Bitterness

Ephesians 4:31 - Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Hooray for sports, my favorite diversion.

You could very well have missed it, but yesterday was the NBA Finals, and Lebron James got his ring. I can't, for the life of me, muster any interest in the NBA, especially without a dog in the fight. I tried to watch last night, I really did, but as Miami pulled away in the third quarter I quickly tuned out to watch this. With a shortened season, and the Pistons languishing in an era of, uh, non-competitiveness, I can confidently say I never cared less about the NBA finals.

A week or two ago I found this: OKCLE T-shirts as Thunder hopes to beat the Heat. It seems Cleveland fans partnered with Oklahoma City fans not so much to root for them but to root against Lebron James. Hence the OKCLE shirts, and their short-lived brotherhood.

Last summer, I went with my friend Josh to a game in Cleveland, and I saw that wall where they used to hang an enormous "We are all witnesses" banner with Lebron James and Nike or something. For a season, Lebron was the symbol of Cleveland, and they were happy to define themselves by a professional athlete. And when that was taken away, they were crushed. They felt rejected, empty...

...bitter.

I get that. The fallout is natural.

A lot of us joined in their bitterness, happy to see him fail, making jokes about Lebron and how he couldn't finish a game, how he only had three quarters, no ring, etc.

I think people love bitterness. We get to revel in how we were offended or wronged for as long as we want. It's ours, we own it, and nobody can take it away. We get to sink into this little place where we're victims, where the world wronged us and we can throw our hands up in exasperation. Victims aren't responsible. Some of us like being victims.

For Cleveland, I guess it was, "We're gonna suck now, but it's not our fault." Nevermind that, unless you're an owner, manager, or athlete, nothing in sports is your fault from the cellar to championship glory. We're all spectators - witnesses, I guess - and nothing more. So why be bitter? Why hang onto that?

Because bitterness has a way of owning you. To hang onto bitterness is to refuse to move on, to incarcerate yourself, to give up.

Mass-producing OKCLE shirts means that Cleveland - at least the Cavs fans - continue to be defined by Lebron, long after he's gone. Cavs fans: Why would you let some guy in another city continue to define you? Let it go. Wash your hands of it. Be done with it. He got his ring. May that be closure for you. Your Lebron James era is over. Start rooting for the Cavs, not against Lebron.

Lots of people, myself included, have bitterness. You can continue to define yourself by a girl who dumped you, or a job that let you go. I got laid off once. Sometimes, I check their website secretly hoping to find it vacant. Why would you let a girl you once dated, or a job you once held, continue to define you?

Bitterness is a silent killer. We think it's okay to hang onto, but I think it eats you, it distracts you, and it can define you. In Ephesians 4:31, Paul groups it in with decidedly less private, secretive stuff: Rage. Fighting. Slandering. Maliciousness. They're cousins of bitterness. Jesus says we ought to turn a cheek if someone wrongs you. There are some things we're just supposed to let go of.

The ALDS

Last night I stayed up in the office watching the Tigers beat the Yankees to advance to the ALCS. 

I settled in the office because my wireless reception was a little sketchy from my house, and I'd rather sit in an office chair to watch the game without interruption than recline on a couch and watch the game freeze and stop up every other play.

Take the first inning. I get the game going, kick back, watch Austin Jackson strike out (no surprise there) to make the first out of the game. Then - connection goes down. A little tinkering and I get it back up. Now the Yankee crowd is silent and we're suddenly up 1-0. I missed Don Kelly's solo shot. I do a fist pump. Sit down on the edge of the couch to watch Delmon Young bat. Ivan Nova goes to his windup and -

Connection down again.

Nope. Not doing this. I pack it up, move to the kitchen where my wifi signal is a little more reliable, set my projector and computer on my table and get it going again. Now we're up 2-0. Still one out, nobody on base. Delmon hit a solo shot too? Another fist pump. Miguel Cabrera strikes out and there's a murmur from the crowd. Victor Martinez grounds out. End of the first inning.

I sit there at my kitchen table and watch Doug Fister mow down the Yanks on my wall. This might work out fine. And then-

Connection down again.

No question, I'm not gonna put up with this. I migrate to the office, where I sit for the next three and a half hours in an office chair. It's not the ideal comfy setup but it'll do.

The Yankees trot out six more pitchers after the first inning, and each one of them is effective. The Tigers only get one more run and never establish a safe lead. 

But to me the story is the Tigers pitching.

Throughout the game, they let lots of guys on base, but strand 11 of them. Sometimes three in an inning. It's exciting and terrible and scary. I sit, shaking, heart palpitating, hands over my eyes, peering through the gaps like a child in a scary movie. I text my brother - "Can't. Watch." A thousand miles away, he's doing the same, I think. "Sickening," he says.

Scherzer gets Russell Martin to swing like the tinman at a pitch he clearly doesn't want. Joaquin Benoit loads 'em up and walks in a run, but leaves the bases loaded. In the 9th, Jose Valverde closes it out and gets Granderson and Cano to pop out. Then he strikes out Alex Rodriguez who, for the second straight year, ends the Yankees season by striking out. As a Tigers fan, it's beautiful.

I clap, and shout "YES!" - I can do this in the office without fear of disturbing anyone else. At home, the windows are always open and certainly Julio and Beth would hear me and think I'm ridiculous. 

Maybe I am ridiculous.

Soon, all my fellow Tiger-fan-friends are texting me and littering Facebook with Tigers-related statuses. This might be one of my favorite things about Facebook - it gives people far away from each other the chance to celebrate together. Otherwise, I'd have no idea just how many people are out there enjoying and celebrating this along with me. 

I have to talk about baseball

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a Red Sox fan right now. Last night was probably one of the most incredible nights in baseball history, but the nature of professional sports is such that for every incredible play, game, win, whatever, there's a loser on the other side. All they have today is heartbreak. They collapsed historically, wiping out a huge cushion with a horrible September, and then needing just one out - maybe one pitch - to make it to the postseason.

Look for the headlines from their papers at the start of the season, and you'll see they had lofty expectations. "best team EVER" one of them says. Not just the best BoSox team ever, but the best team. Ever. Then they started 2-10. And they finished 7-19. They bookended their season playing .237 ball. In between they played 81-43. If they had played that way all season, they'd have won 105 games and would have the best record in baseball.

But today their season is done.

Luckily, I am not a Red Sox fan. I can almost empathize. But not quite.

Like most Tigers fans, I've been waiting almost five years for tomorrow when we play a postseason game for the first time since 2006. Our hope is different - get us to the postseason and we'll see from there. When we miss the postseason - and we've done that a lot - we get to thinking about next year. It's always cautious optimism. We're not arrogant enough to publish a headline like "best team EVER." We've been humbled by some awful, awful decades.

We collapsed, hard, in 2009. Like the Red Sox, we blew a big lead in the division and let someone catch us. Unlike the Red Sox, we actually made it to the tie-breaker. That game, number 163, forever ruined the number 163 for me, probably. But it's one of the best games I've ever watched. Extra innings, a bunch of lead changes, it was incredible. We just wound up with fewer runs in the end. Season done. No playoffs, no world series, nothing.

Enter 2011. I'm living here in Puerto Rico. With my tax return, I spoil myself with MLB.TV. Suddenly, I can watch every. single. Tigers game. Ask the people here, they'll tell you I was often found in my man-cave, watching the Tigers projected up on my wall. They might remember the day I emerged and told everyone that Justin Verlander had just thrown a no-hitter. I know I do.

From the beginning, I had a good feeling about this season. And, thus far, some amazing stuff has happened. Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter and is a cinch for the Cy Young, even played well enough to force people to explain why a pitcher shouldn't be an MVP. Could still get it, for all I know. He'll definitely get votes. Miguel Cabrera won the batting title. Actually, that was kind of a big surprise. Our closer was perfect - everytime he came into the game with a close lead, we won.

But on top of all of that, we get to play tomorrow, in primetime, against the Yankees. There is nothing like seeing your team in the playoffs. (Hasn't happened with the Lions in a while but... who knows?)

And I like our chances. And I suppose I ought to make a prediction.

I favor: Us.

How could I not? I didn't watch all summer just to abandon hope in the postseason.

I honestly think our lineup can handle any pitcher out there. I think we'll get by the Yankees, then the Rangers. In the NL, I'm going to pick the Cards over the Phillies (This is just a gut feeling. Philly has incredible pitching, but they won't get enough offense) and the DBacks over the Cards.

I'm picking the Tigers over the Diamondbacks. Sorry, Tram and Gibby.

It's good to be a Tigers fan

I don't blame people for not being baseball fans. Unless you've got a dog in the fight, you really don't have a reason to watch. I could not sit down and watch a Padres/Astros game start to finish (This, I think, precludes me from the top tier of rabid baseball fans). But since I'm a Detroit fan, and I know all the players and keep up with them, I actually enjoy watching them play. It doesn't hurt that they're playing well and are very much in control of their division, about to claim their first championship in 24 years. It's an exciting time to be a Tigers fan.

Lots of baseball fans – ones more rabid than I - have ambitions of seeing a game in every single Major League stadium. For me... maybe one day. But for now, I'm going to try to check out all the parks within a few states of Michigan. I've been to Comerica a few times, as well as U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago and the more distant Turner Field in Atlanta (where the atmosphere will go a long way to convert non-Braves fans). I've been to a few retired parks too. I took in a game at the Metrodome where the Twins played until moving into Target Field last year. Several years ago, my dad took us to a game at Milwaukee County Stadium where the Brewers used to play. And of course, he took us to Tigers stadium too.

With Progressive Field just a few hours away in Cleveland and the Tigers playing well, my friend Josh and I drove there Wednesday to see them play the Indians.

Cleveland, it turns out, doesn't look too far away on a map but is still a five hour drive from Grand Rapids. That's twice as long as driving to Comerica in Detroit and it's not a drive you want to make very often, and it's definitely not one you want to make just to see your team lose. I had never been to Cleveland before, and I'm all about going to places I've never been before just to say I've been there.

Across from QuickenLoans Arena where the Cavs play, Nike had hung a massive banner that said “We are all witnesses.” It had a picture of Lebron James angelically throwing powder in the air, like it was magic or something. You may not have heard, but he quietly left them last year to play for the Miami Heat. They took the banner down and in its place there now hangs one that says, “Our home since 1866. Our pride forever,” and it has a picture of the Cleveland skyline lit up at night. They would rather have their identity in their city than in a guy who plays basketball really well. I respect them just a little bit more because of that.

Don't stake your hope in guys who get paid to play games.

We found a parking garage a few blocks away with parking for $10. We pulled in and the attendant at the counter was sleeping with her head against the window. The gate was up, so we pulled through, expecting that maybe someone else would be waiting for us to throw money at them while their coworker slept. Instead, there was another woman, standing, who just waved us by. We parked, a little bit confused, and left the building no poorer than when we'd arrived. Unfortunately, we took no notice of the level on which we parked. When we came back later, we had it a Seinfeldian parking garage search.

Progressive Field is a pretty nice stadium. I like Comerica better – it seems a little more spacious and open, where Progressive has a little more of a condensed, closed-in feel like U.S. Cellular where the Sox play. (Here, I'd like to point out that the Tigers recently swept the White Sox and effectively crushed any of their dreams of reaching the postseason.) The Tigers – I'm admittedly biased – are blessed with a beautiful ballpark.

For the record, I think Comerica is a little cheaper too. Not by much, but it is. The vendors at progressive will sell you a hot dog for $5.50, which the guy who sat next to me balked at but later caved in and paid. A jumbo hot dog is $8.50. They'll sell you a 24 oz can of Honey Brown Lager for $9.50. A two beer/two peanut combo is $27.

Don't do it. I can't imagine there are many people who deem this a worthy investment. Josh and I smuggled in ziploc bags of peanuts. Mine were gone before the first pitch. We tried to smuggle in Dr Peppers but they didn't make it to the gate.

I'll be as brief as possible reporting the goings-on of the baseball game because anybody who cares to know about it already does. And, as much as I might want to, I'm not gonna turn this into a sports blog. Verlander pitched. You ought to know his name because he's having an historic season, and doing it as a Tiger. Everyone in Detroit loves him, and there will probably be a lot of kids named Justin again. People drive a long way to see him play and pay lots of money for shirts with his name on them.

But he gave up a few runs. And the Tigers struggled to hit the Indians pitcher. Until the sixth, down 4-2, they loaded the bases, scored a run, and then Victor Martinez hit a grand slam to put the Tigers ahead 7-4. Even in the Indians stadium, there were enough Tigers fans there to be just as loud as the Indians fans. Justin Verlander won his 22nd game.

The first Indians fan that we saw that day was a guy who walked by us and said, “Good luck in the playoffs, guys.” We, of course, marked ourselves with Tigers gear, as any good and brave fan does in an opposing ballpark. We told him thanks and talked to him a bit, he was actually a really nice guy. All sports fans ought to be good ambassadors like him. We met another lady walking into Five Guys later on who said, “Sorry about your shirts.” But even she ended up being really nice too, and we admitted to each other we'd rather see the other team in the playoffs over the Sox or Twins. I'm still deciding whether or not that's true.

Regardless, it looks like it will be my team that will be in the playoffs. And since we got to see them win, the drive home was considerably more enjoyable.

Some heroes of the day:

Victor Martinez

Justin Verlander

Heroes

I was in an antiques store today. Actually, an antiques mall. It's just a few miles from where I live, and I drive by it every day on the way to work. I knew eventually I'd have to stop in and look at all their old garbage. So today I did. It's a giant warehouse, and out front is a sign that says, "Invest in your future with the past. Buy Antiques." Whether or not antiques, specifically their antiques, are a sound investment, I can't tell you. But they are neat.

When there is nothing else on TV (and sometimes when there is something else on TV) I will watch Antiques Roadshow and sit in awe as some expert with a bowtie gives a detailed history of Grandma's shampoo bottle. Seriously, I don't know how they know these things. And I'm not sure I want to. I just find it all really really interesting when an object has been passed down by so many people, and outlived them, and accumulated bits and pieces of their life in every scratch, stain, and repair. I have always loved stuff that survived the past, miraculously escaping the permanent, mysterious history of the world, not to die on some scrap heap or landfill but instead to continue serving its purpose long beyond the intention or awareness of its creator.

Which brings me to the RC Cola cans. There was no shortage of cool stuff to stare at and not buy - books better than a century old, coins, glassware, political pins, world war two posters - and RC Cola cans from the 70s. (How do you like that, Mom and Dad? Stuff from the 70s is now antique.) There was a shelf full of them, and each one had the picture and stats of a pro Football or Baseball player. They were basically sportscards that were once filled with soda pop. One had Rollie Fingers on it. And I had never seen anything like that before, so I thought: What an incredible idea! They should do this today! They'd be a hit; collectors would buy 'em up.

Except. Except. I don't think people would be all that interested.

As I imagined a Pepsi can emblazened with the athletic accomplishments of Ledanian Tomlinson and Derek Jeter, I realized that most people probably wouldn't really care. I guess I have this notion that athletes were once heroes, untouchable celebrities from afar who people encountered only occasionally through televised games and nightly newspaper articles and, for the very lucky, once and a while from the stands at a stadium. But people today, I guess, don't see athletes that way anymore.

And there's a paradox in that. Because they get more press than ever and make unbelievable amounts of money, and sports marketing is as big as ever. If anything, they should be far more significant today than ever before. But I can't convince myself that that's the case. I don't think the majority of the population really cares about them at all. Certainly not enough to warrant some marketing company donating an entire line of soda cans to them. People who really want to can go out and get their jersey or an 8x10 glossy or just about anything with their likeness on it. For the diehard sports fan, they're still heroes.

But for everybody else, they aren't. Professional athletes are just people who've devoted their life to getting really really good at a game. They spent their time in the classroom figuring out how to run routes and hit knuckleballs. Maybe they don't really need to be heroes. Maybe they never were. Maybe it's the internet, or too many athlete scandals, or celebrity culture as a whole.

So I guess my question/point is this: It worked to put them on soda cans in the 70s, and it probably wouldn't today. Have professional athletes slipped in public standing from where (I think) they once were, or were they ever really there in the first place?

This is what I do know: Tomorrow, I'm going to spend the day watching football because I still really like it. And next summer, I'm going to spend too much money on baseball tickets, and I'll listen to every game on the radio that I can. So, though the athletes themselves might not be terribly important, I sure enjoy watching them.

Why the Detroit Lions must go 0-16

I really, really want the Lions to go 0-16 this season. And it’s not like I’m just lusting for a trainwreck, with some sort of poke-it-while-it-dies morbid curiosity. I have legitimate reasons.

First, if you don’t follow the NFL, know this: For the last thirty seasons, NFL teams have played sixteen games each season. No one has ever lost all sixteen (though before the sixteen-game era, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14). A few have lost 15, and a few more have lost 14. But the Lions are very, very bad, and they might just be the first to lose all sixteen. And I for one, really really really want to see them do it. I might write them a letter.

There are obvious reasons why a fan would, at this point in the season, want to see their team lose. The most obvious and beneficial is that each year, the NFL feels sorry for the most awful teams and typically gives them the first pick of the college players. So if the Lions go 0-16, we’ll get to see them grab a promising player, give them lots of money, and firmly dash their hopes of Super Bowl glory.

And as for doing something no one’s ever done - it’s always fun to see your team break new ground. We’d be pioneers – of suckiness, but pioneers nonetheless. We’d make history. We’d become the yardstick for awful teams. In the future when teams are pretty bad, the debate will be, “Yes, they’re bad, but are they 2008 Lions bad?” Think of it this way: It’s an epochal change. Right now, it’s an impossibility. If we can pull this off, we’ll live in a post-0-and-16 world. In an 0-and-16 world, anything can happen. Including, maybe, such an outrageous thing as the Lions making the playoffs.

And the only way that can happen is if the Lions somehow hit rock bottom first. For now, things have been bad, but they’ve always been able to get worse. We’ve been a 2-14 team. Twice, even. And the fans have always been able to say, “It could be worse.” Going 1-15 would be bad. But it still wouldn’t the wake-up-in-the-gutter moment we need to turn things around. And the only way things change is if we get a season full of losses. Imagine: A whole season, a homogenous batch of losing. Perfection.

Fans have been hoping for this for a while, the point at which someone realizes what they’re doing isn’t working and hasn’t for some time, and maybe they need a new approach. I don’t have any suggestions for that. I don’t run football teams. I just watch football and hope my team wins, wait for drama and shoot-outs, 70-yard touchdown passes, fumbles picked up by linemen and chugged into the endzone, defenders clinging to his ankles. And someday, the playoffs. Or maybe a Super bowl.

Maybe 0-16 gets us there. Or maybe we’re mired in the mess for a few more decades. I dunno. But I can hope. Hope. Maybe Obama can fix them. For now, though, to not go 0-16 would be a disappointment. This just becomes another losing season like the ones before where we can say, it could be worse.