Rule #4: Retiring isn't Quitting

My nonna doesn't know very much English. Everyday at 11am though, you can be sure she is watching The Price is Right. Although she refers to it as "The Right Price" in her broken English, and she may not always understand what's being whored out in the Showcase Showdown, she has watched Bob Barker longer than she's known me. So you think his retirement would call for parting shots of Dewar's (my nonna doesn't cry when something happens, whether its good, bad, or just a Sunday the ring of shot glasses come out.) Instead when I asked her what she thought about Drew Carey taking over she simply said of Bob Barker, "Ah, him-a too-a old-a." If my 87-year-old Sicilian grandmother can understand this, why can't a 39-year-old quarterback from Mississippi see the inevitable just as clearly?

Teammates once revered players like Brett Favre and Jason Varitek as  leaders in the clubhouse; guys that rallied their teams together on and off the field. But the line between respecting leadership and seniority, and raw talent and production on the field is becoming fuzzy. Speaking with WEEI.com's Red Sox beat writer, Rob Bradford, this week in class, he seemed confident that Victor Martinez, not the Sox captain, would start ALL of the upcoming postseason games. After hitting just .123 since Martinez's acquisition at the trade deadline, Varitek has little to back a playoff plea. Although that "C" may be stitched on his chest, the captain of five seasons will be settling the pitching staff from outside the white lines for the first time in his postseason career. The title of captain comes with responsibilities to the team, the fans, and yourself. So when those responsibilities are no longer being fulfilled, who takes the responsibility of removing that title? Office managers get fired. Politicians get impeached.  Even beauty queens have their crowns taken when Donald Trump can't use the "beautiful young lady, who's made some mistakes" excuse anymore. 

Yet, in sports the issue of pride becomes more prominent than productivity. There is an unwritten code. Sure Terry Francona will bench Varitek, but to strip him of his beloved "C" although his time has come, would be a breach of man law. The Wizards didn't tell Jordan they'd pass because he was past his prime. Just like the the Jets and Vikings had more trouble passing on Brett Favre than Michael Vick skipping out on a trip to the pound. Clubs leave the job of destroying confidence and pressuring retirement to the sports media and its loyal followers. Unless you are George Steinbrenner or Mark Cuban that is. Rather than using the writers as worse scapegoats than Cubs fans did Steve Bartman, owners like the previously mentioned make their goals clear upon players' arrivals. For them, winning is everything. If you don't produce, you will be removed. There is no emotion, no friendship, no loyalty, just playing. And more importantly just winning. And winning it all. Derek Jeter's favorite go-to quote seems to be, "There's only one goal and that's to win the World Series. Not win the division. Win the Series. And if that's not the way you look at things, then you shouldn't even be here." That is why Jeter has been so successful under the Evil Empire. 

Although Varitek still carries himself as a team leader off the field and Favre has gone 2-1 to date, the two can be considered expendable. Jay-Z once articulated, "Can't leave rap alone, the game needs me." That dependent relationship is not present for these men, but pride is fogging up their view of reality. The only hardware better than a championship trophy is a Hall of Fame induction, and squeezing out one more unproductive season isn't helping anyone's cause. And ESPN is always searching for more talking heads to get yelled at by Skip Bayless.  Retirement isn't all that bad, just ask Bob Barker.

Rule #102: Always be prepared to never beat the traffic.

10:34 pm (Mom Cell): Is that why you stay 'til the end? holy crap.

I did not see tonight's Yankees game. I didn't see their two-out, ninth inning rally. I didn't see Juan Miranda hit his walk-off "single" against Kyle Farnsworth. Moreover, I don't even know who Juan Miranda is (and with a dribbler like that off Farnsworth, I'm not too concerned.) We were down by a run in the bottom of the ninth against the Royals, on the second day of a champagne hangover, with four games left before the new stadium is christened with post season play. Needless to say, I was more worried about changing the water in Ghostface Killah's fish tank than the possibility of a post-clinch loss. So, Mama V's text after her first trip to the new stadium came as a satisfying surprise. First off it's a refreshing feeling to be on the winning side of a Farnsworth blown save.  More importantly, she finally knows why you don't leave the game at 9:30 because you can "just listen to it in the car." It's one of the first, and greatest, "I told you so"'s I can pull on a woman with intuition rivaling Nostradamus.It's also the point I've been preaching since my tenth birthday. Real fans don't leave the game early. 

Every year since my father felt comfortable enough to bring his only daughter to the Bronx, I have gone to a Yankee game on my birthday. Bleacher creatures do roll call. The grounds crew does the YMCA. Drunken Italians fight drunken Irishmen. Fans watch as they are "escorted" out by the NYPD instead of watching Jeter stick his ass out on the first strike. Frank Sinatra sings. Nothing changes. I was in the tier reserved for Giambi's grand slam in the bottom of the 13th in the spring rain. I was behind home plate for Jeter's epic date with the third base side seats. I was in the left field bleachers for Game 7 in 2004, the day the music died. Yet, my most vivid memory from the stadium on 161st Street is that warm July night in 1999 when we beat the traffic. 

The one and only time I ever left a baseball game early was by force because even at the age of ten, quitting my team wasn't an option. At the annual birthday game trip, my very own midsummer classic went into extra innings. With the score tied at 7-7 after the bottom of the ninth and me displaying little desire to depart, my parents pushed the laundry list of excuses on me. "It’s really quite late for you to still be awake." And, "You never know how long these things will last." Throwing in the, "Listening to the rest of the game on the car ride home will be the same." And then they gracefully placed the cherry on top of the sundae of bullshit they were dishing out. Words uttered by more baseball “fans” nationwide than the word “like” by valley girls at the mall.  "We can beat the traffic." A mother cannot abandon her child on his or her birthday, but my mother had signed up for a nine inning baseball game, extra innings were non-negotiable, no arbitration necessary. 

Over a decade later, I still wonder how I was so naïve to surrender to such a poorly formulated justification. I disappointedly trudged out of the cathedral that was Yankee Stadium, and soon crawled into the backseat of my father’s Toyota Camry. Then, while still in that cement devil of a parking lot, beating the traffic with the rest of the Bronx, John Sterling roared as Derek Jeter hit the game-winning double—gaper to right center in the bottom of the tenth. According to Buster Olney's Times article the next day (yes, Baseball Tonight hired him for a reason), the game lasted 4 hours and 33 minutes and Jeter's hit "thrill[ed] what remained of the original crowd of 52,704." I got to be thrilled we reached the GW bridge before midnight.

In that moment, as my hero ripped the game-winning hit on my birthday, I could only imagine the perfectly trimmed squares of emerald grass cradling the red-seamed sphere’s landing, just out of Manny Ramirez’s reach (remember it was '99, so "hustle" was still in his vocab then.) While I was forced to listen from a parking garage three blocks away, I realized that America’s pastime was more trustworthy than the parents who bore me. Baseball was something I could rely on to come through in the clutch. Its rules and reasoning are clear and thorough, unlike the thought patterns of most people.

The trait I admire most about baseball and its fans, then and now, is that giving up is never an option. There is an unwavering faith among baseball fans that is more inexplicable than why women go to the bathroom in groups. After being slapped around and emotionally abused more than Whitney Houston, while dangling happiness on a string and continually whisking it away for 86 years, any other relationship victim would call it quits. Any business that has not seen success since 1908, would surely have closed up shop over a century later. And, if an employee only did his work correctly 40 percent of the time, he would not be considered the best and most reliable there ever was to have graced the office.

These masochistic and backwards standards are what makes baseball so beautiful though. Every company should dream of hiring a true baseball fan because of that undying glimmer of hope in their eyes. Instead of dwelling on the negative aspect of your performance, what other boss could end all qualms with three simple words, shake it off? After the National Anthem and “Happy Birthday”, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is the most played song in the United States.  During World War II, President Roosevelt knew that is was going to the ballgame that would keep America’s spirit on the home front alive. And after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, it was baseball that rose New York City from the ashes. 

America’s pastime is what is holding the American dream together. It is no surprise that F. Scott Fitzgerald once referred to baseball as “a game played by idiots for morons.”  Another man with a dull outlook on the American dream, Arthur Miller was probably not a fan of the sport either after his ex-wife Marilyn Monroe married jolting Joe DiMaggio.  Maybe I’m just being naïve again, and maybe my hopelessly romantic baseball outlook is not transferable to life. Or maybe those who disagree just see baseball and their lives as a slow moving and boring game that can’t end soon enough. I am sorry for those people.

 After my tenth birthday disaster, I can proudly say that I have never, and will never, leave another baseball game early because it is the mystery of how and when the game will end that keeps you at the edge of your seat. More importantly though, the game does not end just because you walk out of the stadium to beat the traffic. Mama V. may have taught me to cook a mean meatloaf, but tonight she learned something from me and the game I love.