Sports: Joy and Crushing Pain, All In One Package

Perhaps coincidentally, I started reading Will Leitch's "Are We Winning?: Fathers and Sons In The New Age of Baseball" this week, a memoir focused about his relationship with baseball and his father, centered around a regular season game during 2008 between his Cardinals and the Cubs.

Like most things Leitch writes, it's funny, touching and so far quite enjoyable. It almost makes me excuse him for being a Cardinals fan (especially one who seems beleagured, tortured, etc. The team has won a LOT of World Series titles.) His rips on Cubs fans - especially a guy who shows up at the game in a Cubs shirt and Cardinals hat, and looks to his wife (a Cubs fan) for when it's acceptable to cheer for Cardinals - is pretty excellent stuff.

This morning, after probably the most insane World Series game I've ever seen, I read this:

True baseball fans do not cheer for their teams to win: They cheer for them not to lose. Victory does not come with joy; it comes with relief. Losing causes only pain. When I sat in Busch for Game 5 of the 2006 World Series, I was not counting down outs. I was not preparing to celebrate a title. I was terrified that this was all going to veer wrong, that, once again, all the time and effort and emotion I had put into this team, this lovely precious elusive team, would be for naught. I would watch them blow out. And, like all fans, I feared deep down that it would be my fault....It's irrational. But nothing about being a baseball fan is rational. The goal is not to watch your team dominate. The goal is to escape without being embarrassed. Baseball is not a sport for dominators. Baseball is a sport for survivors.

Now, I'm not sure I agree with all that but it feels quite relevant. On the levels of stomach punch, kick in the mouth games, this has to be #1 with a bullet. Texas Rangers fans were ONE STRIKE AWAY, two separate times in the game AND LOST. I know how painful Game 6 of 2002 was, to the point I remember almost nothing in Game 7; I knew we'd already lost. (Also, I was very hungover.) If the Rangers can actually rally tonight, that will be possibly the only way to top what happened last night from an outsiders perspective.

Sports rule. Just keep looking at that animated GIF at the top of this post. Those are wealthy, grown men who have no control over what they're doing, awash in pure joy. That's what it's all about - hopefully the Rangers can experience the same tonight.

Steve Jobs and Hindsight

As everyone knows by now, Steve Jobs died last week -- the outpouring of emotion for him was both wonderful ... and a bit much. Let's be clear - what Jobs did at Apple did indeed transform the world. Or, rather, part of the world.

When we talk about how many people found out about his passing on a device he created, we are of course talking about an iPhone or an iPad, or a different device that was inspired both those revolutionary products. We may even be talking about a Macintosh computer, which of course similarly inspired Windows based products.

But ... the world? These are toys for rich people, or at least people in the middle class and above. There are plenty of other, valid, concerns with where the devices are made, the landfills they take up, etc. -- again, that's all relevant though not really where I'm coming from.

The man was amazing - I truly was surprised by my own sadness at learning of his death. We all have stories about keeping the packaging of our iPods in a closet, for no good reason except that we didn't want to throw something so nice away. I travel with an iPhone and an iPod, and use a Mac at home. But let's keep it in perspective, okay? I could do all of this with other, less fun, less productive devices. And the world, at least as far as things that matter, hasn't really changed all that much. Or at least not nearly enough.

While we're at it, in the last five to ten years, and certainly over the last week, I've thought a lot about this book, one I read when it came out and that has almost immediately since lost all its relevance. It's called: Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders  and it's essentially about what Apple could have been ... but failed at.

For those with short memories or (grrr) youth, it's easy to forget that just 10-12 years ago, Apple looked like a company on the wane, one that had missed plenty of opportunities and let Microsoft steal its thunder. There is a great story in there about the "portable laptop" Apple made, that they loaded so many functions and features onto that it was something like 35 pounds, and nicknamed "The Luggable."

Then came Steve Jobs' return and the company honestly never looked back.

It's probably still an interesting read - with 20/20 hindsight, of course. But it's also a good reminder that we should never rush to judgment. There's always time to recover from our mistakes (or at least, more time than it can often seem).