I almost never have mixed emotions watching any game or tournament or match on TV. There’s always a reason why I’m pulling for—or in the case of Dan Snyder’s team—against—someone.
Monday night though I was back and forth between two simultaneous events and had mixed emotions about both.
I have warm feelings for both the Ravens and the Jets. I grew up a Jets fan. Their win in Super Bowl III is one of my most vivid early sports memories. I might have told this story before, but, what the heck, I’ll tell it again.
On the afternoon of that game—all those years ago the Super Bowl was still an afternoon game—my parents went to a concert. As had become my custom that season, I paced up and down in front of the TV, coaching the Jets. I did everything but call plays.
My parents arrived home early in the fourth quarter and my dad came in to see how the game was going. The Jets were up 16-0. Even though he wasn’t into sports, he knew this was a huge surprise and how much it meant to me. So, he sat down to watch. I paced.
After a few minutes, the pacing got to him. “Stop pacing,” he said. “Sit down. Your team is going to win.”
“But dad, I always pace.”
“Sit,” he ordered.
If it hadn’t been 16-0, I would have argued. The lead felt safe. I sat. Johnny Unitas came in for Earl Morrall and promptly drove the Colts the length of the field to make it 16-7.
“Pace,” my dad said—which I did until the game was over.
Of course there haven’t been any moments close to that since then. In fact, the Jets haven’t been back to The Super Bowl since then—as all Jets fans know so well. Still, I’ve remained a Jets fan.
Of course the year I did my book on The Ravens (“Next Man Up.”) the Ravens played at the Jets. I’ll be honest, I had no mixed emotions that day: I wanted the Ravens to win. I liked the people I was working with and wanted to see the team do well, in part because of that but also—being honest—because it would make for a better book.
The Ravens won that day. I felt a little guilty for being happy about the Jets loss but that’s the way I felt. Time went on: Brian Billick was fired by the Ravens and replaced by John Harbaugh—who I also like. Then Rex Ryan got the Jets job.
Look, I like Rex Ryan a LOT. He takes his football seriously but doesn’t take himself seriously. He’s funny and he’s honest. He was great to work with during my season with the Ravens and we’ve stayed in touch since then. Now, he’s coaching my boyhood team. So how can I possibly root against him?
I can’t. But I also like to see the Ravens do well. Steve Bisciotti became a friend while I was writing the book and has stayed one and has done wonders to help ‘The Bruce Edwards Foundation,’ the last six years. A lot of the people I knew back in ’04 are gone, but a lot are still there.
So, I felt a little bit like I feel watching an Army-Navy game. I didn’t want either team to lose. I averted my eyes every time Mark Sanchez dropped back to pass, but boy that Ravens pass rush looked good.
While that game was going on, the U.S. Open men’s final was stretching into the night. It had been moved from CBS to ESPN 2 during a rain delay. The fact that it still wasn’t over and was going head-to-head with Monday Night Football is more proof of how incredibly dense the people running tennis are most of the time.
When the Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic final was rained out on Sunday, the USTA should have started it at 1 o’clock on Monday. Look, the TV ratings were going to be lousy no matter what time of day the match began. The tennis geeks would get to Arthur Ashe Stadium and their TV sets. Everyone else would be waiting for the start of Jets-Ravens, regardless of the time the match began.
So what did the USTA (and CBS) do? They scheduled the start for 4 o’clock, even though an identical situation a year ago produced the embarrassing moment when Dick Enberg told Juan Martin Del Potro there was no time for him to talk to the crowd in Spanish because he needed to be presented a car—and so CBS could get off the air to its prime time lineup.
To make matters worse, the USTA decided to restart the women’s doubles final at 3 o’clock—meaning it was entirely possible the men wouldn’t start at 4 once the awards ceremony was over and the players got out to warm-up. Sure enough, it was close to 4:30 by the time Nadal-Djokovic, which was going to be a long match since neither player likes to volley on a hard court, finally began.
And then, surprise, at 4-all in the second set, it rained. Wow, I guess they don’t have radar or The Weather Channel at the US National Tennis Center do they? Couldn’t have anticipate that, could you? The thunder and lightning was bad enough that the start of the FOOTBALL game was delayed.
Nadal and Djokovic was a wonderful match and a great story—Nadal trying to finish off a career Grand Slam while Djokovic tried to beat Roger Federer and Nadal back-to-back to win his first Open and second career major. They played some amazing points.
It was on ESPN 2—against Monday Night Football. Are you kidding me? What’s more, if Nadal hadn’t finished the match off 6-2 in the fourth, do you know where it would have been televised as it ended, as Nadal, “made history,” to quote John McEnroe? ESPN Classic. Yup, ESPN Classic, the US Open final. That’s because at 10:15 ESPN 2 had to switch to the Chargers and Chiefs because Jets-Ravens was still going on over on ESPN.
What a joke. Give credit to the fans who stayed although the lower bowl was empty enough that McEnroe was pleading for the USTA to let people upstairs move downstairs to fill in the empty seats. When it was over, both players were gracious and sweet and Bill Macatee, clearly rushing to get the ceremony over before it switched to ESPN Classic, did it smoothly.
Of course there was the ridiculous sight of USTA President Lucy Garvin—I swear I don’t know where they find these people—saying, “you fans are what make this the greatest tennis event in the world.”
Please, I’m begging you, shut up. Have you ever heard of Wimbledon? I mean come on, just say the fans make the Open a great event even if we at the USTA do everything in our power to screw it up every year with matches that go into the middle of the night and a final that almost ends up on ESPN Classic. There’s an old saying that sometimes you should keep your mouth shut because if you do that people can only THINK you’re dumb. Lucy Garvin qualifies.
Anyway, to quote my old friend Hoops Weiss, “I felt vurry, vurry good for the Ravens and Rafa and vurry, vurry sad for the Jets and Novak.” (Hoops would then add, “they’re all vurry, vurry good friends of mine”).
****
One thank-you this morning to the poster who noted that Brad Nessler and Trent Dilfer, not the morning pitchmen were going to do Chargers-Chiefs. I guess there weren’t enough commercial reads in the broadcast to make it worthwhile for the pitchmen to make the trip to Kansas City.
Showing posts with label Balitmore Ravens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Balitmore Ravens. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Jets move on, stories of this fan as a kid
As luck would have it, the first year my parents let me ride The New York subways on my own (I sneaked onto them to go to games on occasion before that) was 1968. I knew the system cold—at least the part of it that mattered to me. To get to Yankee Stadium I took the IRT number 1 train downtown from 79th street to 59th street and then went downstairs (free transfer) and took the IND D train to 161st and The Grand Concourse. The D was an express so it didn’t take very long.
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
On a Crowded Sports Page, Edgerrin James Sticks Out to Me; Question on TV Shows
There were a number of big stories in this morning’s Washington Post. The Washington Wizards, who appear to be at least a playoff team once again, lost to the nemesis, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in Cleveland. The Washington Capitals are preparing to deal with life for at least a little while without Alexander Ovechkin. To put that in perspective that’s like me trying to live without a computer for an extended period of time.
There was also a story—the lead in the sports section naturally—about the fact that Dan Snyder had broken his ‘policy,’ of not speaking to the media during the season (at least on the record) to speak briefly at a Redskins charity event about the god-awful team he and henchman Vinny Cerrato put together.
Snyder said he felt terrible for the fans and was sorry things had gone so poorly. That’s progress—a little tiny first step—but he never said the words, “I screwed up.” That would represent actual progress. My guess is someone told him if he wanted to avoid a possible fullscale boycott in two weeks or, worse, some serious unrest in the stands, he better say SOMETHING. So he did his ‘I feel sorry for the fans,’ bit—Joe Gibbs would have been proud—and went back into seclusion.
None of those stories, however, really caught my eye. After all, the Wizards are supposed to be better with Gilbert Arenas finally healthy and with some smart offseason moves by Ernie Grunfeld and one doesn’t need to know the shape of a hockey puck to know that Ovechkin on the bench for any extended period of time is trouble for the Caps no matter how many times the other guys talk about, ‘stepping up.’ And Snyder speaking? Yeah, that’s a surprise but if you read carefully he said just about nothing.
Here’s the story that got my attention: The Seattle Seahawks released Edgerrin James. It was one paragraph, mentioning he had rushed for 125 yards on 46 carries this season (under three yards per rush) and 12,246 yards in his career. That’s a lot of running and a lot pounding.
James is only 31-years-old. Think about that: he’s two years YOUNGER than Tiger Woods, who is just coming into his prime as a golfer. There is no job in sports that spits you out and beats you up like being an NFL running back. My most vivid memories from the year I spent watching from the sidelines (2004) while researching my book on The Baltimore Ravens were the hits Jamal Lewis—who announced last week he’d retire at the end of the season—took week-after-week as he charged ahead with the football. I honestly wasn’t sure who to feel worse for: Lewis, who is about 6-1 and 230 pounds or the guys trying to stop him.
During one game, Lewis carried six straight times on a possession. He came to the sidelines during a TV timeout and took off his helmet. I was standing right there and I just said, ‘you okay?’
He smiled. “I’m like novocaine,” he said. “I’m the needle that keeps digging in deeper and deeper until they scream for mercy.”
I might have thought he’d be screaming for mercy but he was just fine. The timeout over, he put his helmet back on and ran over two defenders on the next play.
But there’s more to it than just the pain players go through. There is now all sorts of documentation about the injuries players suffer during their football careers and you can bet there’s plenty more to come especially with new union chief DeMaurice Smith insisting that both the league and the union have swept the problem under the rug for years.
Whenever I read an item like the one on James or look at transactions and see a note on someone being waived or cut, I think back to that year with the Ravens. I go back as far as their mini-camps when all the undrafted free agents showed up, each one of them honestly believing they were going to play in the NFL at some point.
Brian Billick called guys who couldn’t play ‘slap-dicks,’ when the coaches would meet to discuss cuts. He wasn’t being cruel, he just didn’t want the meetings to go on for hours and hours as they easily could. “The guy is a slappie,” he would say. “I wouldn’t even recommend he stick around for NFL Europe. He needs to get a job.”
Back then NFL Europe was still out there as a developmental league for the NFL. It was the lifeline for a lot of players who didn’t want to give up the dream. Billick would often tell players when he cut them that they should consider staying in shape in the fall and catching on with an NFL Europe team in the spring. That’s no longer there. Most guys go home and wait—hope—for the phone to ring.
There was one player on the Ravens that year who had been, if I remember correctly, a third round draft pick. He was a rare Ozzie Newsome mistake. The team had kept him on the practice squad hoping he’d get better but he hadn’t. They finally concluded he was a slappie.
As Billick did with every player he cut he asked him if he had his college degree. The player looked at Billick as if he was crazy. “No I don’t coach, what’s that matter?”
Billick, who was a slappy himself in a couple of training camps after graduating from Brigham Young, was always very good in these situations.
“It matters for a lot of reasons,” he said. “Mostly it matters because, and I could certainly be proven wrong, I just don’t think you’re going to play football at this level. I think you need to think about another route. Sometimes you have to move on from the dream.”
“No,” the player said emphatically. “I’m NOT moving on from the dream. I know I can play.”
He stood up to go. He was the only player cut that morning who didn’t’ shake hands with Billick on the way out. I’ve never seen his name on an NFL roster since then.
James is no slappy, that’s for sure. He may very well end up in the Hall of Fame someday. But I have no doubt he’s hurting today. The mother of his four children died in the spring from cancer and now, after being a star all his life, he was called in yesterday and told it was time to move on from the dream.
I don’t care who you are, how old you are, how accomplished you are, that hurts. There is always a moment—or even a long period—of denial. That’s why great players like James end up being journeyman towards the end, searching for some kind of happy ending that isn’t likely to come.
I’ve never met Edgerrin James. But I feel for him this morning.
---------------------------------------
Entirely different subject: With no baseball last night and almost no hockey (Islanders have won four in a row folks) I did what I often do: watched “The West Wing,” on DVD. I still think it is the best written show in TV history, especially the first four years when Aaron Sorkin was writing it. Last night I watched the first two episodes of season two: ‘In The Shadow of Two Gunmen.’ I’ve probably seen those episodes ten times and I STILL can’t get enough of them. They’re brilliantly written and acted.
Anyway, I was just wondering: If you could have ONE TV show on DVD to watch in quiet moments what show would it be? And, on that show, what episode is the one that makes your hair stand on end (like the start of season two of ‘West Wing,’ for me) or makes you laugh every single time you watch it. (For me that would probably the ‘Festivus,’ episode of Seinfeld).
There was also a story—the lead in the sports section naturally—about the fact that Dan Snyder had broken his ‘policy,’ of not speaking to the media during the season (at least on the record) to speak briefly at a Redskins charity event about the god-awful team he and henchman Vinny Cerrato put together.
Snyder said he felt terrible for the fans and was sorry things had gone so poorly. That’s progress—a little tiny first step—but he never said the words, “I screwed up.” That would represent actual progress. My guess is someone told him if he wanted to avoid a possible fullscale boycott in two weeks or, worse, some serious unrest in the stands, he better say SOMETHING. So he did his ‘I feel sorry for the fans,’ bit—Joe Gibbs would have been proud—and went back into seclusion.
None of those stories, however, really caught my eye. After all, the Wizards are supposed to be better with Gilbert Arenas finally healthy and with some smart offseason moves by Ernie Grunfeld and one doesn’t need to know the shape of a hockey puck to know that Ovechkin on the bench for any extended period of time is trouble for the Caps no matter how many times the other guys talk about, ‘stepping up.’ And Snyder speaking? Yeah, that’s a surprise but if you read carefully he said just about nothing.
Here’s the story that got my attention: The Seattle Seahawks released Edgerrin James. It was one paragraph, mentioning he had rushed for 125 yards on 46 carries this season (under three yards per rush) and 12,246 yards in his career. That’s a lot of running and a lot pounding.
James is only 31-years-old. Think about that: he’s two years YOUNGER than Tiger Woods, who is just coming into his prime as a golfer. There is no job in sports that spits you out and beats you up like being an NFL running back. My most vivid memories from the year I spent watching from the sidelines (2004) while researching my book on The Baltimore Ravens were the hits Jamal Lewis—who announced last week he’d retire at the end of the season—took week-after-week as he charged ahead with the football. I honestly wasn’t sure who to feel worse for: Lewis, who is about 6-1 and 230 pounds or the guys trying to stop him.
During one game, Lewis carried six straight times on a possession. He came to the sidelines during a TV timeout and took off his helmet. I was standing right there and I just said, ‘you okay?’
He smiled. “I’m like novocaine,” he said. “I’m the needle that keeps digging in deeper and deeper until they scream for mercy.”
I might have thought he’d be screaming for mercy but he was just fine. The timeout over, he put his helmet back on and ran over two defenders on the next play.
But there’s more to it than just the pain players go through. There is now all sorts of documentation about the injuries players suffer during their football careers and you can bet there’s plenty more to come especially with new union chief DeMaurice Smith insisting that both the league and the union have swept the problem under the rug for years.
Whenever I read an item like the one on James or look at transactions and see a note on someone being waived or cut, I think back to that year with the Ravens. I go back as far as their mini-camps when all the undrafted free agents showed up, each one of them honestly believing they were going to play in the NFL at some point.
Brian Billick called guys who couldn’t play ‘slap-dicks,’ when the coaches would meet to discuss cuts. He wasn’t being cruel, he just didn’t want the meetings to go on for hours and hours as they easily could. “The guy is a slappie,” he would say. “I wouldn’t even recommend he stick around for NFL Europe. He needs to get a job.”
Back then NFL Europe was still out there as a developmental league for the NFL. It was the lifeline for a lot of players who didn’t want to give up the dream. Billick would often tell players when he cut them that they should consider staying in shape in the fall and catching on with an NFL Europe team in the spring. That’s no longer there. Most guys go home and wait—hope—for the phone to ring.
There was one player on the Ravens that year who had been, if I remember correctly, a third round draft pick. He was a rare Ozzie Newsome mistake. The team had kept him on the practice squad hoping he’d get better but he hadn’t. They finally concluded he was a slappie.
As Billick did with every player he cut he asked him if he had his college degree. The player looked at Billick as if he was crazy. “No I don’t coach, what’s that matter?”
Billick, who was a slappy himself in a couple of training camps after graduating from Brigham Young, was always very good in these situations.
“It matters for a lot of reasons,” he said. “Mostly it matters because, and I could certainly be proven wrong, I just don’t think you’re going to play football at this level. I think you need to think about another route. Sometimes you have to move on from the dream.”
“No,” the player said emphatically. “I’m NOT moving on from the dream. I know I can play.”
He stood up to go. He was the only player cut that morning who didn’t’ shake hands with Billick on the way out. I’ve never seen his name on an NFL roster since then.
James is no slappy, that’s for sure. He may very well end up in the Hall of Fame someday. But I have no doubt he’s hurting today. The mother of his four children died in the spring from cancer and now, after being a star all his life, he was called in yesterday and told it was time to move on from the dream.
I don’t care who you are, how old you are, how accomplished you are, that hurts. There is always a moment—or even a long period—of denial. That’s why great players like James end up being journeyman towards the end, searching for some kind of happy ending that isn’t likely to come.
I’ve never met Edgerrin James. But I feel for him this morning.
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Entirely different subject: With no baseball last night and almost no hockey (Islanders have won four in a row folks) I did what I often do: watched “The West Wing,” on DVD. I still think it is the best written show in TV history, especially the first four years when Aaron Sorkin was writing it. Last night I watched the first two episodes of season two: ‘In The Shadow of Two Gunmen.’ I’ve probably seen those episodes ten times and I STILL can’t get enough of them. They’re brilliantly written and acted.
Anyway, I was just wondering: If you could have ONE TV show on DVD to watch in quiet moments what show would it be? And, on that show, what episode is the one that makes your hair stand on end (like the start of season two of ‘West Wing,’ for me) or makes you laugh every single time you watch it. (For me that would probably the ‘Festivus,’ episode of Seinfeld).
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