic medals, there’s only one other feat that can generate such profound, unanimous gratitude across sports fans:

Taking down the Yankees.

Forget they didn’t play the Yankees in the postseason. Or that the Bombers were one of only 2 AL teams with a winning record against TB. It doesn’t matter. The Devil Rays represent everything the Yankees are not. Low-profile, cheap, young, guileless, raw, and successful. And from the looks of both teams, it may stay this way for a while.

But despite all this, the feisty Rays only give us reasons to not root against them. Is there a reason to root for them?

Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies, conversely, are a much more evocative franchise. Their historical record is pathetic, boasting the unequivocal worst, most abysmal history of any baseball team. In 126 years, they have one championship, more losses than any other team, 9 seasons of playing under .300, and 14 seasons of 100-losses or more. Worst of all, they have no excuse. No small market, no ballpark issues, no manager ruts. Not even a curse.

The interesting part about Phillies fans is that most of their notoriety seems to stem from a peripheral stigma–the wildly unpopular perception of the fans tailgating across the street from Citizens Bank Park.

E-A-G-L-E-S.

The Philly baseball fans I’ve encountered have never struck me as obnoxious, crass, loud, idiotic, or even bitter. It’s almost as if years of stunning failures have resigned them to an even-keeled approach to baseball: retain fundamental northeastern sports zeal, watch the game without thinking about the season, never let it break your heart.

On the other hand, Eagles fans are the Judd Nelsons of the NFL Breakfast club. They irritate the hell out of everyone. They love the negative attention, mistake their outspoken idiocy for unrivaled fandom, wreak enough violent havoc to necessitate holding cells in their stadium, and worst of all, they won’t be slowed by logic. They’re certifiably insane.

Unfortunately for the baseball fans, Eagles have fostered such abject ignominy that Phillies fans are inevitably guilty by association. If there’s even a slight chance Eagles fans will experience remote pleasure, the general public will work overtime to prevent this.

People will root against the Phillies for the same reason I rooted for the Lakers last spring. If I had any interest in basketball, I would in all likelihood favor the Celtics. But the idea of Red Sox fans celebrating again made me shudder. That’s how powerful my hostility towards Boston fans is. That I could root against a refreshingly talented NBA team to thwart the joy of fans from a completely different sport.

Going even further away from the teams actually playing right now, anyone who hates the Mets–or rather, is entertained by their fans’ Charlie Brown-like misery, is rooting for the Phils. To the Private Pyle of MLB, what’s one more harsh whack with a towel wrapped bar of soap?

*   *   *

The complex web of fan alliances and discords runs thick and deep. It’s compelling and ubiquitous, and while I sometimes hate its overpowering nature, it fends off apathy. At least towards sports.

I limit my sociopolitical education to Facebook status updates, SNL skits, and cartoons on Page 6 of the New York Post. I only recently nailed down the names of the presidential candidates, because the further I stay away from the philosophical melee ravaging Manhattan, the better.

I don’t particularly need another demographic of people to irrationally hate. I almost killed a man for saying Jeter was one of the worst shortstops in the game, spent weeks arguing with my best friend over the Celtic’s D in the playoffs, and near disowned my youngest sister for rooting for Green Bay last year.

I am already governed by sports loyalties that breed hostility towards certain fan sects, and that’s enough. I am incapable of separating people from the teams they support, just as the politically minded often define people by their red or blue penchants.

Such are the issues tugging at the baseball fan’s loyalties. Twenty-eight teams’ supporters can either ignore baseball altogether or forge a makeshift allegiance to Philly or Tampa Bay. We are now at the mercy of the Laws of Thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change from one form to another.

The rabid devotion that innervated the season cannot be extinguished so seamlessly. Nor can I concoct some test tube passion for either team. Such fanaticism can only be transferred to something else.

Now on the heels of Game 5, I’m still waffling on a team to back. The best solution I can think of? Aggressively, passionately, fervently root for…a 7-game series. If nothing else, it will buy me more time.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” -Plato

Curt Schilling reminds me of the generic and requisite Real World stock character: the cantankerous jackass who falsely assumes his “candor” is anything more than pathetic and offensive white noise. The guy whose audition tape sounds something like, “I dont give a $%^& what people think. I just keep it real and say what no one else will say. I’m not afraid to go there.” And while he’s initially embraced by the other housemates, he ultimately alienates himself from the group, leaving him with nothing left to do but self-indulgent confessionals. Curt’s latest talking head piece criticized New Yorkers for reveling in the season-ending injury to New England Patriots MVP Tom Brady. Also mentioned in his radio broadcasted rant were shots at the Yankees and Jets, reminders of his Diamondback glory days circa the turn of the century, a guaranteed win for an NFL team he’s about as integral a part of as Elizabeth Shue is, and a fairly insane claim about the nature of Boston fans.

I swear to God, I’m shocked the guy doesn’t have a Facebook account just so he can update his status every day to reflect a new and fiery conviction. (“Curt…is reasserting his political affiliation. He’s Republican. A big one.” “Curt…damns yet another group of people to Hell.” “Curt…thinks electric toothbrushes are superior to the manual pieces of crap and judges anyone who uses them.”)

Indeed, the sidelined pitcher gives us many things to reflect on.

Tom Brady

When Tom Brady went down, my first emotion was actually acute distress, and for absolutely no other reason beyond the fact I had the Patriots winning Week 1 in my suicide pool–a pick 100% based on the fact I wanted to root for them only once and get it over with early on in the season.

Once they scraped out a W, I washed my hands of any “allegiance” to the New England Patriots. Any upset over the golden boy’s injury evaporated. And I was thrilled the potential AFC beast was dealt a second helping of some karmic retribution.

While many people have taken offense to Schilling’s attack on Brady revelers, he’s not wrong. Bars in NY erupted when the star QB limped off the field, but I can unequivocally guarantee that the vast majority of these rabid fans were not thinking of Brady’s physical duress or the medical implications. We’re sports fans before bedside nurses, just as Tom Brady is a professional athlete before he’s a vulnerable mortal.

No one was happy he was hurt. Period. No one actively hopes for an injury. But this is a game. It happens. Brady’s not invincible, and Belichick risked Brady’s health last year by gluing his starters to the field. Maybe a season of “Eff You, NFL” pass-plays guzzled up Brady’s luck.

So it’s awfully convenient for New Englanders to suddenly develop integrity and self-righteous compassion when one of their boys hits the ground. They’re looking down the barrel of a Brady-less season, chins quivering and revenge hopes dashed. And when the tables turned on them, instead of taking their lumps, they resort to categorizing New Yorkers as classless.

I might take such accusations more to heart if they were coming from a fanbase whose moral rubric didn’t advocate drilling baseball players in the head.    

Boston’s unerring commitment to human compassion was egregiously absent during the Up-and-In reign of terror Yankees suffered at the hand of Pedro Martinez. Where were these Class Crusaders when the Sox hurler sent Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter to the hospital? And during my trip to Fenway last spring, 35,000 fans weren’t exactly overcome with grief when Dice-K opened his Boston career by beaning Arod. In the words of Schilling, “the euphoria was palpable.”

And of course, nothing will ever reek of more class than Pedro throwing down 72-year Don Zimmerman by the head. Though seemingly indefensible, Sox fans doled out copious and zealous support.  

I’m not suggesting we offer a moment of silence whenever the heart of our lineup gets plunked. But good God, don’t make sweeping generalizations about New York’s honor and ethics.

The truth is, we don’t care enough about Tom Brady to celebrate his problems. Tom Brady is the same guy who was carved up by Big Blue’s D this past February. Hell, we love Tom Brady. Why would I want him out of commission? Without Brady, Super Bowl 42 just wouldn’t have been the same.

Brady-less Patriots at the Jets this Sunday

“The sad part is going to be when they beat the Jets next week. Then they are going to come up with something else.”-CS

How do I get in on this? If total lack of team involvement doesn’t preclude eligibility to guarantee a win, I’d like to toss my hat in the ring. I guarantee (aggressively) an Ohio State win over USC on Saturday. Done.

(What’s poor Matt Cassell thinking about all this? This is like some Saved by the Bell episode when Zach makes a bet with Slater or Valley, gets over-confident, and then ups the ante by putting his giant cell phone in the pot. Screech meanwhile is tugging on Zach’s sleeve trying to alert him to some crucial bit of information that will severely hurt his chances of wining. “But Curt! I haven’t started a game since high school!” “Not now, Matt, I’m in the middle of running my mouth off…”)

And then there’s Curt Schilling denouncing the practice of always having something else to complain about.

…

Too easy.

The New York Yankees

“The Yankees suck this year and they are bitter and mad and making excuses over that. I was front row and center when their dynasty ended. They want us to be as bitter and mad as they are. Unfortunately, it’s not gonna happen.”-CS

Yes, unfortunately, we’ll never hear Curt Schilling bitter and mad. Maybe someday…

I’d be lying if I said the Yankees’ season hasn’t severely deflated me. Of course we’re disappointed. But it’s skewed logic to connect a faltering New York baseball team and a weakened Patriots offense. If New England loses every game, it doesn’t help the Yankees. Bronx-haters may be well-versed in actively delighting in another team’s failure, but Yankee fans are still wrapping our heads around the threat of an empty October. Brady’s fall merely gave us a welcome respite from arrogant taunting. A temporary respite, I’m sure. But still. It was like finally plugging up a wailing infant with a pacifier.

Schilling isn’t false when he reminds us that he was on the winning side of the 2001 World Series, although it is an odd choice of series to wax smug about. I’d have gone with the 2004 ALCS over the ultimately lifting experience of the 2001 Fall Classic. But hey, semantics.

To that end, though, the words of Bill Belichick may prove apposite here: “If you live in the past, you die in the present.”

Which is not to be misinterpreted as a wish for Curt Schilling’s death.

*   *   *

Maybe Schilling is sloppily trying to lobby support for his return to the Sox, now that he’s on the tail end of his contract. Or maybe he’s getting cabin fever on the DL. Who knows what inspires the Most Judgmental and Opinionated Athlete Ever to update his blog of complaints. I don’t expect him to lionize opposing fans any more than I’d expect either presidential candidate to concede to the other, “Hey, you know, you’re right. I never thought about it that way.”

But it would undoubtedly behoove Schilling to loosen the stranglehold he has on hypocrisy, and to just accept the enjoyable (at best) and insidious (at worst) rivalry between our 2 cities for what it is.

There’s a fable that tells the story of a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across the river. The frog is scared the scorpion will sting him, but the scorpion assures the frog that if it were to sting him, they’d both drown. The frog agrees by this logic, and sure enough, the scorpion stings him mid-river. As they’re both drowning and about to die, the frog asks why.

“I’m a scorpion. It’s my nature.”

I live in New York. I’ve been conditioned to get irrationally furious at slow walkers, to live in an overpriced shoebox of an apartment, and to get territorial when non-native transplanted Yankee-haters forget what city they’re now calling home. I’ve been conditioned to put the Evil Empire on a pedestal and get wildly defensive when they’re constantly subject to contempt. And New Englanders should be able to empathize with this kind of fierce loyalty.

So on Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t celebrating the blow to Brady’s knee…just the blow to the outspoken hubris and arrogant drivel characterizing (much of) Boston’s fanbase.

As a New York sports fan, it’s my nature.

“We can’t all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” -Will Rogers

About 50 blocks south of me the New York Giants are holding court in the Canyon of Heroes. Thousands are flooding lower Manhattan in an overwhelming parade of gratitude. Thank you, Big Blue. For doing for your fans what the Red Sox did for Boston in 2004. We needed more than just a Super Bowl, and somehow the Giants gave it to us.
They didn’t simply win an NFL championship. They toppled the most arrogant, “flawless,” and powerful force ever to take the field. They stripped down Brady to reveal he is, in fact, mortal. They humiliated a man who spent the 2008 season calling pass plays on 4th and goal, running up the score, and perfecting not just an army of athletes, but a condescending smirk he bestowed upon losing coaches on 18 different occasions.

Every Brady sack, every pass completion, every tackle–they weren’t just “playing to win.” It was like watching a team transcend themselves. Yes, the Giants fought their way to the Super Bowl, but never had they looked like this.

They were playing on a different level as they bounded into history on a kind of karmic boomerang, bringing everything that had happened full circle and into a surreal realm of poetic justice…

Spygate

This all started with New York. It seems fitting it should end with New York. I don’t know if I think the Patriots are really cheaters or not, but their response to Spygate allegations were even more offensive than illegal sideline taping. New England fans were giddy over the 40+ point wins Belichik repeatedly posted, but maybe this gave the league an all-access pass to the Pats’ playbook–as the season wore on, the Pats’ offense became less of a mystery, with the team barely scraping by against teams like Baltimore and Philly.

And now? The Giants ended the gluttonous run by holding them to the fewest points the Pats scored all season.

Plax’s Outlandish Prediction…and Brady’s scoff

Why was this such a big deal? He predicted a modest score for the Super Bowl, and people acted like he claimed he could win with one arm tied behind his back. Not to mention the fact the Patriots unequivocally had the market cornered on overconfidence. (“19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots” was available on presale for $14.95. Amazon should have distributed it anyway–they would have made double the sales off Giants fans.)

Maybe Brady was right to laugh at the measly 17 points. But it was certainly enough to beat him.

Tom Brady’s Transformation

I’m picturing an E! True Hollywood Story about Brady, chronicling his golden boy days, and then right before a commercial break we get, “Coming up: From 18-1 to done.” Throughout the season, every clip of the MVP QB showed him laughing and twinkling, kissing babies, kicking it with the glitterazzi, helping little old ladies across the street, etc. After Big Blue’s defense kicked him into the turf, he could do nothing more than sheepishly purport his ankle had been bothering him.

And in a spectacular display of maturity befitting to a man regarded as God’s right-hand guy, Brady has opted out of the Pro Bowl.

Fourth Down and Irony

What did Stephen Gostkowski do all season, really? He’s like the intern you give the meaningless jobs to just to get them out of your hair. “Ok FINE, you want to go in? Go make the extra point kick.” Belichik’s arrogance and penchant towards general bad sportsmanship had him going for it all season on fourth down, even when up by, well, hundreds of points. The final game of his season proved no different, when he opted to pass on 4th and 13 in the 3rd quarter.

Well, somewhat different. The difference between 3 points and none. The difference between overtime and aborted perfection. Belichik impaled himself on his own sword.

United They Stood, Divided They Fell   

When the Pats beat the Rams in 2002 for their first SB win, they entered the stadium introduced as a team, rather than as individual starters. A lot of their success this year has been attributed to their ironclad unity and well-oiled chemistry.

But with one second left in their final game and one loss left in their record, their fearless leader abandoned ship and hightailed it across the field prematurely–bookending his failed season with classless lies obscuring his tainted tactics.

19-0 to 18-1

The more I look at these numbers, the less they resemble W-L counts, the more the numbers 19 and 18 stand out, and the more I’m sublimely grateful to have a new chant to replace 1918.

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Feburary 3 marked the biggest win of the New England Patriots’ history. And now six years later, the same date will be remembered as their biggest defeat. The symmetry is just otherwordly.

*   *   *

This past Sunday undoubtedly ranks among the All-Time best nights of my entire life–from the second I walked into my favorite bar in upper NYC at 3:12pm (wearing an old school Giants helmet) til the second I walked out of it, exactly 12 hours later (helmet still on).

It’s been 3 days, but I still have the 4th quarter of the game running on a mental loop, I still get chills when I think of Plax’s game-winning TD, and I’m still reliving the night the Giants restored faith in New York by bringing everything full circle. The night we witnessed a genesis of heroes.

I ran into a guy at said bar, that I had met once before–on the day the Yankees had just lost to Detroit in the ALDS. I had ventured to that very same bar on October 7, 2006, to suffer a litany of abuse, jeers, and psychological warfare. And after watching the Giants rise to glory in the same place where I’ve watched the Yankees fall from grace, this guy says, “Remembering that night makes this one even more amazing. Because we’re on the other side of it now.”

We were. We don’t pretend to be tortured Boston or Buffalo or Chicago or any other hapless sports town. New York wasn’t aching for a ring, we needed a renewed allegience. We didn’t need a title, we needed a hero.

It was a tall order, but it’s been said that heroism is not just in the man, but in the occasion. Like beating Boston as harshly and dramatically as they beat us 4 years ago. Bringing the pride and glory back to the New York in the most satisfying and stunning way possible. The ticker tape parade ended earlier today, but the streets are still pulsing with lingering electricity and delirium.

So maybe their 14-6 record proves the Giants were indeed flawed. But to New York, their season was perfect.

“That’s why we took the damn field! Now, if you want to crown them, then crown their ass!” -Dennis Green on playing the Bears, MNF 10/16/06

I’m surprised management splurged and actually flew the New York Giants to Arizona. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just come to terms with the foregone conclusion of the Patriots’ perfect season? Big Blue is overmatched, and Tom Brady is clearly Christ himself. Hell, New England already has applied for a trademark patent on “19-0.” (I’m not making this up.) Does it matter who they’re playing? The Giants are merely slated to be another blip of road kill on the Patriots’ road to perfection.

Which means the Patriots go down in history no matter what. As perfect or as chokers. And the Giants? Only a catalyst to either. For New England and most of the country, Super Bowl 42 is nothing short of a formality. For New York, it’s like winning big on an improbable bet one weekend and then parlaying it all. We’re playing with house money. But what do we get if we win? If New England steamrolls through another one, they will undoubtedly be knighted as the Greatest Ever. It seems unfair that all the Giants are playing for is the Biggest Upset Ever.

Where do we draw the line between Biggest Choke and Biggest Upset? It’s a fine line, for certain, and notorious games usually don’t carry both stigmas. In other words, it’s rare for a team that upsets a juggernaut to be remembered as the victor, rather than the choker to be remembered as the goat. When the Giants topped the Bills in Super Bowl 25, Scott Norwood was the one awarded legendary status, not the team hugging the Lombardi.

So, in the spirit of the upcoming Tug-of-War between David and Goliath, here are five anomalies of glorious upsets where the victor did indeed receive the spoils:

1.) Denver Broncos over Green Bay Packers, 31-24: Super Bowl XXXII, 1998

In the wake of the recent Pack loss, it’s hard to see Favre as a beast, but in SB32, he was expected to cut through the 11-point underdog Denver as if they were playing the cast of 7th Heaven…not unlike the way Brady’s expected to blow through the G-Men. It was John Elway’s dramatic drive after the two minute warning that gave the Broncos the win. The Pack blew it, but it was Elway’s heroics that are celebrated.

2.) New York Giants over Chicago Bears, 30-13: 1934 NFL title

Big Blue’s 2008 post-season is oddly mirroring some of the nuances punctuating the 1934 championship. Not only was the game played in inhumane weather (a la the -4 degree Green Bay game), but it was against the original undefeated team, (albeit it was a 13 game season.) Chicago had some Polish wrestler on their team that was reported to be an unmitigated tackling nightmare, and the Giants came into the game with an 8-5 record. But after being down 10-3 at halftime, NY returned from the locker rooms having abandoned their cleats in favor of sneakers. The Bears slipped around the iced over field for the duration of the 2nd half while NY soared to a 30-13 victory.

3.) Buffalo Bills over Houston Oilers, 41-38 (OT): 1993 Wild Card game

The biggest comeback…or the biggest choke? It’s like one of those M.C. Escher paintings that wallpaper Generation X’s home offices. The Bills managed to creep back from a 35-3 hole. I don’t fully understand the logistics of this one, and I’m pretty sure it’s only possible to make a comeback like this only if Houston never returned to the game after halftime. But the sheer depth of the deficit that Buffalo overcame is somehow more stunning than the Oilers’ colossal collapse.

4.) New England Patriots over St. Louis Rams, 20-17: Super Bowl XXXVI, 2002

It’s hard to remember a time–a fairly recent time, at that–that the Patriots weren’t an uber-force to be reckoned with. It’s like trying to remember a time when Madison Square Garden wasn’t a morgue. When I think back to watching Super Bowl 36, my junior year of college, all I can see is Vinitieri’s winning 48-yard FG with 7 seconds left. I honestly didn’t even remember what team was on the other end of this miraculous victory–which may be the hallmark of an upset where anecdotal legacy favors the winner and not the upset-ee.

5.) New York Jets over Baltimore Colts, 16-7: Super Bowl III, 1969

My sister dated the son of David Herman, one of the guys on the 1969 Jets. After Joe Namath guaranteed a win over the 18-point favorite (the highest spread in SB history), he later said in an interview that only one guy on the team was pissed about this: David Herman. My sister must have heard (and told) this story a million times, but neither of us could have told you what team it was that Joe Cool was sentencing to defeat. I can’t decide if this was insanely lucky or astutely perceptive of Namath–but either way his called shot puts the ‘69 Super Bowl underdog in the books over the muted Colts.

* * *

It’s difficult to say what’s worse: the pressure on New England, or the lack of pressure on the Giants. The New England Patriots are one game away from immortality, from locking up their dynasty status and chiseling out a spot in sports history as unassailably legendary.

And then there are the Giants, who seemed to have tumbled into the playoffs before we even had time to wrap our heads around it. I felt like I did when my dad used to wake me up for school at 6am: confused, disoriented, frantic, and still a little bit unsure of whether or not I’m still in REM or if I’m actually conscious.

It says something that all of New England isn’t treating their faith and sports loyalty with kid gloves. Things changed after 2004–gone are the days of frantically shushing people who start getting excited about the prospect of a championship. That era has since been replaced with a burgeoning tribe of sports fans that are less concerned about Super Bowl LXII, and more interested in moving on to capturing the NBA title.

I spent my formative years watching every last football game with my dad, who explained to me what a point spread was before I could even do long division. And after every game where “the bad guys weren’t supposed to win,” my dad would say, “Well, that’s why you play the game.”

Maybe the Giants will be embarrassed on Sunday, February 3rd. Maybe they’ll do what everyone thinks they’ll do and become the latest stepping stone in the Patriots’ climb towards immortality. But maybe not.

My college roommate slept through about 75% of our senior year. Luckily, her professors had a policy that you could take all 10 tests during the semester and have each count for 10%, or you could take less and just have them that much more weighted. My roommate wouldn’t go to class or take a quiz all semester, stay awake for 72 hours to study for the final, ace it, and wind up with an A+ for the term.

It doesn’t matter what New England got on the other 18 tests. Whether you come out of it as the Biggest Choker, the Biggest Upset-er, or just plain NFL Champion, the Super Bowl counts for 100% of the grade now.

If you want to crown the Pats now, then crown `em now. But there’s no sidestepping the simple truth that the game still has to be played.

And that’s why you take the field.