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.

 

---

^{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.

 

---

<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.

 

---

^{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.↩}

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.

---

<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.

---

^{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.↩}

Keep Up the Chatter

This post was originally published on the Huffington Post’s sports blog, The Tackle. The same post is below, but if you’d like to see my name and head-shot on a big-time professional website, feel free to take a gander with this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-yavelberg/keep-up-the-chatter-youth_b_6865492.html?utm_hp_ref=the-tackle

Enjoy!

---

I played a number of sports when I was younger. I played for my middle school basketball and baseball teams and I was the starting goalie for my high school floor hockey team. I’ll be the first to admit that I was never the star. I could box out well enough to get my share of rebounds, but my shooting stroke and ball-handling skills left much to be desired. I could hit for average and I had good speed on the base paths but no consistent power. I had ups and downs as a goalie but made consistent progress as we moved forward. I was never the scoring leader, but I found ways to contribute to help the team win.

I didn’t mind my role player status. I knew that my talents had limits and, to be honest, I simply wasn’t driven to work hard enough to become a highlight-reel player. But I also knew that our team didn’t need me to be the star; they needed me to be the goalie. My job was fairly simple: keep the puck out of the net. There were nuances, of course, such as blocking shooting angles, hugging the post and keeping my glove hand up, but the key part of preventing the other team from scoring had much less to do with physical athleticism and more to do with communication.

I had to tell my defenders when the pressure from the other team was coming and whether or not my vision was being screened. I had to make sure my teammates knew when I needed help and I needed to provide that last line of defense from our opponents’ attackers. Goalies may have a reputation for being quirky and isolated, not unlike certain starting pitchers in baseball, but the avenue for reaching the team’s objective remains the same: teammates need to talk to each other in order to accomplish a task.

It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized that effective communication skills are a critical piece of social development. The ability to formulate an idea and articulate it in such a way that people from varied backgrounds can understand it is essential, not just for achieving professional or academic success, but for simply being able to interact with people on a daily basis. Whether I am speaking with my wife, my two-year-old son or the families that I work with as a social worker in the mental health field, I have to find the right words to be able to express my thoughts to my audience so that they will be able to internalize the message.

My son has to learn to ask for things that he wants calmly and respectfully if he wants people to respond to him in a positive way, as opposed to pointing and demanding to be waited on. In addition, if he does not get what he wants, he needs to find a way to handle disappointment without crying and throwing his toys. Parents and children who are experiencing conflicts often need to modify the language that they use in order to get better behavioral results from each other. In both cases, I have to make sure I model the correct language and behavior to help the people I’m speaking with become prepared to make changes in themselves.

I am not arguing that playing sports will necessarily improve a child’s communication skills. On the contrary, there are plenty of examples of professional athletes who have difficulty expressing themselves articulately. There is also a significant difference between explaining the implications of a mental health diagnosis to a concerned parent and shouting “Man on!” to tell a teammate to pay attention to an approaching opponent. On the other hand, sports do provide a mechanism for helping children to understand the need for effective communication.

Children need to learn that if they keep their teammates involved, the team is more likely to win. If everyone works in silos and only looks out for their own statistics, the team will falter.

Furthermore, children who play sports learn to express their feelings of disappointment when the team does lose, a vital skill for developing resiliency. Sports give children the opportunity to learn to work together with others toward a common goal and a framework for developing the skills they will need later in life to achieve those goals. Whether children are learning ways to support their teammates during a game or expressing an opinion during a debate, sports provide the medium for developing the ability to communicate their ideas clearly. The communication styles may be different depending on the sport or the level, but a child who learns to articulate their ideas effectively will end up winning, regardless of the competition or the opponent.

Domestic Violence and Fantasy Sports

My fantasy football team has a problem and it’s names are Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice.¹

The draft for this team’s league was held on August 31st, five days before the NFL’s opening Thursday night game and a week before the opening weekend. At that point, Ray Rice, the starting running back for the Baltimore Ravens, had been suspended for the first two games of the season. The NFL was being skewered in many circles for its lax response to Rice’s acts of violence towards his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City casino elevator but they had not yet changed their stance.² Adrian Peterson, the starting running back for the Minnesota Vikings, was regarded fairly highly for his character and professionalism and had never been implicated in any negative off-the-field incidents. The fantasy industry considered Peterson to be one of the first three overall picks because of his talent and his role in the Vikings’ offense. Rice was recommended to be drafted in the later rounds because he was only going to miss two games and would still be beneficial to fantasy teams after that.

I drafted Peterson with the fourth overall pick and picked up Rice in the 8th round with the 77th pick.

Let me say, right off the bat, that I did not feel good about drafting Ray Rice. The way I justified it to myself was that because of the other people I’d drafted at running back, I would never have to play him. He was merely an insurance policy and if I was forced to depend on him, I was probably going to lose anyway. When the NFL suspended him indefinitely, I was more than happy to cut him from my team and pick up another player instead. One problem had been solved.

Peterson was pretty good in the first game of the season. He earned me 35 points (third highest on my team) and helped me to a comfortable win over my week one opponent. He did just what one would expect from their first round draft pick.

The news about Peterson’s indictment by a grand jury for child abuse came out on Friday of the following week. The Vikings quickly made Peterson inactive for their week two game against the New England Patriots, I played one of my other running backs (who is not nearly as talented as Peterson) and lost to my week two opponent.³ On Monday of this week, one day after the Vikings-Patriots game, the team decided to reinstate Peterson and make him active for week three.

This is where my problem comes in: how could I keep Peterson on my team, being aware that I’m going to be relying on him to be a major contributor every week, while also knowing that this man believes that it is acceptable to hit a child with a stick until he bleeds? How do I cheer for him to do well in a game that earns him more game and money after I’ve seen the pictures of what he did to his four-year-old son? Could I feel happy about deriving benefit from a man who writes off child abuse as a “cultural thing?” It is a game, after all, and the objective is to win. Having the best players drastically increases your likelihood of winning, and Peterson is easily one of the best players in the league. Cutting Rice wasn’t as big a deal; as I said, even before he was suspended indefinitely, I was never expecting to have to use him for a win. Cutting Peterson, though, would severely handicap my team and would jeopardize my chances at making the playoffs almost immediately.

I decided I couldn’t keep him.

I just couldn’t reconcile the inner conflict I was experiencing regarding Peterson’s belief about child discipline and my enjoyment of playing fantasy sports. I knew that if I kept him on my team, I’d continue to feel guilty about it, week after week, and that every time I went to check Peterson’s stats, I’d see the numbers and the points but I’d also keep seeing the pictures of his son’s welts and bruises. I cut him from my team and picked up a different player instead. I can be angry with Peterson for his understanding of appropriate forms of discipline. I can be angry with the NFL for being wishy-washy about taking a firm stance on domestic violence. If I’d kept Peterson on my team, though, I could only be angry with myself.

Problem solved.

 

Postscript: I wrote most of this post on the train on my way to work and I hadn’t checked ESPN before I left. Apparently the Vikings ended up deactivating Peterson indefinitely while the legal process continues, which means Peterson is getting a similar punishment as Rice in that neither of them are eligible to play again this season (although apparently the NFL Players Association is appealing Rice’s new suspension). I was happy, though, that I had made the decision to cut Peterson before hearing the news.

 

---

^{1. Here’s some really quick background information just in case you’re unfamiliar with fantasy sports. The general premise is as follows: players draft (or buy, in auction leagues) teams of professional players in a given sport to create a “fantasy” roster and then use those players’ statistics in real-life games to compete against other players’ rosters. The winners take home anything from money and physical trophies to simple bragging rights and pride. And, before you say that sounds like a silly waste of time, you should be aware that Forbes magazine estimates that the fantasy sports industry earns somewhere between 40 and 70 billion dollars every year.↩}

^{2. That happened later.↩}

^{3. My week two opponent was my father, in case you were wondering.↩}

Dear Eitan: Be A Man

Dear Eitan,

It’s been a little while since I’ve written to you. We’ve all been busy, you and your mom and me, between work and going to the beach and playdates and all the other stuff that manages to occupy people’s time. We’ve been having a lot of fun together at the pool, playing catch and getting into tickle fights at home. And I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing it is to have a mini-dance party with you in the living room while Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” plays in the background. But there’s something more serious we have to talk about.

We have to talk about girls.

We’ll have other discussions about girls as you get older, but this one can’t wait. We have to talk about how you act towards girls. How you talk to them, how you look at them and, most of all, how you touch them; it’s all important. There are people in our society that are going to try to teach you that this isn’t true. They’re going to make comments about women needing to stay in “their place” (usually the kitchen) and then say, “It was only a joke.” They’re going to write lyrics that refer to girls and women as bitches or hos (or worse) and then say, “It’s just a song, it doesn’t mean anything.”

They’re going to hear that a woman was knocked out by her fiancée, a professional football player, and then say that there might be “some other story,” implying that she must have done something to deserve getting punched in the face and dragged, unconscious, out of a Las Vegas elevator.

I know, it seems like a big jump to go from jokes and song lyrics to incidents of domestic violence. It is, in a way; certainly there are plenty of married men who make their share of misogynistic comments but don’t go home and beat up their wives. The thing is, you need to realize that all the “little things” add up. Every time you call a woman a name (besides her own, obviously) or make a joke about how girls don’t need to be involved in important decisions because it’s not their “place,” you’re contributing to the culture that sees women and girls as less than their male counterparts. And, if women are seen as less than men, if they’re just objects to be looked at, then there is less of a reason to treat them with respect.

I know that a lot of the things I’m talking about are over your head right now. You’re two years old; you’re not supposed to be thinking about the way American society influences your behavior or the statements that your actions make about your personality. Your biggest focuses at this point in your life are if your pancakes have “caka chippies”¹ in them and where you last put your “pee mom boll”² and paddle. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But as you grow, you’re going to be exposed to a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. Some of it will be good, like learning about teamwork and humor and love. Some of it won’t be quite as good, like when you eventually hear about violence and war and the terrible things that humans do to each other. You’re going to have to decide how you want to treat the people around you and, by extension, what kind of a person you want to be.

Over the last few months, your mom and I have been teaching you not to hit. You don’t do it maliciously; sometimes you just get a little too excited and forget that it hurts when you hit people. I’m not really worried. You’re a quick learner and, even though you’ve been testing the limits more often recently, you know when you’ve done something wrong. More importantly that that, though, you’re a kind and sweet boy who genuinely cares about others, even at your young age. I get the sense that you’re going to grow up to be just as passionate about preventing all kinds of abuse and mistreatment as I am and that hitting women (or anyone, for that matter, but especially someone physically weaker than you) is something for which you would never stand. So I’m not really concerned, but I figured it was worth saying anyway.

There is a saying that comes from the Rabbinic traditions of Judaism: “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.”³ I take issue with the phrase “Be a man” for a number of reasons,⁴ but I think Rabbi Hillel got this one right. It’s not always going to be easy to stand up for what’s right and to look out for the people who need help. The road of social welfare and moral responsibility can be a lonely one sometimes. Your friends and co-workers are going to issue all the usual platitudes about jokes and seemingly innocent comments. But as long as you understand the deeper meaning behind all those remarks and remember that you don’t need to use physical aggression to demonstrate your masculinity, you’ll be a man in the best sense of the word.

Love,

Daddy (Da-dee!)

 

There have been seemingly endless reports about the incident that occurred between Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his then-fiancée (they’ve since been married) and even more opinions have surfaced since the NFL issued Rice a fine and a two game suspension. Feel free to do your own research and formulate your own opinion. If you’re interested, I thought this article by Jane McManus was a really well-written, thoughtful and poignant take on the whole situation. And, for other dad blogger posts, check out these posts by Oren Miller and Jeff Bogle. And, as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading. –Aaron

---

<sup>1. Thank you, Cookie Monster.↩
2. Ping pong ball.↩
3. Pirkei Avot, 2:6.↩
4. Many of those reasons are illustrated beautifully in this video.↩</sup>

Story Time: Rangers-Islanders 1999

I originally started writing this post as a connection to Eitan’s first baseball game but I got so involved in the story that it became its own post. I decided I enjoyed writing it so much that I would finish it and post it anyway, even though it was a long time ago and being a parent was one of the farthest things from my mind. I’ll post more memories occasionally under the “Story Time” title. If there are specific types of stories you’d like to hear from when I was younger, either stories that you were a part of or a type of story you’d like to read from my point of view, either send me an email at sleepingontheedgeblog@gmail.com or post on the blog’s Facebook page. Enjoy!

---

 

I was in middle school when I first started paying attention to professional hockey. My closest friend was a New York Islanders fan, so that’s the team that I first started following (I went back to my Chicago roots with the Blackhawks a few years later). The downside was that the Islanders were terrible and played in an awful arena (two facts which remain true today, unfortunately, although apparently they’re moving to Brooklyn). The upside, though, was that because they were terrible and played in an awful arena, their tickets were really cheap, which came in handy for a middle school student with no income. My friend and I went to a couple of games and my love for the sport was sealed.

One of the games that we went to was against the New York Rangers. The Rangers and Islanders have a long and storied history. It’s hard for me to call it a rivalry, as they haven’t often both been competitive at the same time, but because of their proximity and the nature of the sport, their games always tend to get a bit chippy.¹ A group of my friends made plans to see this game together; one guy bought the tickets over the phone and we planned to pick them up at the game. We met up after school, drove to Nassau Coliseum, went to the Will Call window and…

No tickets.

My friend, Jon, was beside himself. He pleaded with the ticket person, said that he had given his credit card information on the phone, gave his name, his phone number, his drivers license, anything he could think of. The ticket person asked him to wait a minute and move to the side so that she could help the other customers. Jon did so reluctantly and after a minute, a tall, muscular man wearing a maroon customer service vest came out of the ticket office door. He asked us what had happened and Jon made his case. The man listened and, when Jon had finished, told us to wait while he would see what he could do. He went back into the office and we waited in silence, watching with increasing despair as the other fans around us – you know, the ones who actually had tickets – filed into the arena. The young woman who sang the Star Spangled Banner that night had just finished when the man emerged again.

“Okay, guys, here’s the deal,” he said to us. My heart immediately sank, as there was no way good news could follow an introduction like that. The night would be a supreme disappointment, we would have to go home empty-handed and there was nothing at all that could be done about it, no matter how much we begged.

“The good news is that I got you tickets to the game.”

My emotions have never made as fast U-turn as they did in that moment.

“The bad news is that they’re obstructed vision. Rangers-Islanders, you know, it’s sold out obviously. We keep a couple of seats open just for misunderstandings like this, though.”

We thanked him profusely as he handed us the stubs, said we didn’t care about the vision as long as we could get in. This was 95% true. Remember, I said Nassau Coliseum is an awful arena. It’s old, it smells and it’s falling apart.² There are poles and beams placed sporadically through the arena. There are places in the upper decks and at the backs of the lower decks where the roof or the levels above you hang over, allowing you to see the nearest corner of the ice and forcing you to watch the rest of the action on tiny televisions installed in the very parts of the building blocking your view. It’s as though the architect forgot that people would want to come to the arena to watch live sports. So there were tiny pieces of our hearts that were disappointed about the phrase “obstructed vision,” but we were being honest when we said that we just wanted to be at the game. There are few pairs of teams that inspire such animosity in each other’s players and fans. Think Yankees-Red Sox, but if they played forty-five minutes away from each other instead of five hours.

We made our way inside and our excitement grew exponentially as we entered. The game had just started and to say that the atmosphere was electric would be an understatement. We handed our tickets to the usher and waited to see just how much the Coliseum was going to force us to depend on the crowd’s reaction to see what was happening in the game as opposed to seeing it for ourselves. We braced ourselves for the inevitable climb up, up, up to the last row of nosebleed seats. The usher glanced at our tickets and began to lead us down to our seats.

Down to our seats.

We looked at each other, none of us daring to say a word, in case the usher had somehow made a mistake. We followed him down, getting closer and closer to the ice and the players on it. The usher finally stopped, gestured to the row of empty seats and said simply, “These are your seats.”

We were sitting in the front row.

I couldn’t help myself. I was at the front of our group so I asked him, “Are you sure?” No one else in our group had moved, so I’m assuming I had voiced the question they were all wondering.

He laughed and said, “Enjoy the game, boys.”

He had not made a mistake. As it turns out, one of the other ways a spectator’s view can be obstructed is by the six inch advertising strip that lines the base of the glass around the rink and the broad shoulders of the players sitting on the bench. I was sitting no more than three feet behind the Islanders goalie, Roberto Luongo.³ If not for the glass, I could have reached out and touched him without leaving my seat.

The game was fantastic. A rare 4-2 win for the hometown Islanders, including an incredible glove save from Isles goaltender Kevin Weekes and the diminutive Rangers forward Theo Fleury slashing his stick at the calves of the hulking Isles defenseman, Zdeno Chara, who returned the favor by stealing a Fleury pass and assisting on a goal.

The night that had started so inauspiciously had turned into an amazing evening that none of us would ever forget. It was the last time I saw a game at Nassau Coliseum, but I doubt highly that any other game could match the emotion of that night.

 

---

<sup>1. Poor Tommy Salo…↩
2. The arm rest from my seat at my first game literally came off during the evening. Just fell right off of its base. Naturally, I kept it as a souvenir.↩
3. Yes, this Roberto Luongo.↩</sup>