Feeling Chapped

Yesterday, the Chicago Cubs traded for Aroldis Chapman.

The reasons for the trade were clear. Chapman was arguably the best asset on the trade market, as you would expect from a left-handed relief pitcher whose fastball has averaged 98.7mph over his career.¹ The Cubs’ incumbent closer, Hector Rondon, has been fine; he has converted 18 of 22 save opportunities this year and has favorable supplemental statistics. He’s perfectly respectable as a player and has done well enough to maintain his position as the closer on the team. Even his fastball, which averages around 97mph, is fast enough to overpower some hitters at the end of games. Chapman’s fastball, though, has been averaging closer to 100mph over the last month or so and has topped out at 105.

Rondon is fine; Chapman is excellent.

The Cubs probably overpaid for Chapman, as they sent four players to the Yankees, including their highest regarded hitting prospect, Gleyber Torres. But that’s what you have to do when you want to win a World Series and have a real shot. When you have a chance to win now, you find a way to get the players who will put you over the edge. Even if Chapman ends up being a rental for three and a half months – he’s a free agent after this season – a World Series ring makes everything worth it. You win at all costs and worry about consequences later.²

Speaking of which…

In October 2015, while he was still employed by the Cincinnati Reds, Chapman was involved in a domestic violence incident. Chapman and his girlfriend reportedly argued about something Chapman’s girlfriend found on his phone. During the argument, Chapman allegedly choked his girlfriend, pushed her against a wall and also fired eight bullets into his garage wall. His girlfriend reportedly ran outside and hid in the bushes to wait for police to arrive. A dozen officers responded but no arrests were made and no formal charges were filed. 

For what it’s worth, Major League Baseball sentenced Chapman to a 30-game suspension in March 2016, making him the first player to serve such a suspension under the league’s new domestic violence policy. Chapman served his suspension and returned to pitch for the Yankees, to whom he had been traded during the off-season. It was all carried out quietly, though, as Chapman’s suspension seemed to come and go without much commentary. When I was getting ready to write this post, I had to do a bit of research to find details about the incident. It was a stark contrast to Greg Hardy of the NFL, whose history of domestic violence has been so well documented that I could have recited certain details about the allegations against him simply from memory.

The relative lack of attention paid to Chapman’s alleged actions against his girlfriend³ is one of the reasons why this trade makes me feel awkward. I’ve written before about the intersection between sports and domestic violence, particularly the struggle of having to cheer for a player who has been accused of physically assaulting their significant other. When I heard about the trade, I said on Twitter that I felt “icky.” I’m happy, on one hand, because I realize the level of Chapman’s talent and the extent of the Cubs’ need for a strong lefty reliever. The Cubs were already many “experts'” picks to win the World Series this year and adding him means they have an even better shot. That being said, I also struggle with the prospect of aligning myself with a man who seems to think violence against women is acceptable. I find myself picturing the Cubs winning games during the rest of the season and the playoffs and feeling a twinge in my stomach as the crowd starts cheering when Chapman is the player getting the final out. 

The most difficult aspect of the situation is that there really isn’t much I can do about it. The article I wrote two years ago was about my fantasy team, which meant it was an easy problem to solve; I dropped Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson to the waiver wire and never looked back. But the Cubs are my real-life team and I have exactly zero control over the personnel decisions that team president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer make. 

I can be disappointed in their apparent feeling that sacrificing team character and integrity for the sake of winning baseball games is a justifiable trade-off. I can write blog posts like this one and ask them to explain the rationale behind their decisions.⁴ I can tell myself that Chapman has not been linked to any subsequent domestic violence accusations since the October incident and that the New York media would have found out if there were any. I can even hope that the lack of any news on that front means that Chapman learned his lesson or that he has changed his mindset about appropriate ways to work out arguments, although Chapman’s tone when he spoke about his suspension from baseball would suggest that he still may not quite get it.

Ultimately, whether I like it or not, Chapman is a Cub, at least for the rest of this season. The Cubs have a real chance to win the championship and an even better one with Chapman, no matter how “icky” it makes me feel. And, since switching my team allegiance or stopping watching baseball entirely are choices I’m not ready to make, I am just going to have to find a way to deal with the discomfort of trying to ignore the off-field behavior of a man who is trying to help my team win. 

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^{1. Thank you, ESPN Stats and Info.}↩

^{2. Plus, they may not have overpaid quite as much as people seem to think.}↩

^{3. I know it’s annoying and unwieldy that I keep using the word “alleged.” It is important for clarity’s sake, though, as no formal charges were filed. Also, according to the police, there were no noticeable marks or bruises on Chapman’s girlfriend’s neck indicating that she had been choked. I’m obviously not saying Chapman is innocent, but this is a nuanced discussion and the facts need to be treated as such.} ↩

^{4. David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune is with me in that camp.} ↩

Writing My Legacy

During the 1995-1996 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls – my Chicago Bulls – dominated the league. They won 72 games out of an 82-game season and lost only three times in the playoffs, beating the Seattle Supersonics in six games to clinch the first of their second set of three championships in a row. That team is considered, if not the best team of all time, at least one of the top two or three, as arguments can be made for the ’86 Celtics or maybe one of those early ’80s Lakers teams.¹ The Bulls were led by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, as well as one of the strongest supporting casts ever behind sharpshooters Toni Kukoc and Steve Kerr (more about him in a minute) and the versatile Ron Harper.

The Bulls’ 72-10 regular season record stood unmatched until this past weekend, when the Golden State Warriors beat the San Antonio Spurs to reach 72-9 in the regular season. The Warriors have one game left before the playoffs. If they beat the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night, they’ll be 73-9 for the season and will bump the ’96 Bulls into second place on the all-time regular season record list. Oh, and by the way, the coach of the Warriors is Steve Kerr, the aforementioned three-point specialist from the ’96 Bulls team.

I’m happy for the Warriors. They have been a little bit lucky, of course, as their three star players have been relatively healthy for the entire season and there were some games where they absolutely should have lost and managed to eke out a victory.² I’m not saying that to diminish their accomplishment; any team competing at that level for that length of time needs a little luck. The key, obviously, will be to see whether the Warriors can continue their absurd winning ways through the playoffs and win the second of back-to-back championships. If that happens, then we can talk about arguments for whether they, as a team, were better than the Bulls. But that discussion only happens after they win a championship.

This past Sunday, a few hours before the Warriors game, a guest came to the religious school where I teach to speak about her experiences as a child in Europe during the Holocaust and her journey to the United States afterwards. The parent of one of my students asked her if she had written her story into a book so that it could be documented for future generations to read about her life. The speaker said that she was in the process of expanding her presentation into a longer and more detailed form but that it was not currently in a book. She added that, even if she didn’t end up finishing the project, she feels very comfortable knowing that she has passed her story on through her children and their families and through the presentations she has given. She said that the main thing is that people never forget the Holocaust and, especially, the events that led up to it so that we can prevent something similar from ever happening again.

Later on in the evening, once I had wound down from the day a bit, I found myself thinking about legacies. Championships are wonderful, to be sure, but they also get lost in history. A new one gets crowned every year so there needs to be something particularly memorable about the team in order for it to stand the test of time. Here’s a quick quiz: can you name the last five championship teams in your favorite sport? The last ten? Can you name the team that won in 2007 or 1999 or 1984? Not only can I not do any of those things, it took me a minute to remember who won championships in the four major sports last year.³ It’s hard to differentiate from year to year because the seasons all run together after a while. We end up remembering specific teams because of individual plays, players or the season-long storylines or because of the connections we formed with the teams during the year.⁴ But unless there is some sort of defining characteristic, the memories fade and the teams get forgotten.

The reason I brought up the speaker at the religious school is that legacies are a part of everyone’s lives, not just sports teams. People who are afraid to die feel that way for two reasons. The first is the obvious one: they don’t know what comes afterwards and they’re afraid to find out. The second is that they do not want to be forgotten. We go through our lives and we hope that we have left some lasting impact, some reminder to the world that we were here. The whole point of leaving a legacy is so that we can be sure that people in the future will look back and be able to say that we mattered. We want our lives to have meant something.

I wrote a while ago about why I write. I came up with some answers, but I think this is really the bottom line. It’s great for me to be able to document some of my experiences so that my family and I can remember certain parts of Eitan’s childhood and so that Eitan can see what I was thinking and feeling as a first time father. But now I think that the reason people create anything, from blogs and artwork to buildings and cities, is to find some way to remind others in the future that they were here. Even having kids is called procreation because it has to do with making something to pass on for the future. Everything is a part of the search for immortality.

Kevin Costner’s character in the golf movie, Tin Cup, demonstrated this feeling expertly in the last scene when he shot a twelve on the final hole to lose the tournament.⁵ When he talks about feeling humiliated and dejected that his stubbornness cost him the championship, Rene Russo reminds him that, years from that day, no one will remember who won the tournament but they will remember his twelve.

Even if this blog started as a way to remember the early stages of fatherhood, it’s become something much more. It’s become a way for me to connect with other fathers having similar experiences. It’s become an avenue for communication with other people about parenthood, philosophy, sports, my life and theirs. It’s become one more piece of evidence that I was here, one more piece of my final legacy. It may not be immortality, but it’s close enough for me.

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^{1. Those arguments are wrong. That Bulls team was the best ever.↩}

^{2. I’m looking at you, Brooklyn Nets.↩}

^{3. For what it’s worth: Broncos, Blackhawks, Warriors and Royals. And I got the Blackhawks immediately.↩}

^{4. For instance, I know that Syracuse won the men’s college basketball championship in 2003 because that was the year that I won the March Madness pool I was in. I know that the Rams beat the Titans in the Super Bowl in the 2000 season because I remember where my friends and I watched the game. I know that the Saints played the Colts in a Super Bowl sometime around 2010 because that was the night our cable went out in our apartment and we went down the hall to our neighbors to finish the game. I remember that the Saints won because they were such heavy underdogs facing a loaded Peyton Manning-led offense but I couldn’t tell you the year unless I looked it up. And, lest you think I only have trouble remembering other teams, it applies to my own allegiances too: I know that the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2013 because I know it was the year after Eitan was born and my brother and I had to come home early from the bar because he was sick, but I didn’t remember that they had also won in 2010 until I looked it up. I knew that 2015 was their third in a few years but I didn’t remember in which year the first one came.↩}

^{5. You can watch that clip here. Also, no spoiler alert. The movie came out in 1996. You had twenty years to see it.↩}

We Do Not Hit, No Matter What Greg Hardy Says

Dear Eitan,

I’m angry.

I’m not angry with you, don’t worry. You’ve continued to be the happy, fun-loving, wonderful little boy that you are. You play and you sing and you tell me about the things you’ve learned in school. You’re so eager to show off your new knowledge and the skills you’re developing and I can’t help but be captivated by your initiative and your growth. Even when you do things that are frustrating, the feelings never last long. You remind me every day how thankful I am to have you and how amazing the world can be when everything is new.

But still, I’m angry.

Your mom and I work very hard to teach you the right ways to behave. We’ve had many conversations about the appropriate ways to react when you’re upset and how to ask for things without whining. We’ve talked about how it’s important to listen to what people are telling you, even if you don’t like what they’re saying. We’ve practiced using your words when you’re upset, rather than growling or crying or running away.

Most importantly, we’ve told you that it’s not okay to hit people.

Again, I’m not angry with you. Sometimes you have an easier time remembering these lessons than others, but that’s natural. You’re still only three years old, after all, and you’re still learning where your place is in the world. There are going to be times when you remember to use your words and other times when you scream and run into the bedroom and slam the door. And all of that is okay.

Part of the reason I’m feeling angry (and frustrated and a bunch of other negative feelings) is because there are some grown-ups who still seem to have trouble with these behaviors. Some people still think that they can hit someone else when they get angry and that there’s nothing wrong with it. They think that violence is acceptable, whether the person is a stranger or a friend or even a loved one.

The real reason I’m angry is because some of these people keep getting rewarded, no matter how disgusting their behavior is.

I’m bringing it up now because, earlier this week, Greg Hardy, a defensive end in the NFL, had his criminal record, which included a bench trial conviction for domestic assault, expunged. Hardy was originally charged because he did some really terrible things to his girlfriend. Even though he was arrested, charged and convicted in a bench trial, he appealed and requested a jury trial. The jury trial case was dismissed, however, because Hardy’s girlfriend had refused to continue participating with the prosecution. Then, this week, Hardy’s request to have his criminal record expunged was granted.

Aside from the legal processes that gave Hardy extra chances, he also continued to be rewarded by the NFL. Hardy was initially suspended for ten games when the details of the assault initially came out. Hardy appealed and the sentence was reduced to four games. He had been cut by the Carolina Panthers when the initial charges were made but he was signed by the Dallas Cowboys in the off-season despite the looming suspension. He has played in four games so far this season and has had some issues keeping his cool. But, even with all the negative behaviors and Hardy’s apparent refusal to take ownership of his mistakes, Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, is referring to Hardy as a “leader” and talking about giving him a contract extension.

So I’m angry. I’m angry because Hardy is still getting to play and isn’t getting punished for his crimes. (A four game suspension for almost killing a woman is laughable.) I’m angry because people are defending him, despite visual evidence of the harm he inflicted on his girlfriend. I’m angry because media outlets like ESPN support personalities who have implied that domestic violence against women can be a woman’s fault.

Eitan, I know that your mom and I have taught you better than this. I know that we will keep teaching you the right way to work through your feelings, no matter how upset you are. I know that your heart is too pure and too good for you to ever commit any sort of violence against anyone, let alone against someone you love. I’m not worried about you turning out like Greg Hardy or about you even thinking that such behavior is somehow acceptable. If anything, I know that you’re going to be the person who stands up against such crimes and works to keep people safe.

But I’m still angry.

Love,

Daddy

Losing Online Friends

It’s weird thinking of myself as an online personality.

I’ve been writing this blog for about two and a half years now, so you’d think I’d be a little more used to it by now. I write these posts about my family, my sports allegiances, my beliefs about parenting, my views of the world around me and, the truth is, nothing much happens afterwards. I get the chance to process my feelings and let people in on the “secret” of what thoughts are swirling around in my head and that’s usually the end of it.

I don’t usually feel like I’m making a huge difference in the world with my fledgling little site. For one thing, I don’t exactly have the highest number of regular readers. People don’t recognize me on the street or ask me for my autograph or beg to take selfies with me. For another, so many of my posts are so small-scale, so individual, so specific to my family and my experiences. I’m hardly writing manifestos about how people should live or describing proper parenting techniques or even reviewing children’s books or toys. I’m telling stories about playing with my son and connecting with others and, occasionally, about sports.

Before you think that I’m complaining about not reaching very many people or that I’m feeling anything negative about this site, let me be very clear: I really enjoy this blog. I like being able to share stories with other people about my family. I enjoy exchanging ideas about parenting and relating to other people. I feel guilty when I see that an extended period of time has gone by without a new post because I feel a responsibility to the people who follow the blog regularly. I’m still surprised – pleasantly, of course – when people tell me that they read my posts and I jump at the chance to find out which posts struck their fancy and why.

The reason I mentioned being an online personality is that the internet has a weird way of helping people feel connected to those who put their thoughts and their experiences out there for public consumption. For instance, I listen to a number of different podcasts during my commutes to and from work and home visits. I’ve been listening to some of them for years and, over time, I’ve “gotten to know” the hosts. I’ve never met any of them but, after hearing them talk about their families and their work in the course of the podcasts, I find myself feeling like I know them. I feel like I could invite them to my house to watch football (you know, if I had time to sit at home and watch football) and it wouldn’t be weird at all because I’ve already gotten to know them.1 I’m happy when I hear about their successes and I feel sad when I hear that they are going through hard times.

It feels like these internet personalities, whom I’ve never met, are my friends.

On Friday afternoon, ESPN released a statement that it was suspending publication of the sports and popular culture website, Grantland. Grantland was started in 2011 by Bill Simmons, a sports writer who had been employed by ESPN at the time. Over the last four years, its writers covered sports in a slightly different way than conventional beat reporters and commentators. Grantland made statistics more accessible and expanded on the human sides of the athletes. The contributors put out quality content in multiple forms, including written articles, audio podcasts and videos. They approached stories in unique ways and no topic was off-limits. The site wasn’t always perfect but it was always thought-provoking and entertaining.

Some of these contributors fit into the category I was describing earlier, the group of Internet personalities that I’ve grown to love. It’s that relationship, odd and one-sided as it may be, that spurred this post. Some of these writers and podcasters will reportedly be staying on with ESPN in other capacities, which I’m happy about because it means those people won’t immediately be out of a job and, selfishly, because it also means I get to keep reading their content that has drawn me to them for the past four years. But there’s still that nagging feeling like I’m losing something.

I realize that this is ridiculous in a lot of ways. Nothing is really changing for me. My job is the same, my family is the same, my commute is the same. I’m still going to listen to podcasts and follow my Chicago teams and read about sports if I have a spare minute or two. For all intents and purposes, the only way my life is really affected by any of this is that I’ll have a slightly smaller selection of podcasts to choose from. The people who are most affected by ESPN’s decision – the Grantland staff – have never met me and have much more pressing matters to attend to than worrying about how I’m going to learn about the most efficient NBA shooters or the reasons why the Mets faltered against the Royals in the World Series.

They actually need to figure out how they’re going to continue making a living.

Like I said, the Grantland staff don’t know me. We’ve never met in person, never Skyped, never had any real interaction to speak of.2 And still, I feel sad. I don’t know these people and they don’t know me. But they are my friends, just the same, and I hope that they all find a new place where they are able to speak their minds and express themselves in the ways that attracted me to them in the first place.

The internet is a less fun place without them.

Many many thanks to Jonah Keri, Robert Mays, Bill Barnwell, Katie Baker, Zach Lowe, Rembert Browne, Rany Jazayerli, Alex Pappademas and everyone else from Grantland for the cumulative hours of entertainment and procrastination that you provided. And, of course, thank you, as well, to Bill Simmons, who brought all of you together to begin with.

^{1. Never mind the fact that it would likely be really uncomfortable for them…↩}

^{2. Katie Baker and Jonah Keri replied to me once or twice on Twitter, but I think that’s about it.↩}

There’s Always Next Year

The Chicago Cubs’ season ended last night.

The Cubs had a very good season. They had the third best record during the regular season behind talented young hitters and a couple of dominant starting pitchers. Of course, the two teams with better records were Pittsburgh and St. Louis, both of whom are in the Cubs’ division, which meant that 97 wins only got the Cubs a wild card spot in the playoffs. But the Cubs kept going, beating Pittsburgh in the wild card play-in game and then winning three out of four against St. Louis in the divisional round. Their regular season formula had continued, as they rode solid pitching and timely hitting to dispatch their opponents and set up a matchup against the NL East winners, the New York Mets.

Then, somehow, everything just stopped. The bats that had scored so many runs suddenly fell silent. The Cubs barely managed two runs in the first game and only scored one in the second. The young Cubs, whose raw talent had been able to feast on lesser pitching throughout the regular season, were stymied by the Mets’ starters. They looked lost at the plate and often struggled to even make contact, let alone string together a rally to score enough runs to make a difference.

The Cubs pitchers, meanwhile, were not exactly bad, but they weren’t amazing, either. Jon Lester took the loss in game one and Jake Arrieta, who had thrown a no-hitter earlier in the year, became human and allowed three runs in the first inning of game two. Kyle Hendricks and Jason Hammel, who had been somewhat unpredictable during the regular season, were still serviceable in games three and four, despite being the losing pitchers. The Mets hitters, particularly Curtis Granderson and Daniel “What-is-he-on-and-where-can-I-get-some?” Murphy, never seemed to get out and the runs kept coming.¹

As I watched the end of game four, with the Cubs down 8-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the writing having been on the wall since they were in a 6-0 deficit in the second inning, I was somewhat surprised to realize that I was not even so sad about the result. I was disappointed, to be sure, but I wasn’t heartbroken. The Cubs had a fantastic season. They were an extremely young team that was hoping to be competitive and maybe make the playoffs. The fact that they made it all the way to the National League Championship Series is a credit to their talent and to their manager, Joe Maddon, who, as far as I’m concerned, earned every penny of the first year of his 5-year, $25 million dollar contract.

The difference with this Cubs team, as opposed to the teams of past years, is that this team didn’t lose because of a black cat or a billy goat. They didn’t lose because a devoted fan tried to catch a ball and a player’s subsequent tantrum. They didn’t lose because of an error at first base or because of reverse jinx put on them by a movie that came out 26 years ago.

They didn’t lose because of a curse.

The difference, this year, was that the Cubs were playing a better team. The Mets had better depth among their starting pitchers and more consistency among their hitters. When a team relies so heavily on the home run to score, as the Cubs did this year, there are going to be times when the offense has trouble. As it turns out, it’s quite difficult to hit home runs when you have trouble making contact, and the Cubs learned that lesson the hard way.

As opposed to past Cubs teams, the future is still full of promise. Their core batters – Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber, Soler, Baez, Russell, etc. etc. – is under team control for at least the next six years. They’re very young, as I keep mentioning, and I have to assume that they’re just going to get better. I read an article earlier in the season that essentially predicted that, if things go according to plan and everyone stays relatively healthy, this year should be the Cubs’ worst of the next five or six years.

So yes, the Cubs lost. Their season is over and I’m left counting down the days until spring training. But this time, the slogans “Ya gotta believe,” “It’s gonna happen” and “We are good” don’t seem quite as laughable as they have in the past. I can be optimistic about future teams without feeling, deep down, that I’m kidding myself.

There’s always next year.

 

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^{1. Murphy, who had a .281 batting average and hit only 14 home runs during the regular season, set a record by hitting a home run in six straight playoff games. He hit one in games four and five against Los Angeles and then had one in each of the four games against the Cubs.↩}

Don’t Feed the Trolls

Once upon a time, there was a far away land called Tenretni. Tenretni was an interesting place, full of interesting things to see. There were the usual supermarkets and restaurants, movie theaters and sports arenas and even a Red Light District.¹ But, there were also zoos full of baby animals doing cute things and libraries dedicated to old television shows and museums just for cat videos. There were gigantic department stores that sold clothes and furniture and toys. There were also other places that sold things that were much weirder, like this or this or this.²

But, aside from all the fun things to see, Tenretni was particularly special because of the different neighborhoods where people went to spend time together. They would talk about themselves and their families and, sometimes, about things that were affecting other people too. One part of Tenretni was just devoted to pictures. Some people would share pictures of themselves doing silly things or pictures they found meaningful, but people mostly just used it to share pictures of their food. Another section was where people could say things along with whatever else they wanted to share, but there was a limit to how much people could say at a time. Sometimes that meant that more people got to speak but sometimes it just meant that so many people were speaking all at once that it was hard to hear anyone. (That area was usually just filled with people who thought they were funny, even if they weren’t.)

The last neighborhood was the biggest one. It was sort of a combination of the first two places and it had been around longer than either of them. People went there to share pictures, videos, information and jokes all at the same time. Sometimes people went there to ask questions; sometimes people went there to tell all of their friends how they felt about something; and sometimes people just went there to spoil television shows for everyone else. The nicest thing about this neighborhood was that no matter where someone lived, his neighborhood was really easy to reach, so people could share pictures and updates about their families with relatives and friends who lived far away.

Most of the people who went to these neighborhoods did so to enjoy themselves and to enjoy sharing ideas with other people. But, as one might expect, there were some who did not play so well with others. They were not interested in sharing information and they didn’t care about people’s feelings. If someone expressed an opinion that they thought was wrong, rather than disagreeing and offering a different point of view, they would insult the person. They would make fun of the person’s looks or their gender or their ethnicity. They would latch onto any characteristic that they could find to demean the person who spoke first. It wasn’t about a difference of opinion; it was about humiliating the person into keeping their mouth shut.

These people were called Trolls.

The scariest part about the Trolls is that they weren’t the same huge, lumbering oafs from typical fairy tales.³ Many of them looked just like you or me. They went to work and they went to school. Some Trolls had families that they came home to at night. Some Trolls were adults and some Trolls were college students and some Trolls were just teenagers. Some Trolls were teaching their children how to be Trolls when they got older.

Trolls would find a person living with depression and make obscene comments about a picture of him playing with his young daughter. Trolls would read about a woman accusing a professional athlete of rape and immediately blame her for trying to ruin the athlete’s career before getting all of the facts. Trolls would hear a female sports media personality offer an opinion and would tell her to “get back in the kitchen.” (Because, really, Trolls weren’t usually very creative and that was the best they could come up with.) Sometimes, when Trolls got really bold, they would even make obscene comments about the things they would do to a person’s daughter or say that a person deserved to be physically harmed because of their comments.

Sometimes they would even make threats to inflict that harm themselves.

No one really knew the best way to handle the Trolls. Some said that people should not feed the Trolls and that would make them stop being so mean. You see, the Trolls fed on attention and power. If Trolls could affect a person’s thoughts or emotions, they felt like they became more important and that they had gained an element of control over someone else. So, if a Troll came out and started making their terrible comments about other people, but nobody paid attention to him, the Troll would be forced to look for food elsewhere. Unfortunately, the problem with this tactic was that the Trolls would keep looking until they found someone to feed on.

The real issue was that the Trolls felt like they could get away with saying anything they wanted. When they spoke in those neighborhoods in Tenretni, they didn’t have to be face to face with the person they were feeding on. It was easier to be hurtful because there weren’t any real consequences.

But then some people in Tenretni started telling the Trolls’ employers, their teachers and coaches and, sometimes, even their families, about what the Trolls had been saying. They showed everyone what the Trolls had said and some of the Trolls got punished. They lost their spots on sports teams, they lost their jobs and some even got arrested. Even though many of the Trolls continued to spread their hateful words and look for attention, some of them realized that they would be held accountable for their words and decided to change their ways.

This story may not have a happy ending, but it is not necessarily sad, either. There were still very many Trolls left and they continued to hurt other people without thinking twice. That being said, the people of Tenretni supported each other more and more and shot down the Trolls’ attempts to get attention. They continued to keep their conversations going and shut out the Trolls whenever they turned up. It was not always easy, but the people of Tenretni became hopeful again that, one day, they would be able to share their ideas and their information in peace.

 

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<sup>1. A huge Red Light District.↩
2. These were pretty tame examples, believe it or not. Do yourself a favor and Google “weird things you can buy on the internet.”↩
3. That’s not entirely true. Some of them were exactly that.↩</sup>

Torah Reading and No-Hitters (and Vomit)

This past weekend, Trudy, Eitan and I drove down to Philadelphia to visit my grandparents for a long weekend. They live in a great location; a block away from the funky South Street shops and a short walk from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. It’s obviously always a pleasure getting the chance to spend time with them, but being able to walk around the neighborhood and live the “city life” (albeit, on a smaller scale than New York) has a real allure, as well.

I’m not going to write about our time in the city, though. For one thing, we didn’t do anything particularly touristy while we were there. Also, this isn’t a travel blog; I’m assuming you didn’t come to my site to read about our walk around the city or how South Street seems to have changed from stores with personality and charm to a string of street food restaurants and sex toy stores.¹ For another thing, I think our time together as a family makes for better reading. Yes, even including the moment during lunch at the synagogue on Saturday when Eitan complained that his mouth was hurting after he drank some lemonade and then vomited all over me.²

I’m going to write about what happened on Sunday night. My Saba³ is a baseball fan. Baseball was the medium through which he was able to meet people and form connections when he first came to the United States. My grandparents have been living in Philadelphia since the mid-1960s and my grandfather has been a Phillies fan ever since. It was no surprise to me, then, on Sunday evening during dinner, when he mentioned to me that the Cubs game would be on television later that night. He knows that I’ve been a Cubs fan since I was little and it would have been nice to watch the game together. I said a lot would depend on the time that Eitan ended up going to bed but agreed that it would be nice to watch.

As it turned out, Eitan was asleep before 8:30 and Trudy and I were back downstairs before the end of the third inning. The Cubs were up 2-0 against the LA Dodgers, which was encouraging, considering the fact that the Cubs had just lost four straight games. Despite the positive start, though, my grandfather turned off the television when Trudy and I sat down. I had mentioned to him earlier in the day that I wanted to go over Torah trope⁴ as a refresher and, for Saba, there’s nothing more enjoyable than Torah study. So the television went off and Saba, Savta, Trudy and I talked about trope and the different styles of reading Torah. The discussion went on to focus on modern religious school education, what it’s like working as a rabbi and the kind of a rabbi I would have been, had I not decided to become a social worker. We talked for almost two hours and I had completely forgotten about the baseball game.

Later in the evening, as I was lying in bed, I got a text message from my youngest brother: “Did either of you stay up to watch Cubs/Dodgers?” I said that I hadn’t because I was still at Saba and Savta’s house and everyone had gone to bed much earlier. Our other brother responded, “YES!!!!!!” I didn’t think too much of it in the moment; I assumed the Cubs had won and figured that maybe it had been in dramatic fashion. I didn’t even bother to check the score. But then I got an email from a friend with the subject line, “Congrats on Arrieta’s no-no.”

Cubs pitcher, Jake Arrieta, who has been the anchor of their pitching staff all year, had thrown a no-hitter. And I missed it.

I’ve written before about missing important Chicago sports moments. I’ll admit, when I first realized that I’d missed the game, I was angry. No-hitters don’t happen very often and, since I have so few opportunities to watch sports as it is, it was a little upsetting that I’d missed out. As I thought about it more, though, I realized I wouldn’t have traded my conversation with my grandparents for the chance to see the game, no matter how important it turned out to be. I loved talking with them and our conversation wouldn’t have happened if the game had been on. One of the nice things about sports is that there’s always the next game, the next series, the next season. Time with our loved ones is much more finite. Yes, it would have been amazing to watch Arrieta reach a personal milestone that also happened to be meaningful for my favorite team. But when the game gets brought up in the future, instead of thinking about a fleeting moment watching television, I’ll be able to picture listening to my grandfather chant the Torah trope that link me to my ancestors. I’ll picture his smile as I remind him how he told me not to grow up to become a rabbi when I was twelve. I’ll even hear his incredulous laugh from the next morning when I told him we missed the no-hitter.

The Cubs will always have a special place in my heart, but they’re never going to mean more to me than spending time with my family.

 

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^{1. Incidentally, if you are looking to read a travel blog, I cannot recommend The Everywhereist strongly enough. Geraldine is thoughtful and hilarious and tells a great story.↩}

^{2. Eitan had been crying for a couple of minutes and Trudy and I were completely unable to calm him down. He gagged once and then left my pants soaking wet and smelling awful. Then, no more than ten seconds later, still crying and tears still streaming down his face, Eitan said, “I’m feeling better!”↩}

^{3. Hebrew for grandfather. “Savta” is the word for grandmother.↩}

^{4. When Jews read from the Torah (Old Testament) during prayer services, there are specific markings that indicate the tune that should be used to sing each word. The tunes are different depending on the part of the world. Many American Jews use the tunes from Eastern Europe; since my mother’s side of the family is from India, our tunes are very different.↩}

Just For Fun

The other day, I was listening to a podcast interview with Scott Weinger, a Hollywood writer and actor. Weinger is probably most well known for his roles as Steve on Full House (Kimmy Gibbler’s DJ Tanner’s boyfriend) and as the speaking voice of Aladdin in the 1992 Disney movie (the singing voice was a different actor). Weinger was a teenager when he acted in those roles but he starred in a few commercials when he was younger, as well. During the interview, Weinger made a number of references to his wife telling him that he did not have a childhood because he grew up working in show business, as opposed to living a more typical life. He said that she makes that type of comment anytime he mentions working in a recording studio with Robin Williams or something about having a trailer or traveling for a movie premiere. Weinger said that his response to his wife’s comment is always some version of correcting her assessment.

“I had a childhood,” he says. “I just didn’t have a ‘normal’ childhood.”

They’re both right, of course. Weinger’s wife feels pity for her husband because he did not get the chance to have certain experiences because he was a working actor. Weinger, on the other hand, contends that childhood happens, regardless of whether the child is a working actor or a typical full-time student. It’s seems to me, though, that the real thing they’re both talking about is fun.  Children are supposed to spend their childhood having fun. They’re supposed to learn, obviously, which is why they go to school. But they’re also supposed to play and interact with each other and have social lives. That’s how they learn to become independent human beings, which is what we, as their parents, are supposed to want for them.

But what if the work is part of the fun? Weinger may not be the most talented actor in the world, but he was very good in the parts that he had and, as he says, he was enjoying being an actor. He didn’t mind missing out on all the “typical” childhood experiences because he was having fun with what he was doing.¹

The reason I’m spending so much time thinking about this is because Eitan took his first tennis lesson last week. He’s been showing incredible progress hitting a baseball; he watches the pitch and swings for contact, as opposed to just swinging wildly and hoping for the best. A couple weeks ago he hit a Wiffle Ball off the fence a good thirty feet away on the fly. There is a tennis club nearby that offers fairly cheap lessons and Eitan had expressed some interest, so Trudy brought him for a group lesson with a few of his friends, just to see how he liked it.

He was really good.

I know, I’m his dad, I’m biased, I’m supposed to say that. Let’s be clear: he wasn’t that good. The teacher dropped a ball and wanted Eitan to hit it on the first bounce and Eitan usually didn’t get it until the third or fourth. Sometimes the ball had stopped bouncing completely before Eitan hit it. But he’s three years old; he hit he ball and he hit it well. His hand-eye coordination was terrific, though not as terrific as his determination to keep trying, even if the ball was sitting still on the ground. Then my wife practiced with him once – once! – and he started consistently hitting the ball on one bounce. This past weekend, we did it again and he was hitting the balls that same twenty to thirty feet he had with the Wiffle Ball. Out of curiosity, I started throwing the tennis balls to him, as opposed to dropping them next to him, and he returned them all. Hard.

While I was watching Eitan play, I couldn’t help but start thinking of competitions and scholarships and who knows what else. I pictured the videos of three-year-old Tiger Woods putting and young Venus and Serena Williams preparing each other for careers dominating their sport. Eitan may not be there yet, but even the best athletes have to start somewhere, right?

I snapped out of my reverie, only partially because a tennis ball was screaming toward my face. I had to take a minute to realize what was happening. Eitan had one tennis lesson and I was already picturing him winning Wimbledon. Was I already that parent who heaps on the pressure to succeed at everything? After all of the reading I’ve done about the dangers of helicopter parenting and emphasizing achievements, was I going to let all of that go because my son showed he can hit a ball with a racket?

It was in that moment that I made a conscious decision about the role I would play regarding Eitan’s involvement in extra-curricular activities. Whatever Eitan does, whether he wants to play sports or learn an instrument or design computer programs, it has to be fun. The last thing I want is for Eitan to become the kid who is driven by parents or coaches to play so much, to practice so relentlessly, that they end up hating the game. Andre Agassi, one of the best American tennis players in history, wrote in his autobiography that he hates tennis, largely because of the pressure his father placed on him to succeed.

I refuse to let that happen to Eitan.

There is a fine line between challenging a child to reach their potential and forcing them into an unpleasant situation. I will push Eitan to improve his abilities at whatever activity he chooses, not because I need him to be successful, but because I want him to experience the rewards of working hard. If he wants to quit, he will have that option, as long as he can give a legitimate reason for doing so.² Eitan will do things because he wants to, not because he has to. The choice will be his, no matter what, and I will be there cheering him on throughout his journey.

And, if he happens to win Wimbledon, that would be fine with me too.

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^{1. Considering that two of the main people he worked with were Bob Saget and Robin Williams, can you really blame him?↩}

^{2. Also, “It’s not fun anymore” is absolutely a legitimate reason.↩}

I Know What I Know

I don’t know Ray McDonald.

I know a bit about him. I know he is an eight-year NFL veteran.¹ I know he was drafted from the University of Florida by the San Francisco 49ers in 2007. I know he is a pretty talented football player; you’d have to be to make an All-Pro team (McDonald did so in 2011). Some of that production can likely be attributed to the defensive scheme under which McDonald was playing and to the other players on San Francisco’s defense, including Justin Smith, Patrick Willis, Navarro Bowman and Aldon Smith, just to name a few. But, even with all that extra talent, McDonald deserves credit for his performance on the field.

I also know that Ray McDonald has a history of being involved in domestic violence disputes. I know that in August 2014 he was arrested on felony domestic violence charges regarding “alleged injuries” to a victim, later believed to be his fiancee. I know that in December 2014 he was accused of sexual assault by a different woman. I know that he was never officially charged in court in either incident and that he has since filed a defamation suit against the woman who made the second set of allegations. I know that nothing has been proven in court and that, in America, people are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

I know that the Chicago Bears – my Chicago Bears – signed McDonald to a one-year contract in March. I know that absolutely none of the money on the contract was guaranteed, which means that if McDonald were to get cut from the team, the Bears would not owe him anything more than the salary he had earned up until the date of his release. I know that, because of the way the contract was structured, signing McDonald was effectively a low-risk, high reward financial move: if McDonald plays up to his potential, the team gets quality defensive play for relatively little money, while cutting him for any reason costs nothing extra.

I know that I hated the signing the moment I read about it.

I know that I’m a big believer in second chances. I know that people make mistakes and I believe that they deserve the opportunity to make things right with the people they’ve hurt. I know that McDonald met personally with Bears chairman George McCaskey prior to signing so that they could discuss McDonald’s history of “off-the-field issues.”² I know that McDonald supposedly made such a good impression that McCaskey thought it was worth giving him a chance to prove that his “off-the-field issues” were behind him and that he was fully committed to football. I know that the idea of a low-risk, high reward gamble makes good financial sense, especially regarding sports contracts.

I know that I don’t know Ray McDonald. I know that he could be getting misrepresented in the media. I know that people try to take advantage of celebrities and that there is always more than one side to any story. But I also know that there are plenty of celebrities – athletes, in particular – who are getting paid boatloads of money despite the way that they treat the people close to them. I know that Greg Hardy was signed this offseason by the Dallas Cowboys despite his history of domestic violence allegations. I know that Adrian Peterson is still employed by the Minnesota Vikings despite agreeing to a plea bargain regarding his felony child abuse charges. I know that Floyd Mayweather is the highest paid athlete in the world and that he is adored by fans all over the globe, even though he has a longer history of assault and other domestic violence allegations than any football player I’ve heard of.³ I know that where there is smoke, there is usually fire.

That connection is why I knew two months ago that I didn’t want Ray McDonald on my team. I knew I didn’t want to be happy for my team’s success but then second-guess that happiness because of the rumors and allegations against one of the players. I knew that I didn’t want to have to explain to someone else – my friends, my coworkers, my son – that I could somehow differentiate between the player and the domestic violence perpetrator. Because I knew that I couldn’t then and I know that I can’t now.

Regardless of my personal feelings about McDonald, I now know that Ray McDonald was arrested over Memorial Day Weekend, again on charges of domestic violence. I know that this new report alleged that McDonald assaulted a woman holding a young child in her arms. I know that hours after the report came out, the Bears announced that they had released McDonald. The low-risk, high-reward gamble, it appeared, had not worked out in the Bears’ favor. I know that hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy for me to say that I saw this coming two months ago when the Bears signed McDonald in the first place. But I also know that this is even more smoke to add to the thickening haze that has been gathering around McDonald for almost a full calendar year. I know that I was disappointed when the Bears signed McDonald and I know that I am glad that they released him. I know that at least one of the Bears players feels the same way.

I know that I don’t know Ray McDonald; but I feel like I know enough.

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<sup>1. NFL information obtained from ProFootballReference.com.↩
2. I’m not even going to get into the problems I have with that phrase right now. Let’s just say it’s absurdly broad and gets used too often to white-wash some really terrible things and leave it at that.↩
3. Mayweather deserves his own footnote. This article by Louisa Thomas is a fantastic account of the different faces Mayweather presents and the extensive history of domestic violence incidents in which he has been involved.↩</sup>

The Chicago Legacy

Spring is a great time of year to be a sports fan.

March gives us the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments that cripple workplace productivity as people replace spreadsheets and phone calls with box scores and online play-by-play logs. It’s the time of year when NBA and NHL teams really start to jockey for playoff position and NFL teams conduct their player evaluations in preparation for the draft in May. March also marks the start of Major League Baseball’s spring training. Spring training means warmer weather is on its way, along with the optimism that every fan feels at the start of a new season.

For the most part, April and May have been pretty kind to me, as a Chicago sports fan. The Blackhawks dispatched their first round opponents, the Nashville Predators, in six games behind the stellar play of backup goalie Scott Darling and then completed a clean sweep of the Minnesota Wild in the second round. They’re currently down 2-1 in the conference finals against Anaheim, but I’m hopeful for a comeback. Meanwhile, I’ll admit that I started feeling nervous when the Bulls, who had made it to a 3-0 lead over their first round opponents, the Milwaukee Bucks, allowed the Bucks to win back-to-back games to cut the lead to 3-2. Thankfully, the Bulls were able to find their focus again and beat the Bucks handily in game six to move to the next round. Granted, they ended up losing the next series in six games to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, but it was a hard-fought series and a few bounces here or there could have led to some drastically different results.¹ Also, I don’t think I had any real significant hopes of a championship for the Bulls, largely because of the injuries they suffered through the regular season and during the Cleveland series, so I dealt with the disappointment fairly easily. I am a bit concerned about their coaching situation for next year, given the general consensus that their head coach, defensive guru Tom Thibodeau, and the Bulls will be parting ways during the offseason, but that’s a worry for another time.

Baseball has always been my first love, though, and this year’s Chicago Cubs are not the team of years past. This year’s team is flush with young talent, almost all of which is under contract for the next six seasons, not to mention the additional prospects still developing in the minors. Brand new third baseman, Kris Bryant, has been almost as good as advertised; he works pitch counts, gets on base and has incredible defensive talent for someone his age. His power stroke is taking a bit of time to develop, but there’s time for that; he is only 23 years old, after all.² This year’s team almost definitely won’t make the World Series and probably won’t make the playoffs, but they’ve already shown that they are more competitive than any team since 2009. As long as they finish over .500, I’ll chalk this season up as a win.

My other favorite piece of this particular sports spring has been the way Eitan has been developing an understanding and an interest in the games. He’s hardly a full-blown fan; given the choice between watching Sportscenter highlights and watching Daniel Tiger, Daniel is going to win every time. I have noticed, though, that if Eitan comes into the room in the morning and I have ESPN on while I’m eating breakfast, he will sit and watch with me for a little while before asking to watch Daniel Tiger. Earlier this week, we happened to see the highlight of Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez hitting a home run into a boat sitting in the Allegheny River outside the stadium and, when Trudy woke up a little later, Eitan was excited to tell her, “We watched baseball and he hit the ball into the boat!” My grandparents, who happen to be Philadelphia Phillies fans, were in the car with us during a family event last weekend and my grandmother asked Eitan which team he would cheer for if the Phillies and the Cubs played against each other. Eitan smiled and said, “The Cubbies!” We all laughed, but I’ll admit that I felt a little like Mr. Burns as I pumped my fist with pride.

I’ve spent some time here and there thinking about the reasons why I want Eitan to be a fan of the Chicago teams. I think it’s pretty simple, actually; it has to do with legacies and the knowledge that I’ve passed something onto my son. The rational, higher-thinking part of me knows that there are other aspects of Eitan’s personality that he’s gotten from me and that sports are probably less important than some of those pieces. But still, there’s something about the way Eitan sings, “Root, root, root for the Cuuuuu-BEES!” that really sticks with me. It’s his enthusiasm and his smile and the pure, unadulterated joy on his face. It’s the knowledge that he got the allegiance to the Cubs from me and that he’s taking it on as his own. Honestly, I wouldn’t even mind if Eitan ends up cheering for some of the New York teams; I think I’ve already accepted that outcome as a possibility to some extent because that’s where we live and his friends will probably be New York fans too; there are worse things than being a New York fan.³ The key is that sports will be something that we can share as he gets older, no matter where we live or whatever else is going on in our lives.

Go Cubs Go.

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^{1. Eitan gets a little confused by the team names. I can’t really blame him, since they both start with “B” and they both wear red and white. He saw me watching a hockey game and asked, “Is that the Bulls?” I answered, “No, these are the Blackhawks. The Bulls play basketball. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything.” Then he smiled, said, “Okay!” and climbed into my lap to watch with me.↩}

^{2. Tristan Cockroft of ESPN nicknamed Bryant “Toy Store” because of his initials and the way he makes fantasy owners’ eyes light up. He caught some flak on his podcast for the idea at first, but I remain staunchly in support of the name.↩}

^{3. Except the Yankees. There is nothing worse than being a Yankee fan.↩}