Sport Fiction

Taking It Down a Notch

Aaron Pease — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:51:17 +0000

INT. A LIVING ROOM – DAY

The room is prepped for football. GARY, the host of the party, wears a Colts jersey. JOHN wears a Pats jersey. The doorbell rings. Gary runs to the door and opens it. BILL jumps in, also wearing a Colts jersey. He is also sporting a huge boner.

BILL
Yo, ready for the big game! Bring it in for a hug man, bring it in hard.

He goes to give Gary a hug and Gary ducks away.

BILL
What, no love? Oh, right. My boner. Man it is huge, isn’t it?

JOHN
Why’d you bring it here?

Bill plops down on the couch, leaning back, totally comfortable.

BILL
Man, I popped a Viagra at 10 AM! I already screwed my wife frickin’ twice! She kicked me out, she was so satisfied. So I decided to come over here and hang with the fellas. Well, except this guy.

(laughs at his own joke while Gary and John wince)

Whew! I love this boner!!!

Gary and John can’t hide their looks of terror. FREEZE

PEYTON MANNING and TOM BRADY, wearing their respective jersies, enter the frame, only seen from the waist up.

PEYTON MANNING
If it seems like everyone else in the world but you has erectile dysfunction…

TOM BRADY
You are not alone.

PEYTON MANNING
During this game alone, you will watch 400 commercials for Viagrra, Cialis, Levitan, Dr. Porkenheimer’s Franken Juice, whatever.

TOM BRADY
Because of this media saturation, some people will think it’s okay to show up to watch a game with a boner.

PEYTON MANNING
And that’s unacceptable. So we’ve drawn up a few plays to help you deal with the situation.

TOM BRADY
The first play, I like to call the Counter Slap. If there’s a good play in football, sometimes you slap your bud on the ass.

PEYTON MANNING
I know I do! But on this play…

TOM BRADY
Slap him in the boner.

CUT TO: The same living room comes to life. Gary and Bill jump up to celebrate a play. They slap hands and then Gary swats Bill in the boner. Bill bends over in pain. FREEZE

PEYTON MANNING
A good Counter Slap will cause social discomfort.

TOM BRADY
And hopefully intense physical pain.

PEYTON MANNING
The next play is one of my favorites. I call it the Coverage Sack. But it takes guts.

TOM BRADY
And supreme confidence in your sexuality.

The living room. The doorbell rings and Gary answers it. Bill jumps in with a huge boner. Gary jumps into Bill’s arms.

GARY
Hey sailor, wanna get a room?

Bill pulls away and practically runs out the door. FREEZE

TOM BRADY
It helps if you bang a supermodel right afterwards, just to be safe. I know I do!

PEYTON MANNING
Our last play was some good offense, while the next one is some good D.

TOM BRADY
I’ts called Pin Him In His Own Territory.

PEYTON MANNING
All you need is an extensive collection of both paper-based and Internet porn.

TOM BRADY
And a room with broadband connection!

CUT TO: Gary and John and Bill watch the game, Bill with a huge boner still. Gary and Bill exchange looks. They spring into action, grabbing Bill by each arm and dragging him into a room. They slam it, lock the door, and high five.

GARY
Bill, you okay?

JOHN
Yeah, sorry we had to do that.

BILL
(muffled)
It’s…It’s porn heaven! FREEZE

TOM BRADY
That’ll keep him occupied.

PEYTON MANNING
(Whispering)
So Tom, you ever done Viagra before?

TOM BRADY
And that’s not all. There’s literally thousands of plays, the End Around, Harassing the Pocket, Behind the…

PEYTON MANNING
(hissing and nudging)
Hey, Tom, you ever do it? Ever do Viagra?

TOM BRADY
Line of Scrimmage…

PEYTON MANNING
Vi-ag-ra.

TOM BRADY
No, no I never did Viagra.

Tom looks down. The Camera Cuts Away. Peyton has a huge Boner.

TOM BRADY
But I guess you did.

PEYTON MANNING
It’s so awesome.

Tom Brady rolls his eyes.

PEYTON MANNING
Come on, you know you want it.

TOM BRADY
I’m done here.

He walks off. Peyton Manning follows after.

PEYTON MANNING
Tom, Tom, wait up!

The Drunken Striker

TMC — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:10:13 +0000

They told me when I signed up for this that it would be fun, that we’d all enjoy ourselves and that we’d remember it forever, vividly, like how people remember the first time they got laid, or the last time they had a cigarette, or the pain they felt when they fell out of a tree as teenagers and broke both wrists. It was supposed to be kind of a party, a weekly get-together where we were more focused on drinking and cursing and getting away from family than on soccer, and who gives a damn who wins the games? Then Sanders got hurt, and two other guys quit, and one guy went nuts and ran off to live somewhere in Minnesota with his sister, and before you know it we’re down to five players and I’m playing every minute of every game just wishing like hell that I could get hurt too so I won’t ever have to run again.

The other guys, they’re mostly the same as me in that they don’t want to play either, but we feel like we have to because Sanders is sticking around to coach, and Winter is on the hook for four hundred bucks whether we show up or not, and it wouldn’t be right for us to leave him hanging. So we’re there every week, tired and fat and still sore from the week before, getting run off the floor by a bunch of twenty year olds without kids, jobs, body fat, arthritis, or any sense of what it means to be old and useless. We try to bully them, bounce their heads off the walls and hack at their shins until they turn purple (of course they don’t wear guards—they probably ride to the games piled 3 deep on the back of those little rice rockets without helmets, so why would they even think about slipping a little piece of plastic inside their socks?). We let them run past us and we let Harvey deal with the steady stream of breakaways, because if we all sprint back on defense, then there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to mount any kind of attack, and what’s the fun in playing a game if you don’t even have the chance to score? Harvey tries, but he’s slow, so if he gives up a rebound (he’s got good hands, but they’re not perfect), you know it’s a goal. Then he gets pissed, kicks the wall, and fires the ball at my back real hard because he thinks I’m still good enough to hang with these guys. (more…)

When the Ball Died at Second

TMC — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:35:39 +0000

We had all bled on the field and played through the pain at one time or another, but none of us had ever seen the ball bleed before. Parry had hit the damn thing so hard that we didn’t hear the familiar crack of bat on ball—some of us heard nothing, while others, me included, swear they heard it scream, real quiet, just a tiny yelp like when you step on a dog’s toes. And instead of leaping off the bat and soaring over the outfield wall, it tumbled to the ground and skittered in the dirt at my feet at second base.

There was no open wound, but the blood flowed freely, as if from a gunshot. I refused to touch it, even as Artie chugged past me on the way to an inside-the-infield home run. The ball lay there, groaning. A low painful hum. A sad sound of resignation, as if prepared to die. It seemed wrong to lift the ball out of its deathbed and toss it into someone’s uncaring glove as if nothing strange had happened. I heard my wife yelling from the bench to get my head in the game, her voice shrill and angry. Angrier, even, than last night, when she told me that she knew—that she’d always known—about my affair with the neighbor woman. I’d been fucking around with the woman next door for about six years, and I think I was probably trying to get caught. It was the only way I could think to hurt my wife, and, besides, I couldn’t stand to be in the house anymore because I was sure it was haunted. “If you knew,” I’d said, “then why would you wait so long to do something about it?” She turned off the light, pulled the covers over her head, and lay in silence for at least an hour. As I began to drift off the sleep, she told me, again, that I had to stop blaming her for what happened. Then we had that old argument again. I was tired of that argument the first time, and now I can’t stand even thinking about it.
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The Legless Catcher

TMC — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:08:33 +0000

By the time we finally won a championship, we were twenty years deep into the war and nobody cheered, because everybody was either dead or dying. We were replacement players, called in because we were unfit to be soldiers, but just fit enough to be able to squeeze into uniforms and put on a show for the people. All the real players had been sent overseas. Their unions had resisted at first, but in the end, public pressure forced them to cave; our freedom was on the line and these were our greatest athletes. They had to go.

The league contracted to ten teams and then loaded the rosters with all of the army’s rejects. Most of us were fat and diabetic, or had bad hearts or were too old to fight. Others were considered defective. Our pitcher only had one arm; he played without a glove and we always prayed that no one would hit a liner right back at him. The first baseman was blind in one eye. The shortstop was a burn victim, his skin a grotesque canvas of purples and reds. I was the catcher. They put me there because I had no legs—I was the first pro catcher in history who didn’t have knee problems. The irony, chuckling broadcasters liked to mention, was that I’d actually lost my legs in the war, way back when it started. I never really thought it was that funny.

We were worse than a high school team, but still good enough to win the World Series. Everybody in the league had played when they were younger, but had given up their dreams long ago. Now, we were paid like superstars to play ball worse than our children would. I made six million a year, despite the fact that every base runner we ever allowed had stolen second base; without my legs, I had a hard time throwing anyone out. But I was considered underpaid.

By this time, the country’s biggest expenses were, in order, defense and pro sports. I don’t remember what was third. Whatever it was, it didn’t get much attention. Everyone was so preoccupied with the war and the World Series that we barely even noticed that the rest of the country was crumbling beneath our feet.

Three years ago, the champion had gotten a standing ovation from a stadium packed with over 100,000 people. The next year, the number had been cut in half. Only 100 people watched us win the championship. They looked so tiny and helpless up in the stands that I thought they might blow away like confetti. They watched in grim silence as the game unfolded. I heard them coughing sometimes, during breaks between the generic rock music that blared through the stadium, but they never cheered, booed, or even clapped.

The final out came on a collision at the plate—the guy bowled me over, because I couldn’t very well stand my ground. Everyone on the field thought we’d both died at home plate. The guy who barreled into me was at least seventy and he could barely run. He hit the ground with an awful whump, like a corpse dropped out of a helicopter, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Our teammates, crying, rushed out to us, and, even though they saw that I still had the ball, they didn’t feel right cheering. Even when the other guy choked out a weak breath, and I lifted the ball triumphantly, we were silent. It still didn’t feel right to cheer; in fact, it hadn’t felt right for years, but it wasn’t until then that we realized how wrong we’d been all along.

Watching Basketball with his Son

TMC — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:37:03 +0000

Robert leaned forward in the recliner and pointed at the TV. “See how he bends his knees like that,” he said, “that’s what you’re doing wrong. You have to get low when you’re playing defense.” Michael, his son, looked up from a handheld video game and whimpered. Robert continued: “You play lazy, and that’s why they always beat you.”

Michael got up to leave the room, but Robert stopped him. He snatched the video game and shut it down. “Stay a minute, see how they play,” he said, using his arm to guide Michael to the couch. Michael slumped forward and leaned on his palms, watching through splayed fingers. They’d watched this game before, maybe a dozen times. Each time, Robert tried to get his son to appreciate the nuances of great basketball—the head fakes, the way players moved off the ball, the subtle should shimmy to slice through the lane. Mostly, though, he wanted Michael to see the hustle. A tiny guard rushed back to block a fast break lay-up from behind, pinning the ball against the backboard as the shooter sulked away. Robert pumped a fist and shouted as if seeing it for the first time. He could feel the redness in his face—whenever he yelled, the blood rushed to his head, and, lately, he felt a tightness in his chest. It was too late for him to get in great shape, but not yet for his son. Almost, though.

Michael hunched forward to pet the dog and his shirt lifted up, allowing the fatty rolls to spill out over his waist. He was thirteen, and he was fat. They told him he would grow into it, but that was a lie. He wouldn’t ever stop, because he didn’t care. He was lazy, and he would rather clatter away on the computer than go outside and play with real people. His friends were fat too, and Robert hated when they came to the house, their mouths outlined with chocolate and fruit punch, their eyes dulled by years of staring blankly at the monitor. When they came over, they’d take turns in the computer chair, shooting at aliens, or pretending to be goblins and trolls. The ones who didn’t play barely talked—they just shoveled food into their mouths mindlessly. At the end of the night, their seats were always outlined in dropped popcorn.

“Dad,” Michael said, “can I have my game back?”

“Watch this play.” Another fast break, this time ending in an alley-oop. “See how quick those guys are? You can’t do that stuff unless you work out.” He turned the volume up so Michael wouldn’t hear the faint jingle of the ice cream truck as it approached. “Don’t you want to play like these guys?” he asked, poking Michael in the ribs.

“They don’t even put me in the games.”

“They don’t put you in because you’re out of shape.” He’d given up on soccer after three years, baseball after one, and tennis after two weeks. He would probably quit on basketball for after this year too, and then they’d move on to football. After that, what was left? Robert was never a star, but he’d been a good athlete and had his varsity letters.

“Would it kill you just to try to like it a little?”

“But I hate it,” he said. “Why can’t I do what I want to do?”

His wife yelled from the kitchen: “Are you giving him that old lecture again, Robert?”

“Just trying to show him what it’s like to be a great athlete,” he said. The ice cream truck had turned down their street. No matter how loud he made the TV, the jingle danced over it. Michael rushed out of the living room to fetch a dollar from his mom, and then charged toward the truck.

Robert stood in the doorway, eyeing his son as he nibbled on the edges of a nutty buddy. His cheeks were smeared with ice cream, and he waved at his father. Robert turned away and walked back inside. He knew he was supposed to his love Michael because he was his son, but he just couldn’t. He flopped back in his recliner and stared at the TV, knowing everything that was coming, and wishing he could be a part of it all.

Williams Beta to argue records case

Chris Manley — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:52:50 +0000

Tuesday, November 8, 2033

Williams Beta to argue records case

by Reade Seligmann
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) – Commissioner of Baseball George W. Bush will today hear arguments on both sides of the continuing battle over the achievements of Yankee’s infielder Ted Williams Beta. Bush is not expected to make a decision until late next week.

Lawyers for Williams Beta are expected to argue that the slugger’s accomplishments – in particular this season’s on-base-percentage of .612 – should be added to the official MLB records for the original Ted Williams, now known as Ted Williams Alpha. Williams Alpha once held the major league record for career OBP at .481, but was surpassed by Barry Bonds during the 2008 season. The addition of Williams Beta’s percentages from this and last season would regain the record for the collective Ted Williams.

Clone rights advocates fear that the Williams case will re-open a wound well on its way to closing: whether clones are themselves unique individuals or extensions of their former selves.

“We’ve come too far,” said Darrin Miles Beta, reproduced from late Scottish meat magnate Darrin Miles Alpha. “We felt we were only a few years away from finally beating this silly Beta label, and now this. If Williams wins, he’ll set back clone rights five, maybe ten years.”

Miles and others worry that while they have gained a superficial level of acceptance in the US, most Americans are waiting for a reason to reject them. The oldest clones are only 25, and have not yet had a chance to establish themselves in communities. Williams Beta, at 24, is in one of the few professions in which someone so young can gain such national recognition. Many fear that a ruling in his favor all but damns the case of clone rights, especially considering the US Supreme Court’s increasing reliance on the precendents of professional sports decisions.

“It’s like the Brett Favre thing back in, what was that, 2010?,” Miles Beta points out. “Once the NFL said you had to count five Mississippi before rushing him, suddenly the Court agrees that, yeah, some people are important enough to require special treatment. Sports dictate the direction of this country. I just don’t want to see everything we believe in change because of some silly records.”

But not everyone takes Miles’ devil-may-care attitude towards the stat books. Reached for comment in his suburban Los Angeles home, former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds – who currently holds the single season On-base-percentage record of .609 in 2004 – said he didn’t believe Williams Beta’s case had any merit at all. “What the [expletive] is everybody so puzzled about?” Bonds asked. “This guy, he’s not even a real person. He was made in a little bitty tube. That’s not sports, science people. That’s [expletive] is what that is.” Bonds has held this position since the announcement of Henry Aaron Beta in 2017. It is widely rumored, though never substantiated, that Bonds tried to clone himself, but that the boy produced was the scrawny, wiry teenager Bonds now calls his youngest son.

This is not the first time the name Ted Williams has been associated with controversy. Williams Alpha, a Boston Red Sox great in the 1940s and 50s, died of heart failure in 2005. His head, body, and some DNA samples were suspended in liquid nitrogen with the hope that medical advances would one day allow him to be thawed and re-animated. The procedure was at the time considered ghastly and absurd, and Williams Alpha’s children fought bitterly – and publicly – over the fate of the body. But while it and its brainy counterpart still sit frozen, some DNA samples were used in 2009 as the first high-profile use of the then emergent technology of human cloning. In fact, it was the cloning of the Williams DNA that spurred US lawmakers to finally deal with what was on the brink of becoming a shadowy black market industry.

It seems the only person not speaking publicly about the case is Williams Beta himself. Despite the debate between the conservative right – claiming that clones are nothing more than soulless copies of real people – and the progressive left – who believe that clones are unique and fully human – Williams Beta has refused all requests for interviews. Perhaps he desires only to rise above the squabbles of a nation divided and to stick to the real business of America, which is sports.

Head Case

TMC — Thu, 17 May 2007 17:20:58 +0000

Note: Upon hearing the NFL’s continued insistence that there is no correlation between repeated head trauma and long-term cognitive difficulties (including dementia, early onset Alzheimer’s disease, decreased motor function, memory loss, and depression), we at Sport is Stranger than Fiction sent our very own investigative reporter to the home of Dr. Ian Casson– a spokesman-physician for the NFL. His goal was twofold. First, he had to avoid speaking to Dr. Casson at all costs, because, come on, what’s the point? Second, he had to rifle through the good doctor’s records to give us as much background information on his mental state and his other beliefs. We’ve transcribed his report below.

Other Note:In order to protect our reporter’s identity, we’ll just call him J. Greco. No, that’s too obvious– let’s call him Joey G.

When I arrived at Dr. Casson’s house, I was disturbed to learn that your promised diversionary tactics– standing under his bedroom window at night and making spooky ghost sounds in order to scare him away– had failed miserably. The house was occupied by Dr. Casson, his wife, two Pomeranians, and some guy with a mohawk. Working on the assumption that the mohawked man was there to work security, I took it upon myself to sneak up on him and choke him with piano wire (you’ll note that I’ve attached a bill for the wire, and for the Purell hand sanitizer I used to clean the spittle off of my hands) and hid his body in a garden shed. I noted that inside the shed Dr. Casson stored several items, including multiple sacks of mulch, a pair of paint-splattered boots, and a ziploc bag full of assorted screws that didn’t seem to fit into anything in particular. Conspicuous by its absence was a lawnmower. As I later learned, however, Dr. Casson does not see any correlation between owning a lawnmower and having shorter grass. This, it seems would be an appropriate time to note that Dr. Casson’s yard is so overgrown that a few weeds tickled my beautiful nose, which, as Kevin Gonzalez knows, is a nose that does not like to be tickled. I stomped through the yard and back toward the house.

I then proceeded to sneak into the family room (a job made easier by the fact that, as I later learned, Dr. Casson does not see any correlation between owning– not to mention locking– doors and deterring intruders), inciting a whirlwind of Pomeranian yippiness that was only quelled when I stopped to pet the dogs. My original plan had been to distract the dogs with a chain of sausage links, but I was hungry and saved the sausage for myself. Once satisfied with my petting, the dogs wandered off and promptly disappeared in the thicket of the backyard. I’m not sure if they ever returned.
(more…)

Home Opener

Other — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:39:39 +0000

By: Adam McGrath

Very, very early on the morning of April 9th, Pat McCarthy and his buddy Tim Donahue walked up to the front door of Casey Moran’s, one of the ubiquitous Irish Pubs that populate Wrigleyville. Normally, these two would have been stumbling out the door at this time of day, instead of waiting in line to show their IDs to get in. Today, however, was different. Today was the Cubs Home Opener, and Casey Moran’s was the place to start the day off right, by drinking lots of Bud Light and trying to win tickets to the game from the members of the Q101 Morning Fix, who were doing their first live broadcast ever.

“So far so good,” Pat said to Tim, as they were each handed a complimentary T-shirt for being two of the first 200 Cubs fans through the door at 5:30 a.m. on a Monday morning.

“I guess the weekend continues,” replied Tim, as he searched to see if his favorite bartender was taking this special shift.

The weekends were what these Chicago natives had been living for the past couple years. As they shared a dorm room at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, they now shared a two-bedroom apartment in a mid-rise building on the 1100 block of N. Lasalle St. It was only a couple quick stops on the L down to Harold Washington College, where Tim taught students older than himself how to put a paragraph together. Pat, on the other hand, had an hour-long commute out past O’Hare to the U.S. Cellular Headquarters, where he’d been moving up in the New Acquisitions department.

Both young men had grown up with a passion for the Cubs, groomed by their fathers and uncles to root against the Billy Goat curse and maintain hope that the championship would come to the north side. The sting from the White Sox’ glorious journey to the top two years ago, and the city’s embrace of that feat still lingered in everyone’s minds.

“Ginger Jordan looks pretty good in person,” remarked Tim, as he scoped out the setup of the eclectic group of comedians/disc jockeys from the still nascent morning radio show that was a blend of skits, bits, and legitimate journalism.

“And did you have any idea that Clarissa Jenkins, the traffic girl, was a white guy putting on a black woman’s voice?”

“Holy shit, you’re kidding me! That’s almost as funny as Jim Lynam’s rants about Lance Briggs.”

“Yeah, he’s passionate about his Chicago sports – check him out there in his high school football jersey. He looks like he’s had a rough night.”

“I wonder what McCarthy will say today—probably be something snarky about this being the Cubs’ year.”

And that was the real topic for discussion today, how the Cubs might actually make it back to the playoffs, and not blow it like in ’03. Thankfully, the names Thome and Konerko were the furthest words from the crowd’s lips today. With the acquisition of Soriano, and the return to form of D. Lee, the offense looked like they might be able to put up some runs this year. The two young men chatted about the players to watch, the $300 million spent in the off-season, and whether Dempster would be run out of town if he insisted on blowing every save opportunity thrown his way. Not to mention the new manager of the club, the singular Lou Pinella.

“Maybe he can bring some fire to these guys,” Pat said.

“Well at least we better not see him napping in the dugout.”

The early morning matured as the bar filled up with Cubs fans, an even mix of young, preppy North-siders and rugged die-hard fans sporting their Ryne Sandberg jerseys. The Bud Light flowed, hopes were voiced, Madina Lake played some tunes, and everyone had a good laugh at the jokes of the radio show crew. Every hour they gave away a pair of tickets to the game, but Tim and Pat were not among the lucky winners. They left Casey Moran’s around 11 with nothing more than their novelty T-shirts and a good buzz going. They had already decided to stick around the ballpark even if they couldn’t get into the game, so they made their way over to The Cubby Bear to try to get a seat and some grub. On the short walk over, they passed the massive line outside the gates, filled with buzzing Cubs fans from all walks of life. Even though the team was only 3-3 after their first week on the road, nothing could dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm. They spotted the “Woo-Woo” guy near the front of the line, taking pictures with some small children, while others looked down at their feet, reading the inscriptions on the personalized bricks that were planted in the sidewalk during the off-season.
(more…)

The Day Harvey Masters Ran out of Things to Say About Sports

TMC — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:54:43 +0000

The studio lights burned into Harvey’s skin like a summer sun. His tie tightened around his corpulent neck and he felt the sweat dripping down his side and channeling into the folds around his hip. The back of his suit was soaked through and he was sure everyone on the set could smell his fear. And still they were only seconds away from switching onto camera 4 and demanding that he offer 150 seconds of profound insight on every sport in the world.

The words crept up the teleprompter. Now let’s whip it over to Harvey Masters, the SportsMaster, for his outrageous take on the day’s events! For the last three years, his daily segment had always started like this, except sometimes, instead of being outrageous, he was passionate, or intense, or in-your-face. Once, he was sassy, and for a few months last year, he was XTREME.

Maybe he could have thrust the chair backward and dived under his desk, huddling up there until everyone just left him alone; let the camera hold on his empty, spinning chair for the full two-and-a-half. Let the empty desk tell them everything they needed to know. But this was the wrong industry for that kind of stunt. Just two weeks ago, Harvey himself had called Gilbert Arenas a gutless punk for using torn knee ligaments as an excuse to skip the first round of the playoffs. “Everyone faces obstacles,” Harvey had shouted, “but most of us overcome them instead of using them as excuses! Only difference is, he gets paid millions while schlubs like us get peanuts.” He’d ended that segment with his trademark flourish— running his hands back through his thick curls and then pointing them at the camera like a pair of six-shooters. Because he was a straight-shooter and that’s what straight-shooters do.

No, he couldn’t hide. The bloggers would crucify him if he backed out now. But he had nothing to say. A man can only narrate a 6-4-3 double play so many times before he runs out of words. He can only discuss the moral implications of steroid use in baseball for so many days in a row before the dead horse has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. He can only analyze the facial expressions of a football coach so many times before he wants to throw himself in front of a train.
(more…)

Post-Draft Blues

TMC — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:18:43 +0000

Toby came downstairs and stepped right over me as I laid there, my face buried in the carpet like I was grazing. I heard ice cubes clatter into a glass, and then he opened the fridge to pour himself a drink. The fridge didn’t close, but his bare feet scraped slowly across the rug. I pictured him walking like a zombie, arms outstretched and eyes vacant, and then I felt a kick in my ribs.

He toppled over me, a knee driving into my kidney and his glass dropping onto the back of my head. It didn’t break, but it hurt like hell. I thought I might be bleeding, but the run-off on my cheeks tasted like orange juice, and I knew I was okay. I turned my head so that my right cheek was pressed against the floor, and I could see Toby, now lying across me so that we looked like a lowercase T.

“I’m laying here,” I said.

“Didn’t see you,” he said, his voice muffled by the carpet. “Did you catch my OJ?”

“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” I said, and tried to smack him on the back. I barely grazed him.

“What a terrible day.”

“You wanna get off me?”

“I will,” he said, but I knew he wouldn’t. He turned his head to look back at me over his shoulder. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“Nothing to do.”

“Guess we could move.”

“Like that’ll help us get over this draft,” I said. I unleashed a showy sigh so that he could feel my disapproval in my breath on his cheek. “It’s too late, man. Everything’s already ruined.”

“How the hell could they draft a quarterback?” He slapped his palm on the floor. “They already have McNabb! Why not take a linebacker?”

“Could we not talk about it?” The Eagles had blown another draft just 6 hours before, and my season was ruined before it had even started. I wished I was dead, if only because it would keep me from having this same conversation for the fifth time today. “Just get offa me and leave me alone.”
(more…)