Why I quit major league baseball
October 31, 2013 9:01 AM Subscribe
What's he doing now? It wasn't clear. I inferred he continued to be a student.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:17 AM on October 31, 2013
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:17 AM on October 31, 2013
So he's still in college? It seems too early to tell whether he'll regret it. The article's a bit, surprise, playing baseball for a job is a job. Being a college student isn't a job. So it seems not a particularly relevant comparison.
posted by Jahaza at 9:22 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Jahaza at 9:22 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, what the article doesn't stress enough is that he was someone who went back and forth from the majors to the minors. The minors are tough, and don't have the glory or pay that the majors have. So its not like Cardenas walked away from millions upon millions of dollars to play a 162 games.
Also, Cardenas had a .182 major league career batting average.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:33 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, Cardenas had a .182 major league career batting average.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:33 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
The article didn't pay off the title very well for me. He was a lot better at articulating what it was like to get to the bigs than he was on why he retired. Because it was like a job? Pretty much every job you have is going to be like a job.
In fact, from what I know about major league baseball, it's less like a job than any job I know:
You get a 6 or 7 figure check just for showing up on the first day
Your first promotion bumps your salary by three or four orders of magnitude.
Your boss will get fired if you and your colleagues don't like him
If you do well you will be idolized by millions
If you do poorly you will be subject to abuse by thousands of people screaming at you in your workplace
If you do well, but someone else in your office can do your job even better, you will be replaced by that person, no development plan, no written warnings, no questions asked
But very, very often, you will get re-hired.
Your union membership entitles you to a salary in the high six figures
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:34 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
In fact, from what I know about major league baseball, it's less like a job than any job I know:
You get a 6 or 7 figure check just for showing up on the first day
Your first promotion bumps your salary by three or four orders of magnitude.
Your boss will get fired if you and your colleagues don't like him
If you do well you will be idolized by millions
If you do poorly you will be subject to abuse by thousands of people screaming at you in your workplace
If you do well, but someone else in your office can do your job even better, you will be replaced by that person, no development plan, no written warnings, no questions asked
But very, very often, you will get re-hired.
Your union membership entitles you to a salary in the high six figures
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:34 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
MisantropicPainforest, so it's not really "why I quit major league baseball," it's more like, "why I quit trying to get to the majors for good"
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:37 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:37 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
You can't play baseball full time and be a full time academic simultaneously, and if he's going to cash in on the why I quit academia lit craze, he's gotta go pro academic first.
posted by perhapsolutely at 9:39 AM on October 31, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by perhapsolutely at 9:39 AM on October 31, 2013 [6 favorites]
When you lose yourself in the game, as you must, it’s all too easy to lose your sense of home. It didn’t take long for me to see how it happens, as I became friends with players and heard about the relationships and marriages that broke up, the relatives and close friends who faded from view, the parents or grandparents whose funerals were missed because of an expected call up to the majors. Sometimes I’d stay awake through the night, almost laughing to myself, mentally weighing the small fraction of success against the overshadowing personal and professional failure that comes with being a ballplayer.Man, missing your parent's funeral. I don't want to imagine how that feels.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:43 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, Cardenas had a .182 major league career batting average.
Through 67 plate appearances. Let's not get carried away. He posted a 309/376/432 with pretty damned good strike zone control in the minors.
This article floated around yesterday and I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It's very well written but it meanders a little and the answer to the question is just that he liked other stuff better. Well, alright.
A more interesting story (from a better prospect) was Grant Desme walking away to join the Catholic seminary.
I did love the piece for the line Baseball is visceral, tragic, and absurd, with only fleeting moments of happiness; it may be the best representation of life. While it's kind of a cliche to make this observation about baseball, I think it's rather true and Cardenas words it very well.
posted by xmutex at 9:45 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Through 67 plate appearances. Let's not get carried away. He posted a 309/376/432 with pretty damned good strike zone control in the minors.
This article floated around yesterday and I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It's very well written but it meanders a little and the answer to the question is just that he liked other stuff better. Well, alright.
A more interesting story (from a better prospect) was Grant Desme walking away to join the Catholic seminary.
I did love the piece for the line Baseball is visceral, tragic, and absurd, with only fleeting moments of happiness; it may be the best representation of life. While it's kind of a cliche to make this observation about baseball, I think it's rather true and Cardenas words it very well.
posted by xmutex at 9:45 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
He was once a very promising minor league player, but he really never caught on in the big leagues. In 2012, he was placed on waivers by the As and picked up by the Cubs. He was one of the players called up for the year-end roster expansion. Prior to his quitting, he was unconditionally released by the Cubs at the end of the 2012 season.
posted by Lame_username at 9:45 AM on October 31, 2013
posted by Lame_username at 9:45 AM on October 31, 2013
I think this is the old Rock Superstar thing. It's a fun job, but it's still a job.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:01 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:01 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Cardenas clearly has talent as a writer and I enjoyed much of this piece, but it felt like it ended really abruptly. I would have liked more detail about what his legitimate chances at earning a regular roster spot at some point were, which would change the context of his decision immensely.
If someone of, say, Mike Trout level talent decided to retire prematurely from baseball because he felt the business aspects of the profession were interfering with his love of the game and personal relationships, that would make for a really interesting story of sacrificing potential financial fortune to stay true to one's ethics. Someone deciding to give up on his Major League dreams when confronted with the reality that he was likely never going to make it past journeyman level (and may have had the decision made for him in a few years anyway) could perhaps make for a good story as well. But by not acknowledging where he fell on this spectrum, it feels like there was a major chunk missing from this story and it ultimately felt incomplete.
posted by The Gooch at 10:09 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
If someone of, say, Mike Trout level talent decided to retire prematurely from baseball because he felt the business aspects of the profession were interfering with his love of the game and personal relationships, that would make for a really interesting story of sacrificing potential financial fortune to stay true to one's ethics. Someone deciding to give up on his Major League dreams when confronted with the reality that he was likely never going to make it past journeyman level (and may have had the decision made for him in a few years anyway) could perhaps make for a good story as well. But by not acknowledging where he fell on this spectrum, it feels like there was a major chunk missing from this story and it ultimately felt incomplete.
posted by The Gooch at 10:09 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
DFW:
But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing…the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way up close and personal profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life – outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is very small…[Tennis player Michael] Joyce is, in other words, a complete man, though in a grotesquely limited way…Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well.
posted by batfish at 10:24 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing…the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way up close and personal profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life – outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is very small…[Tennis player Michael] Joyce is, in other words, a complete man, though in a grotesquely limited way…Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well.
posted by batfish at 10:24 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Then there's Robert Smith who quit the NFL at age 28 and ran for over 1500 yards his last season.
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Winners never quit
Or, you know, winners know which game to quit.
The money paragraph:
I quit because baseball was sacred to me until I started getting paid for it. The more that “baseball” became synonymous with “business,” the less it meant to me, and I saw less of myself in the game every time I got a check from the Philadelphia Phillies Organization, the Oakland Athletic Company, or the Chicago Cubs, L.L.C. To put it simply, other players were much better than I was at separating the game of baseball from the job of baseball. They could enjoy the thrill of a win—as it should be enjoyed—without thinking of what it meant to the owners’ bottom lines. These players, at once the objects of my envy and my admiration, are the resilient ones, still in the game. I am no longer one of them.
posted by philip-random at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I quit because baseball was sacred to me until I started getting paid for it.
I really didn't understand this. I'm guessing he's going to refuse any payment for his writing? Rising and falling in every human industry is a political game and I'm sure the literary industry is no different. This quote struck me as naive.
posted by xmutex at 10:43 AM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I really didn't understand this. I'm guessing he's going to refuse any payment for his writing? Rising and falling in every human industry is a political game and I'm sure the literary industry is no different. This quote struck me as naive.
posted by xmutex at 10:43 AM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
He was once a very promising minor league player, but he really never caught on in the big leagues. In 2012, he was placed on waivers by the As and picked up by the Cubs. He was one of the players called up for the year-end roster expansion. Prior to his quitting, he was unconditionally released by the Cubs at the end of the 2012 season.
I think that's a lot of it. Cardenas wasn't a major star who was signing 10 year contracts and who could expect job security into his late 30s. Hanging around the edges of a major league roster seems like it would be mentally and physically exhausting. He was looking at spending a whole offseason selling himself to 30 teams and hoping for just a non-roster invitation to spring training. If everything went beautifully, he might have ended up with a one or two year contract during which he would spend the entire time looking over his shoulder and hoping he wasn't the 25th man on the roster. More realistically, he was going to spend another couple years bouncing around between major league and minor league rosters, not knowing where he'd be in two weeks, not knowing what his paycheck would be a month from now, working 7 days a week with no holidays or vacations from March until October, and knowing that his odds of working past 30 were pretty slim.
He's probably giving up money by retiring, but I can imagine the stability of a less glamorous job could be appealing.
posted by Copronymus at 10:44 AM on October 31, 2013
I think that's a lot of it. Cardenas wasn't a major star who was signing 10 year contracts and who could expect job security into his late 30s. Hanging around the edges of a major league roster seems like it would be mentally and physically exhausting. He was looking at spending a whole offseason selling himself to 30 teams and hoping for just a non-roster invitation to spring training. If everything went beautifully, he might have ended up with a one or two year contract during which he would spend the entire time looking over his shoulder and hoping he wasn't the 25th man on the roster. More realistically, he was going to spend another couple years bouncing around between major league and minor league rosters, not knowing where he'd be in two weeks, not knowing what his paycheck would be a month from now, working 7 days a week with no holidays or vacations from March until October, and knowing that his odds of working past 30 were pretty slim.
He's probably giving up money by retiring, but I can imagine the stability of a less glamorous job could be appealing.
posted by Copronymus at 10:44 AM on October 31, 2013
There's a very good comparison between the academic job market in the humanities and the baseball job market, honestly. He wasn't "tenure track".
posted by vogon_poet at 10:46 AM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 10:46 AM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think.
I'm sorry but this is so much bullshit.
There are actually two things going on in the "vapid sayings" both of which are more interesting than "these people are mentally stunted." One is the general statement to avoid people focusing on your personality instead of your playing. (See: Wallace, Rasheed. "Both teams played hard")
The second is something I discovered when I was swimming very seriously. I was on an adult team, training with people who had previously swam at very high levels, up to some who finaled at Olympic Trials, and were going on to set Masters records. (I have a few relay Top 10s from being on this team.) Swimmers are mostly very smart people, the kinds of athletes who get straight As while training 25 hours a week.
And yet, people, including me, started to love some of those stupid motivational sayings. You know why? Because when you are in pain and pushing yourself and dying for oxygen, suddenly that shit starts making sense. It amazed me the first time it happened, when you are like "Pain is temporary; pride is forever." and it is just *so damn deep* because context. So it isn't mental poverty; it is just a different experience that only makes sense under certain circumstances and sounds, SO DUMB in others.
Anyways, in general, sacrificing other things for a sport you love is not any worse than sacrificing for art or anything else you want to be great at. Some people think it is worth it. Considering the joy and pride I found in the few years I swam (at a lower level, but enough training that I barely went out during the season), I can see why people do it for much longer and in the hopes of much greater glory.
I love books and I love sports and I hate it so much when one side denigrates the other. They are both rich fields for life experience and only being able to appreciate one just paints you as narrowminded. (And I know DFW played tennis and may have had a different experience, but that is still a stupid thing to say.)
posted by dame at 10:49 AM on October 31, 2013 [10 favorites]
I'm sorry but this is so much bullshit.
There are actually two things going on in the "vapid sayings" both of which are more interesting than "these people are mentally stunted." One is the general statement to avoid people focusing on your personality instead of your playing. (See: Wallace, Rasheed. "Both teams played hard")
The second is something I discovered when I was swimming very seriously. I was on an adult team, training with people who had previously swam at very high levels, up to some who finaled at Olympic Trials, and were going on to set Masters records. (I have a few relay Top 10s from being on this team.) Swimmers are mostly very smart people, the kinds of athletes who get straight As while training 25 hours a week.
And yet, people, including me, started to love some of those stupid motivational sayings. You know why? Because when you are in pain and pushing yourself and dying for oxygen, suddenly that shit starts making sense. It amazed me the first time it happened, when you are like "Pain is temporary; pride is forever." and it is just *so damn deep* because context. So it isn't mental poverty; it is just a different experience that only makes sense under certain circumstances and sounds, SO DUMB in others.
Anyways, in general, sacrificing other things for a sport you love is not any worse than sacrificing for art or anything else you want to be great at. Some people think it is worth it. Considering the joy and pride I found in the few years I swam (at a lower level, but enough training that I barely went out during the season), I can see why people do it for much longer and in the hopes of much greater glory.
I love books and I love sports and I hate it so much when one side denigrates the other. They are both rich fields for life experience and only being able to appreciate one just paints you as narrowminded. (And I know DFW played tennis and may have had a different experience, but that is still a stupid thing to say.)
posted by dame at 10:49 AM on October 31, 2013 [10 favorites]
"Because it made me very unhappy, and I've attached all these personal, negative, psychological allegories to it, so I changed careers."
Why I quit being a web developer.
posted by damnitkage at 12:52 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Why I quit being a web developer.
posted by damnitkage at 12:52 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't think the game ever stops being a game, even when they're hurting and sweating and losing, for guys like Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz. They smile too big, and swing too hard, for that to be likely.
posted by paulsc at 1:29 PM on October 31, 2013
posted by paulsc at 1:29 PM on October 31, 2013
I'd have been happier if he had simply written something like "I quit because it is all so stupid. Who cares who wins games except the players? People with no lives? People who want to make up 'rivalries' which are like war, except that no one usually dies? People who don't mind that many players end up injured and full of regrets at the end of their careers? I don't want to be associated with those sorts of people any longer. Plus, I felt guilty about making a ton of money by playing a silly game with balls. Instead, I decided I wanted to contribute something of actual value to society and my fellow man."
It is a fantasy, yes, but I'd like to see that some day.
posted by Invoke at 1:41 PM on October 31, 2013
It is a fantasy, yes, but I'd like to see that some day.
posted by Invoke at 1:41 PM on October 31, 2013
"Why I Quit Major League Baseball"
I was too busy playing Minor League Baseball.
posted by Right On Red at 1:49 PM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I was too busy playing Minor League Baseball.
posted by Right On Red at 1:49 PM on October 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
Plus, I felt guilty about making a ton of money by playing a silly game with balls.
"Why I Quit the Porn Industry"
posted by The Gooch at 2:06 PM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Why I Quit the Porn Industry"
posted by The Gooch at 2:06 PM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Dame, I don't read Wallace as saying anything about sports cliches specifically, and I don't buy your explanation that giving a refined account of a performance is necessarily self aggrandizing or diminishing of the performance. It sounds like you concede to Wallace that hyperspecialization can have costs. So I can't see what you can really object to here except maybe the data. Do you just disagree about how often professional athlete say stupid things?
posted by batfish at 2:44 PM on October 31, 2013
posted by batfish at 2:44 PM on October 31, 2013
TLDR; couldn't hit the curve
posted by surplus at 3:00 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by surplus at 3:00 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Do you just disagree about how often professional athlete say stupid things?
Well not "just" but also yes. Because my point is that sometimes things seem "stupid" when they are really merely contextual. Rasheed Wallace saying "Both teams played hard" isn't just a stupid cliche. It was a fairly nuanced critique of a lot of elements of the basketball narrative. Calling that "stupid" is the same critique as hating on abstract expressionism because "my kid could do that." Maybe it is dumb because you don't have the context that makes it interesting. (Maybe, like a lot of art, it is also just dumb.)
Overall I think picking on people who enjoy sports or its related specializations by accusing them of being stunted or stupid is a weird, gross thing otherwise literate and liberal do and I wish they'd knock it off. Because sports can be an amazing showcase of humanity and desire and feeling, and reducing that to "fake war" or "stupid, wasted people" is so much crap.
As to hyperspecialization, of course it has costs, so does being a generalist and playing soccer till you're fifteen and quit to snapchat with your friends and never really push yourself. But he's not comparing tradeoffs here, let's just be clear. He's being an assface about something unnecessarily and I don't like it so I said so.
posted by dame at 3:08 PM on October 31, 2013
Well not "just" but also yes. Because my point is that sometimes things seem "stupid" when they are really merely contextual. Rasheed Wallace saying "Both teams played hard" isn't just a stupid cliche. It was a fairly nuanced critique of a lot of elements of the basketball narrative. Calling that "stupid" is the same critique as hating on abstract expressionism because "my kid could do that." Maybe it is dumb because you don't have the context that makes it interesting. (Maybe, like a lot of art, it is also just dumb.)
Overall I think picking on people who enjoy sports or its related specializations by accusing them of being stunted or stupid is a weird, gross thing otherwise literate and liberal do and I wish they'd knock it off. Because sports can be an amazing showcase of humanity and desire and feeling, and reducing that to "fake war" or "stupid, wasted people" is so much crap.
As to hyperspecialization, of course it has costs, so does being a generalist and playing soccer till you're fifteen and quit to snapchat with your friends and never really push yourself. But he's not comparing tradeoffs here, let's just be clear. He's being an assface about something unnecessarily and I don't like it so I said so.
posted by dame at 3:08 PM on October 31, 2013
So he's still in college? It seems too early to tell whether he'll regret it. The article's a bit, surprise, playing baseball for a job is a job. Being a college student isn't a job. So it seems not a particularly relevant comparison.
You know, it doesn't work for everybody, but treating school like a job sure helps to complete it.
Especially if you're in art school and the amount of organization forced upon you is almost nill.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:35 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
You know, it doesn't work for everybody, but treating school like a job sure helps to complete it.
Especially if you're in art school and the amount of organization forced upon you is almost nill.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:35 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Both teams played hard" isn't just a stupid cliche. It was a fairly nuanced critique of a lot of elements of the basketball narrative.
Can you help me understand this? It seems to me "I walked to the store" is a nuanced critique of walking and the route to the store if this is true. That doesn't make it interesting or smart.
What am I missing?
posted by josher71 at 3:46 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Can you help me understand this? It seems to me "I walked to the store" is a nuanced critique of walking and the route to the store if this is true. That doesn't make it interesting or smart.
What am I missing?
posted by josher71 at 3:46 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah... I dunno. Good for him, I guess, but it sounds at least partly like a rationalization to me. He sets himself up in the article as if he had a bright baseball future ahead of him - "healthy and strong", "rookie pinch hitter" (as if that's a thing that rookies aspire to), "chance for the starting lineup", "broke up a no hitter", blah blah blah.
But he doesn't mention that he's more or less the definition of a borderline major leaguer. He's a guy who several years ago was considered a decent prospect, but who hasn't panned out, and who hasn't seriously been considered a real prospect in years. He hits OK (not great) in the minors, for a middle infielder, but he's not viewed as having actual middle infielder skills sufficient to support him in the majors. And it certainly seems he can't hit well enough to support himself anywhere other than middle infield.
Then he got a cup of coffee several years after he had stopped being considered a prospect in any meaningful sense, he performed poorly (albeit in a fairly small sample), and he got fired. After having previously been fired by another team the year before.
Could he have gotten another contract? Sure, probably. I seriously doubt a major league one, though. He was OK in the minors, and I'm sure there are teams who'd still take a flyer on him to fill out their AAA roster and maybe once in a while get brief callups.
All in all, the article seemed to have a weird "No, Chicago Cubs LLC, you can't fire me, I quit" vibe. I seriously doubt that there is any team out there who is shedding tears over the fact that they can't pick up Cardenas.
posted by Flunkie at 3:47 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
But he doesn't mention that he's more or less the definition of a borderline major leaguer. He's a guy who several years ago was considered a decent prospect, but who hasn't panned out, and who hasn't seriously been considered a real prospect in years. He hits OK (not great) in the minors, for a middle infielder, but he's not viewed as having actual middle infielder skills sufficient to support him in the majors. And it certainly seems he can't hit well enough to support himself anywhere other than middle infield.
Then he got a cup of coffee several years after he had stopped being considered a prospect in any meaningful sense, he performed poorly (albeit in a fairly small sample), and he got fired. After having previously been fired by another team the year before.
Could he have gotten another contract? Sure, probably. I seriously doubt a major league one, though. He was OK in the minors, and I'm sure there are teams who'd still take a flyer on him to fill out their AAA roster and maybe once in a while get brief callups.
All in all, the article seemed to have a weird "No, Chicago Cubs LLC, you can't fire me, I quit" vibe. I seriously doubt that there is any team out there who is shedding tears over the fact that they can't pick up Cardenas.
posted by Flunkie at 3:47 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
josher71:
Rasheed spends an entire post-game press conference answering only "Both teams played hard," regardless of its relation, if any, to the questions he's asked. Short-term result: Rasheed is fined $30,000 dollars by the NBA for flouting the sanctity of the press conference. Long-term result: One of the most indelible and quotable moments in recent sports history; a catch-phrase for NBA heads; and the image of Rasheed as the guy who doesn't give a fuck in the way that we office-bound respectables wish we could afford not to give a fuck.
Not that I agree with the rebel analysis but essentially Wallace took a cliche that was all about "sportsmanship" and through repetition and absurdity turned it into a critique of expecting players to be good and obedient. (More here.)
I'd say more but I feel like we are getting pretty far afield.
posted by dame at 4:16 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Rasheed spends an entire post-game press conference answering only "Both teams played hard," regardless of its relation, if any, to the questions he's asked. Short-term result: Rasheed is fined $30,000 dollars by the NBA for flouting the sanctity of the press conference. Long-term result: One of the most indelible and quotable moments in recent sports history; a catch-phrase for NBA heads; and the image of Rasheed as the guy who doesn't give a fuck in the way that we office-bound respectables wish we could afford not to give a fuck.
Not that I agree with the rebel analysis but essentially Wallace took a cliche that was all about "sportsmanship" and through repetition and absurdity turned it into a critique of expecting players to be good and obedient. (More here.)
I'd say more but I feel like we are getting pretty far afield.
posted by dame at 4:16 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
"I didn’t even know that the Dodgers had originally played in Brooklyn."
How is that even possible? Seems like anyone with even a passing interest in baseball gets that fact drilled into their head pretty regularly.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:33 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
How is that even possible? Seems like anyone with even a passing interest in baseball gets that fact drilled into their head pretty regularly.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:33 PM on October 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Dame, I'll grant you that there is a way of deliberately reading nuance out of celebrity behavior. Let's call it an open question whether that's the typical case. It's kind of a minor point either way. I think it's undeniably true that there are huge impoverishments in basic skill/knowledge stuff pretty deeply associated with the commercial sports path. DFW is looking at that as the other side of specialization in a way that I think is actually pretty sympathetic to athletes. Read the whole piece and think about it some more. He's not just saying jocks are dumb, lookit!
posted by batfish at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2013
posted by batfish at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2013
I liked this article a great deal. It does meander, yes, but I'm sure he has all kinds of mixed thoughts about his decision, that it wasn't a clean break for him, and so it should meander, as that is an accurate picture of his mind. He will question his decision for the rest of his life -- either that, or he has uncommon conviction of mind. But I would say he probably still made the right decision.
Winners never quit
That reasoning makes billions of dollars for state lotteries across the country.
posted by JHarris at 5:33 PM on October 31, 2013
Winners never quit
That reasoning makes billions of dollars for state lotteries across the country.
posted by JHarris at 5:33 PM on October 31, 2013
It seems unlikely that DFW wouldn't have been aware of why the sports elite talk in clichés, given his own intense tennis training, and two celebrated works ( Infinite Jest and his commencement speech ) that both deal with the idea of the deep truths behind seemingly pat turns of phrase. I wouldn't be surprised if he considered excelling at a narrow area like sports, or writing, to be a dangerous obsession akin to an addiction.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:47 PM on October 31, 2013
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:47 PM on October 31, 2013
Ghostride The Whip: "I think this is the old Rock Superstar thing. It's a fun job, but it's still a job."
WORK: Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:06 AM on November 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
WORK: Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:06 AM on November 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
"I didn’t even know that the Dodgers had originally played in Brooklyn."
probably the most telling line in the whole story. This is a man who had a talent for the game, but no love for it. It is fairly obvious to me over the past couple of decades how the majority of professional athletes fit this description. When someone truly loves what they do you can see it in how playful they are in just the activity of doing it. Those who don't love it tend to only enjoy it when they are doing well. There was a great scene in the movie Comedian where Jerry Seinfeld tells an old show biz tale of the musicians in Glen Miller's orchestra who land in a field on a wintery night and are trudging to their show all wet and cold and come upon a Norman Rockwell scene in a house and look at each other and say "how can people live like this?" In order to be a major league baseball player you have to love getting hit in the eye with the ground balls at practice, you have to love the non-stop travel, you have to take the booing as constructive feedback etc. The way I can tell if anyone is going to be successful in a job is how they approach the worst parts of it.
posted by any major dude at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2013
probably the most telling line in the whole story. This is a man who had a talent for the game, but no love for it. It is fairly obvious to me over the past couple of decades how the majority of professional athletes fit this description. When someone truly loves what they do you can see it in how playful they are in just the activity of doing it. Those who don't love it tend to only enjoy it when they are doing well. There was a great scene in the movie Comedian where Jerry Seinfeld tells an old show biz tale of the musicians in Glen Miller's orchestra who land in a field on a wintery night and are trudging to their show all wet and cold and come upon a Norman Rockwell scene in a house and look at each other and say "how can people live like this?" In order to be a major league baseball player you have to love getting hit in the eye with the ground balls at practice, you have to love the non-stop travel, you have to take the booing as constructive feedback etc. The way I can tell if anyone is going to be successful in a job is how they approach the worst parts of it.
posted by any major dude at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2013
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Sounds remarkably why I'm no longer an optical engineer. Maybe I should write an article.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:07 AM on October 31, 2013 [2 favorites]