I was a pretty depressed guy who read and absorbed everything for a long time. I was a champion debater.
One day and I’m not exactly sure why I decided that I had spent too much time wallowing in my own misery and to embrace today as positively as possible because I truly think that almost nothing from the past affects tomorrow except people’s ability to leverage it into a better or worse tomorrow.
A lot of people have embraced the new me, but it has come with some flack. I truly no longer want to debate, but I have always valued the truth and although I never want to fight (physically I’d lose), I have always been willing to die for the truth.
There are just some things from all my reading and learning and even listening that I think are 100% true.
A cool thing about sports is that when you are talking about the games in their purest sense, debates can just be innocent fun.
The other night I got into a situation like this over sports. I don’t follow sports much now, but I used to, and I still think certain things are true, and they are backed up as accurately as possible (with Vegas betting lines).
We were at a bar with some guys from the South and one had been a professional athlete whose father had played for the Indians and the ’86 New York Mets, who were one of the most entertaining, and fascinating teams ever, and I told him that I would bet my life that his father had some amazing stories about being around Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, and the rest of that crew. In fact, I believe he said his godfather was Gary Carter.
I told him that I considered him and his father to be among the 99th percentile of athletes, and I have immense respect for the hard work that those guys put in.
He was a basketball player and his favorite was Larry Bird. A lot of my favorite players are goofballs like Joe Charboneau and Rabbit Maranville (who is unjustly said to be one of the weaker Hall of Fame selections). Maranville was a total goof, but if the game was on the line he would die to win it. He took a ball to the head on purpose to win a game, and supposedly the umpire said, “If you can make it to first base, I will allow it,” and I even wrote a scene in the only long fiction I wrote about Maranville doing exactly that and dying.
Pete Reiser would die to win the most meaningless of games and destroyed what could have been one of the most stellar careers of all times. It wasn’t smart, but no one complained. Reiser was just built that way and no one had anything but respect for him even if he missed six weeks running into a brick wall to catch a meaningless fly ball with his team up 8-0 in the ninth in a game in April.
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson pretty much cemented that rings were all that mattered. If either lost the title on a last-second missed shot of a double overtime by a single point they considered the season to be a complete and utter failure that was completely their fault even though without them their teams wouldn’t have even smelled the playoffs.
Both baseball and football are definitely team sports, but baseball is unique in that you can be pretty selfish and still add tons of value to your team. Aside from clubhouse dynamics, you want Barry Bonds on your team during a game no matter how much or little he cares about what anyone else achieves. Perhaps, Bonds may have refused to sacrifice bunt if asked, but do you really want Barry Bonds to ever bunt in any situation?
One of the most inspirational stories I’ve ever read is in Hank Aaron’s memoir “Hammer.” He talks about Jackie Robinson playing deep at third and bunting for a single on him. At that time Aaron was probably lauded as a “smart colored” player for taking that base.
Jackie Robinson had other ideas. Jackie went right up to Aaron after the inning was over and basically told him. I will give you that bunt single every single time you are up unless the game is on the line. You are the Hammer and you should start acting like it.
Jackie Robinson was a winner.
When Bobby Thompson hit the “shot heard round the world” against Ralph Branca to win the 1951 pennant. Every player and fan was either celebrating or crying except for Jackie Robinson. Jackie was watching intently to make sure that Thompson touched every base as he ran past him to win the game, and if he had missed one history would tell that tale a lot more like that of Fred Merkle’s.
Hank Aaron: 755 home runs and probably still the standard unless you want to talk about Babe Ruth who won titles even after they made the uniforms pinstriped to cover up that he’d let his once immaculate physique go bad.
That’s what I truly believe about sports and those that are the 99.99%. There are winners and losers.
Dominique Wilkins was an incredible athlete and were it not for Larry Bird, he would perhaps have rings of his own. He doesn’t. He is known for battling Bird heads up in a huge game. Wilkens did nothing wrong except lose and that is his legacy. He’s known as the “Human Highlight Film” and not the “Legend.”
Does it matter who you choose first between Bird and Wilkins in a pickup game of all-stars? Who knows, but everyone with a brain is choosing Bird. If you get to choose between Bird and Magic that is very hard, but you really can’t choose incorrectly. If those guys needed to score 50 that night to win then they scored 50. If they needed to score 2 and have 25 assists and 16 rebounds then that happened. They just gave their teams the best chance to win.
Now I do not think that this man in his heart was a racist, but he insisted that blacks could not play quarterback, which I believe in my heart to be 100% false, and I for better or worse couldn’t sit there and not try to convince him that he was wrong. If we were discussing who was better the ’85 Bears of the best late ’70s Steeler team, I wouldn’t care. They were both amazing.
I do know in my heart for a fact that after that Bears team won the Super Bowl they never won another, and I completely believe that it is because that Hall of Fame laden team believed in their hearts that they could not win without McMahon. Had they won first without McMahon maybe they would have six rings, but once you taste a warrior you are spoiled and I believe that they were. Check out the Bears’ other quarterbacks regular season records. They are stellar, but no more rings, and only rings matter in the end.
Of course, I heard about all the talent that team had, but I said look at the famous Minnesota game where the Bears were undefeated and McMahon was hurt and Ditka refused to let McMahon play. “No practice – no play” was Ditka’s rule. McMahon’s rule was I win and rules do not apply to me. They battled forever until Ditka got disgusted and finally put Jim in the game and it’s perhaps the most impressive performance ever to me. The Bears were down and McMahon threw a long touchdown pass to Willie Gault on the first play. On his second series, he did pretty much the same thing and the Bears stayed undefeated. Their only loss that year was a game McMahon was hurt and to me that is all you need to know about that team.
Now had Ditka stood his ground and lost that game (and they would have lost) maybe the Bears win six Super Bowls behind Steve Fuller or whoever. I don’t know. I only know they won one with McMahon and zero with everyone else.
So football and baseball are team games, but I believe that in big games (the only ones that really matter) it is all about the quarterback and the pitcher.
Look at every baseball betting line where money (which always tells the truth) is on the line. It is all based on the pitcher.
Now the Atlanta Braves teams of the ’90s had the best pitching staff perhaps of all time, but they only won one World Series and it was against my Cleveland Indians, who haven’t won the big one since 1948. I have no idea why that happened but it did.
The guy I was sort of debating asked me for a great black quarterback and I said “Warren Moon.” He agreed but said Moon was ages ago give me someone relevant from today. I can’t because I don’t watch, but I don’t think that things have changed much and Moon had to fight for years just to be allowed to play in the NFL. That is historical fact.
Doug Williams became the first black quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl. He threw for 340 yards and four touchdowns and in the week leading up to the big game had to deal with inane questions like “How long have you been a black quarterback?”
I think that it is pretty easy to ascertain that black athletes were at all times told they were not smart enough to play those positions. Curt Flood was told he wasn’t even good enough to be a major leaguer due to ignorance. I won’t call it racism. I’ll just call it ignorance.
I pointed out that Jackie Robinson was perhaps the best football player in the country at UCLA and probably could have been a fantastic quarterback. He played running back. I was mocked because it was so long ago. I guess I’m a jerk because I know history.
I was told that blacks did not have the guts to take a big hit and throw a touchdown pass. Ronnie Lott had half a finger severed off and told the team doctor to cut it all off to finish the game. Is that guy not tough enough to take a hit at quarterback?
I was told time and again that there were great mobile guys playing quarterback in the NFL, but that they were not winners. I sort of agree. The best quarterbacks have been drop-back passers who don’t get hurt out of the pocket. McMahon only won one Super Bowl probably because he was too willing to take big hits.
I was told that quarterbacks needed to study for a year and not get hurt. I said, “How many games did Dan Marino sit out when he came into the NFL?” No one else knew. It was zero.
They said well he was a high draft pick. I said, “Yeah, he was, there were five QB’s I believe drafted in the first round that year do you know where Marino was drafted?” Silence.
Last.
I got to hear about Terrelle Pryor and his success in college vs. the pros.
Well, I believe college and pro football are totally different games, and it has nothing to do with race or mobility. If you are playing a college football game, you want Tim Tebow over Tom Brady. If you are playing in the NFL, of course it is the opposite.
Mobile black quarterbacks can dominate college football and win games. Drop back black quarterbacks are told to play another position or not at all.
I honestly believe that to the core of my soul. The myth of the black quarterback is 100% bullshit, and history tells you why it happened and it has not changed a bit.
It’s not even about toughness. Deion Sanders supposedly never tackled anyone, but he did make a third of the field inoperable for the other quarterback. He never had to tackle anyone because no one ever threw a pass near him and he has rings.
My friend was disgusted with me, and probably just didn’t want to deal with racists at all. I don’t think that guy was a racist. I just think he was misinformed. I don’t dislike him. I just wish he knew more history.
I said to my friend. Who was the better pitcher, Roger Clemens or Dave Stewart? He laughed and said obviously Clemens. I said, given a big game with somewhat equal teams I’m taking Stewart and that Stewart won almost every game against Clemens whether it was 1-0 or 8-7. My friend scoffed and said it didn’t happen. He said if it did it was just randomness.
I said, “I went to college and studied randomness.” Baseball is about randomness, but you don’t dominate Clemens out of randomness.
He said I was being a jerk and I might have been, but I was right.
Dave Stewart Owned Roger Clemens
“Tony called me and said, ‘I’m joining the team in Boston and the good news is that you’re going to be starting for me in Boston. The bad news is that it’s going to be a nationally televised game and you’re going to be pitching against Roger Clemens,’” Stewart recalled. “I said, ‘Actually, that’s all good news. I’m looking forward to it.’”
Stewart beat the Red Sox for his first victory with Oakland — and La Russa’s. He wasn’t done with Clemens, either. Stewart became known for dominating the Boston star, going 8-0 with a 1.80 ERA in their matchups.
“After that, it didn’t matter — if Roger Clemens saw Dave Stewart was pitching against him, Clemens was done,” said Wally Haas, son of team owner Walter Haas.
“Stew had a chip on his shoulder to beat the best. He felt dissed,” Eckersley said. “When it came to Roger, it really energized Stew — he always pitched his best against Roger.”
Stewart’s first 20-win season came in 1987, but Clemens, who also won 20 games that season, received the Cy Young award.
“I know for a fact he took it personal, pitching against Roger,” Lansford said. “He was really upset the first year he won 20 games, he didn’t win the Cy Young. And he told me, in my living room in northeastern Oregon, ‘That guy will never beat me. Never.’ And he never did.
“Oh, my gosh, he got in Roger’s head. The Boston Red Sox couldn’t beat him, and they knew it, and we knew it, too.”
Stewart said he had an edge because he was six years older than Clemens and he was just happy to have a starting job again. He felt no pressure, while Clemens always had huge expectations and was trying not to make a single mistake. Stewart’s success rate against Clemens was such that La Russa started altering the rotation to make sure that Stewart would oppose Clemens.
I love my friend. I love the guy I was sort of arguing with. I may have not handled myself well, but I spent over 50 years as a sad sack sapping up knowledge, and I felt I was right, and on this issue, I felt that it was very important to be informed.
So if anyone can tell me what to do I will take their advice. How do I not be a dick when I am 100% sure that I am right?
