Caring is Complicated
Pitchers and catchers reported to camp this week, but my baseball fandom did not. I get to the root of why I just don't care any longer.
Welcome to Moronitude! Many apologies for not getting this out until Monday. I hate missing deadlines so, so much. But on the other hand, I’m my own boss here, and today I feel like being a lenient overlord. We’re going to be going a little off format this week, as I want to spend the bulk of the newsletter talking about pitchers & catchers reporting to Spring Training. But before we get there, let’s talk about the news story dominating the week—Texas.
I’d written a long diatribe about the disaster in Texas/Ted Cruz’s journey to Mexico a little earlier this week, but as more happened and time passed, I felt like it didn’t quite work any longer. So I’m scrapping the bulk of it. But there is one element that I want to address, albeit briefly, and that is the joy people seem to be showing while dunking on Republican politicians in the Lone Star State.
Let’s be clear, of course Republicans should be held responsible for decades of worship at the altar of deregulation leading to the catastrophic failure of Texas’ power grid. This is a given. What I’m saying is that when people are freezing in their homes with no power or water, maybe we can hold off on the memes of Ted Cruz with a margarita for a little bit.
I don’t see what there is to gain here. It’s not like Cruz or Greg Abbott are going to suddenly feel shame for the first time in their lives. That ship sailed long ago, as is abundantly clear when we see they’re already out here blaming green energy for the disaster.
What I can’t help but think about every time I read a tweet about how “red states have this coming” is the 24 million residents of Texas who didn’t vote Republican in 2020. Whether these people chose to vote Democrat, were left out of the voting process entirely or chose not to vote at all is completely beside the point. They were failed by their government regardless of the role they played in electing that government. Everyday Texans do not deserve some sort of Karmic comeuppance in the form of freezing to death in their homes simply for electing asshats like Cruz.
Now, I know this may sound hypocritical as I certainly say plenty of hyperbolic statements driven by politics. I’ve often pondered whether we should have fought the Civil War at all. I know the obvious answer is that we should have, but when I’m pissed off by something like the hanging chads in Florida altering an election, I feel a little differently. But this past week I was seeing a viciousness out of people that really rubbed me the wrong way.
I always want to hold the right accountable when they publicly lack empathy, why shouldn’t I feel the same way about the left? It’s so easy to lose perspective when you get caught up in politics. The D.C. crowd often makes following politics akin to following sports, making us care about winning or losing so much that we find a need to celebrate every time the other side screws up, even when there is no winner.
One night I was drinking with a bunch of friends in Chicago and we ended up back at my buddy Kolter’s place. As the libations continued, he introduced us to a Russian card game called Durak (which translates to “fool”). Durak has an interesting wrinkle to it that you don’t find in many American games—the winner is unimportant. Each of the four players attempts to get rid of the cards in their hand and the game continues until only one person is left holding cards. The person with cards at the end is the Durak, the loser. But what about the other three people? Did they finish in first, second and third place? Nope. They just get to breathe a sigh of relief that they weren’t the loser this time around. No celebration, no victory, just the minor happiness one takes away knowing they didn’t lose.
It makes sense when you trace the game’s lineage. Durak was popularized during the 1812 Russo-French war by Russian Imperial conscripts. When Napoleon’s troops are pummeling your forces for much of the campaign (with your friends dying all around you) and that is followed by chasing those same troops out of Russia through an incredibly harsh winter (which is also killing your friends as well as the enemy), there probably wasn’t a lot to be happy about. Even winning would feel like losing in this situation. Napoleon may have been the Durak, but everybody suffered.
I cannot think of a more apt way to describe the average citizen’s experience with politics in America. The system is gamed in such a way that none of us are ever going to truly win, but if you’re lucky there will be people who suffer a little more than you do. There’s nothing to gloat about when you’re not at the very bottom, chances are you’ll be there yourself one of these days. So when you’re getting ready to attack the leaders who allowed this to happen, maybe have a second of empathy with the tone you choose. And if you really want to send a message to the terrible leadership forget about crafting that perfect tweet and throw some money to organizations on the ground getting shit done.
Weekly Song to Rock Out To
One Great City! by The Weakerthans
It may be part of my Irish heritage or just a personality quirk, but I thoroughly enjoy holding grudges. If I’m being completely honest, it’s kind of fun to have a nemesis, even if that nemesis has zero idea about the grudge being held against them.
In my younger years my grudges often manifested in my musical taste. For example, Slapstick was one of my very favorite bands, so when they broke up, in part to form Alkaline Trio, I was furious. Thus, I hated Alkaline Trio. Meaning I missed out on the good years of the band, only to listen to overcome the grudge and listen to them a fair amount once they stop making good music.
The same thing happened with The Weakerthans. I love Propagandhi, particularly their first couple albums. Not that I dislike what they’re currently doing, but “Less Talk, More Rock” is a perfect blend of ‘90s pop-punk and socialist politics. So when John K Samson left the band to start a whiny emo band I was having none of it.
While I drove around the streets of Morris, Illinois harboring this grudge against The Weakerthans they were up in Winnipeg making phenomenal albums, a fact I wouldn’t learn until my mid-30s. Now I can admit it was foolish, I should have been listening to The Weakerthans the entire time. What I really love about “One Great City!” is the way Samson’s affection for Winnipeg can be seen between the lines. When you hate a place you bash it in broad terms, the specificity Samson shows in his complaints about Winnipeg can only come from a place of love. If I didn’t love Jersey City/NYC I would never spend as much time bitching about the lack of alleys and the garbage on the streets, it’s the same way Samson sings about cars stalled out in the left lane from the cold.
Don’t make the same mistakes I did in my youth, listen to The Weakerthans (and some early Trio).
Things to Read
History can be bleak, bloody and horrible. Here’s a very interesting article about the strain on the psyche of historians as they dedicate their lives to studying some of the most horrific atrocities imaginable. https://newrepublic.com/article/161127/can-historians-traumatized-history
Yes, I know you just read an essay urging people to be a little more civil on social media when it comes to politics. But Rush Limbaugh is an exception. This is one grave that should be danced upon. https://defector.com/point-counterpoint-rush-limbaugh/
Police departments across the United States spend an ungodly sum of money settling lawsuits, often with minimal scrutiny and attention. FiveThirtyEight did a truly enlightening (and hopefully infuriating) deepdive into the subject. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-misconduct-costs-cities-millions-every-year-but-thats-where-the-accountability-ends/?ex_cid=story-twitter
Charlie’s Sports Corner
Pitchers and catchers reported for Spring Training this week. For decades, I would have this date circled on my calendar. I’d squeal with glee each year when some Boston news station posted video of the moving trucks rolling out of Fenway Park on their way to Florida. Fuck Punxsutawney Phil and his wishy-washy predictions, those moving trucks were a guarantee that within a fortnite baseball would be on my TV.
But this year… I don’t care. At all. I can’t find an iota of enthusiasm about the upcoming baseball season and I’ve done a lot of soul-searching on the subject, and I have a few theories.
The 2020 season was a bizarre experiment complete with new rules, a truncated season and an eerie lack of fans, so I wasn’t all that surprised by my lack of interest. I felt as if last season was an anomaly in so many ways, so I think I was expecting my devotion to return.
The Boston Red Sox are a trash fire. Despite being one of the world’s most valuable sports franchises owned by a billionaire who also owns Liverpool FC, the Boston Globe and a NASCAR team, the team is determined to dump salary and act like they’re going out of business. Watching players like Mookie Betts get traded for pennies on the dollar so a billionaire can avoid paying the equivalent of a couple bucks is bad enough, but simultaneously watching a sycophantic fan base lick John Henry’s boots throughout the endeavor makes me want to hurl. When you add in rehiring Alex Cora despite the sign-stealing chicanery he got into with the Astros and the near-constant attempts at wringing every possible dollar out of fans, well, there’s not a whole lot to like these days.
There’s a heck of a lot going on right now! The pandemic has made keeping up with any sort of hobby way more difficult, at least it has for me. Work is more difficult to do these days. Finding ways to connect with friends you don’t get to bump into is difficult. Attempting to work my way through government bureaucracy to get a needle in my arm (goddamn do I hate that phrase) is a daily nightmare. Even if I was in a good spot with baseball it would still be difficult to muster the same level of commitment.
I’m not spending time at bars or restaurants any more, which means I’m not relaxing in front of a baseball game the way I always have. The beauty of a 162-game season is the lack of focus one has to pay attention on a daily basis. When you want to throw yourself fully into a game, you still can, but for the most part baseball is background noise. The game will be on at the bar as you gossip with your friends or it’ll be on at a restaurant while you eat during your lunch break. It will just be there. These days you need to actually seek baseball out and, well, I haven’t really been seeking it.
All of the above combined with the other thing.
If I’m being brutally honest with myself, I’ve been out on baseball for at least a couple of seasons, and I know the exact reason why, I just don’t really want to face it. Watching baseball hurts too goddamn much.
My mom died on July 4th, 2018. She had a stroke in late May, and after spending over a month in the ICU fighting through ups and downs, she passed away. One of the very last experiences we had together was listening to the Red Sox beat the Nationals 3-0. I don’t know how much of it she actually heard vs. what parts were wishful thinking upon the part of a grieving son, but I’m pretty sure she was squeezing my hand tighter when the Sox pushed across a couple of runs, and I’m positive she squeezed even hard when Kimbrel (finally) shut the door in the ninth.
My mom started out life as a Yankees fan, a personality flaw she was able to overcome after moving to Boston and routinely spending less than a buck to sit in the bleachers of Fenway Park. She used to plop me down in front of the A’s game when I was a toddler, and while she took a breather from the ordeal that was raising a rambunctious child, I fell in love with the game by watching Rickey Henderson swipe bases with impunity. When my dad was at work, we’d play catch in the street. Or at least we would until I started throwing too hard, a feat I was both proud of (I’m strong!) and annoyed by since it put an end to playing catch with my mom.
A couple of times each summer she would take me into an Oakland A’s game on a Wednesday afternoon. I remember attending these games with her, but what I recall most vividly was waiting in line to get autographs after the game. The Oakland Library did a fundraiser where for $10 you could get something signed by whichever three players had volunteered for the day. The day I was getting Dave Henderson’s autograph he started teasing me about the Mark McGwire jersey I was wearing, and my mom, true to form, completely threw me under the bus saying that she urged me to get a Hendu jersey. It still makes me chuckle 30ish years later.
She was a baseball fan for the entirety of her life, but in the early 2000s my mom’s fandom became much more active. I don’t know if it was because she had a ton of free time down in Florida or if it was because the Red Sox were pretty damn good, but she became obsessed. In a way, this intensified my own love of the game. It became something we could discuss easily during our weekly phone calls. It didn’t matter that she was in Florida and I was in Chicago, both of us had our focus on Boston.
We had our arguments, of course. That’s what sports fans do. I constantly defended Dustin Pedroia from her disdain for his cockiness. She always stood up for Jonny Gomes’ intangibles (like his ability to bring the locker room together) when I mocked his lack of tangibles (a lifetime .242 average is not superb). My mom was the only person I’ve ever argued about baseball with who would reference a player’s WAR, odd fashion sense and below average throwing arm in the same sentence.
Whenever we spoke of Gomes she would bring up a profile from The Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The article didn’t just detail Gomes’ unusual road to the majors, but it also referenced how well he treated his mom, a detail my own mother made sure I noted. I’m pretty sure it was a not-so-subtle reminder to call more often and I can’t help but laugh about it now. This is why I’ve been using “Jonny Watson” as an occasional pen name, a sort of hybrid of one of her last favorite ballplayers and her own last name.
After my mom passed, every single remaining Sox game took on greater meaning. Far more meaning than any sporting event should ever be saddled with. Grieving is hard, putting that grief into distractions is way easier. So that’s what I did. And the Red Sox kept on winning. They won 108 games during the regular season. They beat the hated Yankees in the division series, including a 16-1 drubbing I’d gladly watch over-and-over-and-over. They beat the defending World Series champion Houston Astros in 5. Then they beat the Dodgers in the World Series.
During that series they dropped one game, an 18-inning affair that is one of the best games I’ve ever seen, but the loss gave me an existential crisis. Hours before the game I had gotten a tattoo. Specifically, a tattoo of my mom as a dalmatian wearing a Red Sox hat. Despite going through the ecstasy of 2004, despite winning titles in 2007 & 2013, despite already dispensing with the hated Yankees, I was afraid that I had jinxed the team. I knew this was irrational, but that’s how sports fans think.
In the same vein, I know it’s irrational to think my mom had any sort of hand in the way the 2018 season played out. But it’s comforting to believe, so I believe it. Which brings us back to pitchers and catchers reporting this week. As John Henry strips away the 2018 team for spare parts and a little extra dough, he’s dismantling a team I love way too much. I don’t give a shit how poorly Andrew Benintendi hit last year, I don’t care if any of those prospects turn into All Stars. All I care about is seeing another player my mom adored being shipped out of town. And it breaks my heart. The heartbreak was less than when Mookie was traded, for obvious reasons, but it was the same sensation. It was there when Kimbrel left. It was there when Price left. It was even there when Porcello, who neither my mother or I ever said a good word about, became a Met.
I can’t detach myself from the 2018 team, nor would I ever really want to. They’re the last Red Sox team I’ll ever share with my mom. I know I’ll come back to baseball at some point, I always have in the past. It’ll take some time. Maybe a few years for ownership to earn back my trust, or maybe it’ll only take one 3-game sweep at Yankee Stadium, but I’ll be back.
Until then I’ll just be sitting here, wearing the Mookie Betts shirt my mom bought for me but never had the time to give me, wishing I could get on the phone to listen to my mom gloat about how happy she is now that the team is finally free of Dustin Pedroia. I might even let her get away with it without an argument too… but probably not.
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