Welcome Home, #24

Today it was announced that Ken Griffey, Jr. will be returning to Seattle to play for the Mariners. While he is way past his prime, and while he never should have left in the first place, I'm very happy that he's returning, and I'm determined to see him in a Mariners uniform one last time.

Given that he played in the steroid era, and unequivocally took no part in the cheating ways of McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, and now ARod (what a tool he is), his numbers are even more impressive given the fact they're legitimate. If he had stayed healthy, he would seriously be challenging Henry Aaron's all-time home run record. His days in Cincinnati were spotty and his legs eventually gave out under him.

But I've never seen a more beautiful swing, or a more graceful outfielder than Griffey. When I was younger, and cursed with being a Mariners fan, he brought a lot of joy to me as I collected his baseball cards (a hobby which has now ruined itself by becoming way too greedy, exclusive, and expensive), and generally anything that had his name on it. I still have his Fleer, Donruss, and Upperdeck rookie cards. One time my dad drove me all the way down to Seattle because Griffey was there for an autograph session at the Seattle Center, but when we got there the line was ridiculously long. I was extremely disappointed, so when my dad and I arrived back in Bellingham he bought me said Upperdeck rookie card.

My sisters might remember me running around the house like a crazed maniac when Edgar Martinez doubled Griffey home in Game 5 of the opening round of the playoffs versus the Yankees in '95--what is still the best game, and moment, in Mariners history. To see Griffey round those bases, slide hands first into home, his teammates pile on, and the huge Kingdome go absolutely wild. That was incredible.

What I also liked about Griffey was that he idolized his father. When Ken Griffey, Sr. played with him in the outfield for a few games early in Jr.'s career, you could not have witnessed a happier ball player. All smiles and very fun to watch play. As someone who also idolized his father, I really identified with that about him.

Anyway, welcome back Kid. Now I need to go out and get another #24 jersey. And there might be a reason to watch the Mariners this season.

No Excuses

...for the Beavers. If you can't stop simple run plays then you don't deserve to win. It does hurt, but it's almost better that they lost big and not on some last-second field goal. It really seemed like I was watching a different team out there; the offense was fine, even though having Quizz would have given us a run game and might have changed things, just like a couple blown calls could have changed things. But it wasn't close enough for those kinds of excuses to register much validity. You don't give up 700 yards and win a game.

Plus, we've won the last two against the Ducks, so they were kind of due. It looked like the extra week to prepare really helped, given the way they picked apart our defense. And that was no coincidence. The Ducks did not want to lose to us three straight years.

So no Rose Bowl. It was a good season, though, and once again Riley's team over-performed. At the beginning of this season I thought it would be a rebuilding year. I'm just hoping that one of these years we'll be able to put it altogether and make a more dominant run for the Roses, in a year when the Pac-10 is a bit stronger.

Alas, I'll end with a philosophical question. Is there anything else in life comparable to sports, in that it matters so much (to some people at least), but over which you have no control whatsoever? It doesn't matter how hard you cheer or how much your care, what happens on the field will happen regardless of the intensity of your fanhood. I would love not to be a sports fan, but I'm beyond having the luxury of choice in that matter; it sure would save me a lot of time and heartache, especially given the fact that basically all my teams suck, and probably always will.

And I still hate the Ducks. But what fun is sports without an enemy to loathe?

I. HATE. THE. DUCKS.

My friend from the KFO (that is, Klamath Falls, Oregon for my non-Oregonian readers) came down over the weekend to watch the Beavers play the Wildcats. It was a great game, and best of all, we won on a last second field goal.

Now it's Beavers/Ducks, in Corvallis, for the Rose Bowl. I have talked a lot of smack in my lifetime to Ducks fans, and being an Oregonian, there's literally no way that if you're either a Duck or a Beaver, that you can avoid having friends and/or family in the other camp. Usually, I can still get along with them as long as we don't talk football. But this week, those people are not my friends or family: they are simply my enemy.

There are three teams I hate in sports, and which deserve nothing but scorn:

3) the Pittsburgh Steelers (for robbing the Seahawks of a Super Bowl victory)
2) the New York Yankees
1) the Oregon Ducks

I hate the Ducks uniforms and their faux-trendiness, I hate the fact that they think they're god's gift to college football, despite having accomplished very little, I hate the fact that they're not the Beavers. I hate their yuppie fans, and their wannabe yuppie fans.

I. HATE. THE. DUCKS.

Have fun in the Las Vegas Bowl, you pieces of crap.

The Aesthetics of Greatness

I've watched more of this Olympics than I had planned on, mostly for two reasons: Michael Phelps, the world's best swimmer, and Misty May-Treanor, the world's best, and hottest, beach volleyball player. As a sports fan, I'm mostly a total homer--I usually only watch the teams that I'm invested in (Seahawks, Beavers, Mariners), but I'm also attracted to greatness: the type of athlete that dominates not just because of athletic ability, but through will, determination, and killer instinct.

Phelps has it. Tiger has it. Jordan had it. The new Olympic "Redeem Team" is very talented, and of course will win the gold this year. Upon watching some of the highlights, I think that both Kobe and LeBron will probably, in the end, rack up better career statistics than Jordan; one might even argue that physically, their talent matches Jordan's. They're both winners, and they're both fun to watch (beside the fact that I still cringe when considering Kobe's Colorado incident).

Yet, the reason why Kobe and LeBron will never be Jordan, and never ultimately compare to Jordan's greatness is not because of statistics or longevity or even championships. It's that, while Kobe and LeBron are indeed entertaining, they do not exhibit the physical grace Jordan did.

Jordan played a very stylized game of basketball. The way he moved, the proportions of his body, the way he carried himself while in flight, the way he walked down the court, his perfect jump-shot: he exuded effortlessness, even nonchalance, all while dominating. I'm not sure if that's a fair measure of greatness. But aesthetics remain an unrecognized, and un-theorized aspect of American sports. What made Jordan the greatest was that, like Ali did for the ring (and for so many other aspects of American culture), Jordan did for the court: he made dominance, determination, and push-to-the-limit physical exertion look, well, cool (in the Miles Davis sense of the word). I think of it as the ability to sustain a fundamental irony: coolness is normally synonomous with leisure, relaxation, and maintaining the appearance of remaining aloof from the type of anxieties and annoyances that usually impact the rest of us mortals. What Jordan does is to fuse that type of coolness with an intensity which would seem to be its opposite.


Anyone who plays basketball now retains traces of Jordan in their movements, but there's only one Real McCoy.

On Favre and Ledger

Two of the most prominent sports/entertainment stories this summer have been Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight and Brett Favre's non-retirement. Is there a more perfect example of fate's sick sense of irony that when Ledger died, he was effectively denied (or denied himself?) the chance for a graceful exit, while Favre, when given the perfect chance for a well-deserved and celebrated adieu, instead insists upon simply being annoying?

I have no problem with players playing as long as they want; but for the past three years, Favre has insisted that he's retiring, and then finally come back. Last year, he stated very plainly that he was definitely retiring. And now he's everywhere again.

On the other hand, there's Ledger, whose Joker completely overcame what was already a pretty wonderful version of Batman. I would go so far as to say that his Joker is the film's protraganist, in the same unintended way that, about 350 year ago, John Milton's Satan became the hero of Paradise Lost. Christian Bale is a delightful and talented actor, but in comparison to Ledger, his Batman came off as churlish, arrogant, and even tyrannical (especially given his penchant for ubiquitous surveillance a la the Bush regime), only a certain part of which I think was dictated by the director and script.*

I highly recommend this film, and like most important films during this decade, it will surely be classified by history as "post-9/11" (but what isn't classified as "post 9/11" these days?).

Ledger and Favre are also interesting for a different reason: they are icons for early twenty-first century American manhood/masculinity. It's been a staple of every Sunday for the last fifteen years, to hear the fawning of the nation's collective sportswriters and commentators over how boyish and fun and manly Brett Favre is.

Why is it acceptable for mainstream American men to openly express their man-crushes on Brett Favre and to regale over his fun-loving boyishness (often celebrated for his love of the risky, inadvisable throw), while for the same people Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain, which represented a true professional risk, produces so much squeamishness? And yet, what Ledger accomplished for American culture in that role was to show that "manliness" isn't as simple as enacting a few telling characteristics. Manliness, at its best, contains strength and warmth, substance instead of empty posturing.

Favre is undeniably talented, and was very fun to watch. But Ledger is the man.
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*Bale's and Ledger's talent can also be compared in they Bob Dylan pseudo-biopic I'm Not There.

*NFL quaterbacks must fit into one of the three following categories: 1) cerebral/professional (Peyton Manning, Steve Young), 2) hunky and perfect (Tom Brady, Joe Namath), 3) boyish and free-wheeling (Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw).