Splice Today

The Unrealized Legend

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:10:51 -0500

I relish the four hours every Sunday afternoon I get to watch the New England Patriots, the team to beat for the better part of the decade. I suppose the Patriots appeal to me because I grew up in the Commonwealth, or because Tom Brady is the single most charismatic athlete on the the planet, or because Wes Welker gets me all nostalgic about my own days on the field.

However, the on-field appeal of the offensive juggernaut of Brady to Welker is not the only reason the Patriots hooked me. I am more attentive to how Head Coach Bill Belichick acts in the interest of his own legacy and how this response will ultimately effect it.

Last Sunday, against the Indianapolis Colts, Belichick made a call that puzzled pretty much everyone. Winning by six and facing fourth down and two yards to go on his own 24-yard line with just about two minutes left in the game, against the league's most potent offense, Belichick went for it. Conventional, conservative, old-school football says punt the ball and force the Colts to drive 70 yards to win. Advanced statistical analysis actually favors Belichick's call, claiming that going for the first down provided greater odds of victory. Belichick himself said he was trying to put his team in the best position to win, but he sounded and looked disingenuous probably because he was. In that moment, Belichick did not see the best opportunity to prevail or home-field advantage in the balance as much as he saw his an opportunity to secure his own legend. The criticism of Belichick's call exhaustively focuses on his hubris and the perception that he is an egotistical maniac, but the only person that can really understand that call is not Trent Dilfer or Tom Brady or Peyton Mannning.

It is his friend Bon Jovi.

About a week before the Pats-Colts game I spent a Saturday night channel hopping with my roommate; we finally stumbled on When We Were Beautiful, the rockumentary of Bon Jovi. When We Were Beautiful is an intimate, depressing look at Bon Jovi's obsession with his own legacy, his neurotic and compulsive need for control, and why he probably hates Bruce Springsteen. More than all of that, When We Were Beautiful reveals the stress that Bon Jovi experiences in the unromantic world of commercialized rock. Bon Jovi's says his legacy will be to touch more people than any other musician, ever. His desire to touch people is actually the extrinsic manifestation for his intrinsic necessity to control everything. At one point in the film, a panoramic shot shows Bon Jovi in the foreground of about 100,000 people at a concert in Munich as he draws their arms right to left with the neck of his guitar. What Bon Jovi wants his legacy to be—an empathetic connection with his audience—and what it actually is—the ability to literally and emotionally control his audience—stands in contrast to the progressive drive of an artist to create.

But Jon Bon Jovi and Bill Belichick have never really created anything. And if you want to be a Legend, you need to create something. You learn nothing about a man based on his success alone. Without creation Bon Jovi is just some guy who sings some songs that are played at bars and Belichick is just that guy who found Tom Brady and won a bunch of games.

The last legendary coach to pace the sidelines was Bill Walsh, the inventor of the West Coast Offense and coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Walsh developed an offense that revolutionized the game and launched the careers of two Hall of Fame quarterbacks. It also won him three Super Bowl rings. Legend is creation, not control.

This is why Bon Jovi and Belichick are friends. They think they can control their legacies. Belichick saw an opportunity to seize it, or at least part of it, by preventing some Sony/Sprint/Taco Bell spokesman named Peyton Manning from touching the field when the game was on the line. How Bill responds to his self-imposed fiasco I suspect is quite predictable; his grip will tighten, he will control more. Bon Jovi will continue to wave his guitar back and forth, hoping that he'll touch more people with 'I'm a Cowboy' than Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' or 'Thunder Road.' While Bill Belichick will one day have his bust enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Jon Bon Jovi already sits in the Rock n' Roll Hall, their legends are unrealized. They still need to create them.

Soccer game may start WWIII. The controversial goal that put France in the World Cup

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:58:03 -0500

Nothing but net on that one

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:41:00 -0500

Take it easy there cowboy

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:02:21 -0500

Adorable Little Girl Soccer Fail

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:39:23 -0500

A Fan's Crucible of Pain and Loss

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:38:11 -0500

I grew up rooting for such legendary (at least in Philadelphia) Phils as John Kruk, Darren Daulton, Curt Schilling and Mitch (Wild Thing) Williams. I remember vividly the Phillies' heartbreaking World Series loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993, even though I was only in grade school at the time. I remember the hatred we Philadelphians experienced when the New York Yankees rolled off four championships to close out the 90s—hatred, of course, that we directed toward our own team.

The Phillies were so bad during the second half of the 90s that the Yankees' success bothered us much less than our own ineptitude. We sucked, and we knew it. It didn’t help that the Braves were in the midst of their remarkable string of 14 consecutive National League East titles.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Phillies fans remained eternally hopeful and consistently disappointed. When we drafted J.D. Drew with the second overall pick in 1997, fans believed we had found our superstar of the future. When he refused to sign with the club and instead re-entered the draft, eventually signing with the St. Louis Cardinals, we expressed our anger by throwing batteries at him when he next played in Philadelphia. Scott Rolen, a bona fide star, spent seven years in Philadelphia. During his tenure, the Phillies did not make the playoffs, and in 2002 Rolen was traded to the Cardinals. Pat "The Bat" Burrell was yet another superstar-of-the-future. Taken with the first overall pick in the 1998 draft, he never developed into more than a decent hitting, poor fielding left fielder.

We did not know it at the time, but the 1993 World Series loss would mark the beginning of a 14-year playoff drought. Fourteen years! Nearly an entire generation of Philadelphians had not been alive when the Phillies last made the playoffs. And yet, like a drug habit, we got our hopes up every year, and every year we were disappointed. The annual destruction of an entire city's hopes and dreams reinforced a particularly Philadelphian phenomenon: We booed the hell out of our team.

If a player hit a home run in his first at bat, we would cheer. If he struck out during his second at bat, we would boo. If the Phillies beat the Mets during April, we would believe that this was finally our year. When we lost to them in May, we would demand that the manager be fired. We behaved like a domestic abuser: "We are only viciously booing you because we love you. If you weren't so terrible we wouldn't treat you so horribly." This pattern continued for years, with Phillies fans' insecurities and doubts threatening to drive us insane. Our venom spread outwards from our team to opposing fans, players, umpires, the media—anyone associated with the sport of baseball was a deserving subject for abuse. It was not classy; it was barbaric. Opposing players hated it; even some of our own players hated it.

But then something remarkable happened. In 2007, the Phillies made the playoffs for the first time since 1993. Of course, we were swept from the first round and all of our crushing insecurities threatened to overwhelm us. But we came back strong in 2008, and as everyone knows we won the World Series in 2008. Words cannot describe the sense of joy, and also of relief, that swept over Philadelphia fans. For the first time in 28 years, the last thing that Phillies fans would do before the offseason would be to attend a parade and cheer our hearts out.

In 2009, the Phillies found themselves back in the World Series against the eternally successful New York Yankees. New Yorkers love to tell you how much they love their Yankees. You cannot go an entire day in Manhattan without seeing dozens of examples of Yankee paraphernalia. In fact, you probably cannot go an entire day anywhere in the Western world without seeing a Yankees hat or t-shirt. With so many fans, one would assume that the Yankees could easily fill their stadium with 68,000 raucous, hard-core, dedicated fans. Especially for Game Six of the World Series.

You would be wrong.

I was lucky enough to have a ticket to Game Six. I was very excited for what I hoped would be a thrilling Phillies victory. I was told by many New Yorkers not to wear any Phillies garb in order to avoid trouble. Not wanting to cause a disturbance, and knowing that a Yankees jersey in Philadelphia is equivalent to a target, I heeded their warnings.

Our seats were very good: right at the foul pole in left field, on the lower level. I was surprised and admittedly a bit pleased to find that our seats, and every other seat that I could see in the stadium, had thick foam pads on the seat and the back. Imagine, seat cushions in a baseball stadium! Yankees fans, I thought, must have extraordinarily sensitive butts. In the row behind me, I was happy to spot a Phillies fan in a bright red jersey. Man, I thought, he is going to get hassled! The stadium seemed to be sold out—there were even people filling the seats behind home plate.

As the game got underway, there was precious little to cheer about. The Yankees never trailed, and the 7-3 score felt larger than that. The fans in our section high fived each other and tried to do the same to me but I rejected them with a "Phillies fan" reply. They frowned, but nobody said anything. In fact, even my red-clad Phillies friend escaped abuse. The worst heckling he experienced was a drunken fan a section over: "Hey Phillies fan! Lets go Yankees! Let's go Yankees!" I repeat: that was the worst.

As the game progressed and became increasingly out of reach for the Phillies, I was intrigued at the relative silence of the crowd. Of course the stadium was loud when the Yankees scored. And if Andy Pettitte ran the count to 1-2 with 2 outs, the fans would stand up and cheer loudly. But if he threw a ball, the stadium would hush and everyone would sit back down. The most inspired chants, by far, were the "Who's your Daddy?" jeers directed at Pedro Martinez. But after he left following the fourth inning, the fans were at a loss. The only time the crowd really started cheering was in the ninth inning, as Mariano Rivera shut the door on the Phillies' 2009 season.

I'm sure that the quiet crowd can be partially explained by the lopsided score and the fact that people who've spent $1000 on tickets are probably not going to be the most raucous of fans. But I think the main reason has to do with the fundamental difference between Phillies and Yankees fans. The latter explain away their relative quiet by saying, "we're classy." But the real reason Yankee Stadium is a safe place for a Phillies fan is because Yankees fans just don't care as much as Phillies fans do.

I have a friend who, in my experience, is a typical Yankees fan. Through the entire spring and summer he does not mention the Yankees very often, other than to say "Yankees won. Nice." And yet, during the World Series, I heard from this friend more often than I heard from any other: "Hate to say I told you so" was the text message I received after Game Six. He is a Yankee fan not because he loves the team, but so that when the Yankees win he can be an asshole about it.

It was that type of fan who filled Yankee Stadium during Game Six. They were happy when the Yankees won, but their happiness was superficial and fleeting. How can the achievement of a 27th championship compare to the first in 28 years? For Yankees fans, there is no sense of foreboding, no sense that this could be their last shot at glory for the next 30 years. If the Yankees didn't win this year, they would have shrugged and said, "Well, who are the free agents this year that we can sign to huge contracts?" How can you appreciate athletic achievement if your path to success has been so consistent, so predictable?

The Yankees are a great organization, and they had a great team this year. But in many respects, the obvious difference between the passion of Philadelphia fans and the bandwagon smugness of Yankees fans cheapens what should be a proud moment in Yankees history.

Baseball's Mad Men

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:45:22 -0500

The Yankees did not buy the World Series. However, in the wake of the franchise's 27th world championship, the Yankees’ purchasing power has emerged as the complaint of choice for the casual fan; the rhetorical lynchpin for sports radio talking heads; and the center of satirical fodder for a politically inclined blogger. The result of the Yankees’ success and their subsequent re-coronation as baseball's greatest dynasty is the affirmation of the long-term success in the power of large quantities of capital to mitigate short term mistakes and the confirmation of the relative impossibility of a team of modest means sustaining success and establishing a dynastic legacy. These conclusions are either consciously missed or subconsciously ignored, and we complain and rant because we choose sports to symbolically reflect our desired picture of the world rather than aesthetically represent its reality.

Two interesting manifestations of the righteous success in present day popular culture are the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays and the central protagonist of AMC's Mad Men, Donald Draper. The '08 Rays surged into last year's fall classic with the American League pennant and a payroll of $43.8 million (the second lowest in all of baseball). They lost the Series to the Philadelphia Phillies (equipped with payroll of $98.2 million, good for 13th) but the Rays shocked the baseball world with their success, accentuated by defeating the highly invested Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The Rays embodied throwback, blue-collar baseball based on pitching, defense, and speed that was infectious and impossible not to respect.

Within the narrative of Mad Men, Don Draper ascended to the top of the ad industry from war hero by way of car salesman and small time marketing account executive. While his lifestyle is enviable (a heavy drinker, smoker, womanizer) and his personality is not (remarkably guff, cut throat, needy), Draper is ultimately redeemed in the eyes of the viewer by his ability to have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to reach the level of professional success. This quality is one and the same with the '08 Rays and it is impossible not to love. This ability to overcome through diligence and hard work is easily and quickly intoxicating.

The world in which the writers for Mad Men placed Draper seems to directly challenge his ability to succeed in the long term. The loud and flashy short-term victories ultimately distract from the evitable fall he will have (which we are constantly reminded of in the show’s opening credits). His main rival, Roger Sterling, shares all of Draper's negative traits while possessing not a single redemptive quality. His father created the company with an old buddy and passed it along to his son after a wayward jaunt across Europe and a fledgling attempt at a professional boxing career. Draper's cast of subordinates is a collection the Ivy League's best good ol' boys headlined by Pete Campbell (Dartmouth), Paul Kinsey (Princeton), and Ken Cosgrove (Columbia). All of them exhibit varying levels of incompetency and smugness that stands in stark contrast to their own marginal success compared to the little they had to do to attain it, especially when compared to Draper. In that world, pure talent and hard work play a small roll in one's own success. The size and unique nature of Draper's talent allows him to overcome much; however the common denominator that allowed him to succeed is his uncommon ability to avoid making mistakes. Just like the '08 Rays.

The primary antagonists in the short history of the Rays have been the Yankees and Red Sox and, to a lesser extent, all of the teams that considerably outspend them like the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Anaheim Angels. Comparatively speaking, the Yanks represent the Roger Sterlings of Major League Baseball and the other marginally successful teams the privileged Campbells and Cosgroves.

The White Sox, Mariners and Angels were not better baseball teams last year nor were they the year before. All three were primarily built by signing older players to large contracts that the Red Sox and Yankees tend to leave in the scrap heap. Sometimes the deals work out, but they usually don't, which is why you've seen a couple of World Series Championships out of this group (two) and far more missed playoff births (32) in the past 15 years. They tend to win with the right combination of home-grown talent and with accenting free agent additions. The large discrepancy between salary and success occurs once these teams get handcuffed into these large payrolls with little output form the players. These teams literally cannot overcome their own baggage.

The corollary is that sometimes they can, just as Campbell and Kinsey and Cosgrove have. Sometimes those teams get it right and make the playoffs (13 times for those particular three). Their privilege assists them. Campbell dodged the responsibility of knocking up a secretary and kept on living his life; the White Sox won a World Series with Jose Contreras and Javier Vasquez in their rotation. And like Roger Sterling, the Yankees make bigger mistakes and still position themselves to win it all, to succeed.

The Yankees can and always have been able outspend their mistakes. Their dynasty has not been created due to the fact that they are unnaturally lucky or put in far more effort than any other team on or off the field. The Yankees have an unlimited access to capital and should use it. They should take huge risks because they can afford it. Roger Sterling had no reason not to screw around in France or get his face mashed in the ring, because for him it was not a mistake. For Don Draper it would have been.

Had Draper impregnated a secretary early in his career, he would have had to marry the girl and raise the child. He would not have married up to Betty Draper and been in a better position to succeed professionally. The Rays could never spend valuable salary on Carl Pavano and cripple their chances of building a solid team in the process.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe when the Yankees win and the Rays don’t, that fear of inevitability grows a little and we think for an extra second about the limitations of our own social position. Because for lack of anything else, characters like Don Draper and teams like the Tampa Bay Rays don’t as much mask the legacy of the Roger Sterlings and New York Yankees of the world as overshadow the Pete Campbells and the White Sox of it. The bitch of it is that the Yankees and their herd don’t realize the fleetingness of hope that they inflict with each passing championship. And what they don’t comprehend is that they bought a $200 million mirror to remind the rest of us that even though we want to be Don Draper, we end up rooting for the White Sox.

What a real blogger looks like

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:58:08 -0500

Few bloggers have had quite as controversial a career as Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson. Johnson began blogging in earnest back in 2001 after the attacks on the twin towers, and continues putting out content at a furious pace nearly a decade later.

Jared Allen on the importance of the mullet

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:07:37 -0500

Fastest soccer goal in the world

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:31:09 -0500