Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

Sick.

After all, I’m sky-high on Aramis … and a meaningful regular-season game which felt like a heavyweight fight…

You probably know of our unabashed love for Joe Posnanski, erstwhile columnist of the Kansas City Star (making him a former colleague, though at least Blair Kerkhoff returns emails…), current blogger extraordinaire, and a talented writer with sublime, rational perspective and a gift for effortless humor.

Today Poz attempts to cast our heroes – the Cubs – as 2008′s detestable franchise – an 800-lb gorilla in the model of the Yankees and Red Sox, inspiring legions of baseball fans’ scorn throughout the playoffs, should the Cubs qualify.  He claims it counterintuitive, he quotes widespread lovable loser perspectives, and only talks to Cardinals fans, but he’s probably right. After all, lots of people do hate the Cubs (even a national party nominee for president); they hate their rabid fans, their phony fans, and their media-heavy zeitgeist, and more.

Joe, however, is the first person to suggest this hatred might be justified by actual success. Instead of stemming from sheer weariness or boredom with a tired, hundred-year-old media fairy tale, current Cubs-hate might actually stem from the deepest of all sports fan sins – envy. Malice. Spite. People actually want to see the Cubs lose. Pure schadenfreude, spreading further with each come-from-behind win and prominent ESPN highlight package.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe I’m supposed to care (People hate our Cubs? Why, god, why???) And years ago, I would have. Now?

Nope.

It’s been a long time, the waiting to shed this lovable-loser image, this stereotype of bobbleheaded tourist fans. A loooong time.

Real Cubs fans put up with a lot. Terrible teams, terrible managers, terrible players, and more. We don’t believe in stupid curses; we hate the story of the Billy goat, we don’t go to the park just to ogle Illinois students or snap pictures, and we’re noticeably testy – understandably, since everyone thinks we’re sheep simply hoping to swill Old Style in the bleachers. Most of all, we detest the stereotype that we’re all sheep, destined for heartbreak, or that the Cubs would lose luster if they actually, you know, won. Like Charlie Brown. Give me a fucking break.

We want to watch the team win its first pennant since 1945. We want to win a World Series. We want smart teams. We want meaningful September baseball, more often than once a decade. We want a manager who demands accountability, and replacement players from Iowa who produce. We’re no different than any other baseball fans – we want to immerse ourselves into our team, and we want confidence. Results, Wins. Solid seasons. Success. We want to be real fans, not caricatures. We don’t want pity.

But you want to hate the Cubs because of what? Because they’re good?

You hate the Cubbies? 

Good.

Then we hate you.

And we don’t call them the fucking Cubbies.

If I only was a “typical” Cubs fan, I probably wouldn’t have switched away from the DNC acceptance speech simply to witness a scintillating Cubs win, right, Barack?

Priorities, I guess…

Last night during the Democratic National Convention (Oh, save it. You know I wasn’t watching, and I know you know that) onetime presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gained the stage and urged her supposed legions of ardent supporters to vote for Barack Obama.

Sure, the speech was fine, I guess. Sure, some of her supporters back McCain out of ridiculous spite.

But this media-created zeitgeist of Clinton and Obama splitting the Democratic ticket and handing the election to a GOP opponent (First Huckabee. Then Romney. Now McCain.) began as fractured supposition, and dubiously continues today – As example, see here, here and everywhere else. You don’t have to look hard. The popular notion in March was a protracted Democratic primary battle irreparably bruising one candidate or the other. The underpinning worry in May swirled around Obama‘s inability to carry swing states – Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. — that Clinton won.

And beginning in February, record voter turnout at state primaries or caucuses supposedly suggested each preliminary candidate carried an army of supporters loyal to the death, who would obfuscate the other completely by November, when, like spurned Cub fans watching the NL champion Cardinals, one side would vote the opposite: unable to root for the best of his/her league.

And pardon me, but this logic always has been specious at best. I don’t buy it. The record turnout, interest in the campaign, and continual support of both candidates – entirely similar, mind you – is actually a positive.

Let’s say your company’s begun to cut costs, and it’s begun in the cafeteria. The cafeteria no longer can support two choices of coffee – Sanka and Folger’s. In the most democratic way possible, Cafeteria seeks to eliminate the least popular choice.

Faced with the ballot, you vote for Sanka without hesitation. Hopefully, they will keep your brand of coffee, you think. The next morning, you discover Folger’s gained the most support. Your company now decides to quit serving Sanka in the cafeteria. What do you do?

Well, you don’t switch to drinking tea just because there’s no more Sanka. You switch to Folger’s. You may complain. You may whine. You may hate Folger’s stupid commercials about “the best part of waking up,” but you switch. You need the caffeine, the taste, and you’re not too important to give up coffee. And even though you backed Sanka, Folger’s is similar; and it’s still better than fucking tea.

That’s the Democratic Party right now. Maybe a few misguided, self-righteous supporters feel spurned, but they’re likely the example, not the rule. Most people interested earlier in the year remain interested now – they actually cared what’s best for the country.

With legions of media locked and loaded in Denver, legions more media continually harping this zeitgeist all year, it isn’t going away, not now, not even after Clinton endorsed her opponent. Still, wait till November, but the guess here is few Clinton supporters will actually rise up and suddenly switch to tea.

Oh, no! Now who will churn out daily “The Sky Is Falling” missives, hyperventilating regularly during a September with both Chicago teams in pennant races? Now that incessant, braying columnist Jay Mariotti has left the Sun-Times – where can I go, to repeatedly learn of my favorite squadron’s impending doom?

Oh, here?

And here.

Oh, and also here.

No, more infrequent.

Wait, I prefer shallow columns cut-and-pasted from sometime in the 1980s.

No, how ’bout something entirely scribbled in hasty, one-sentence paragraphs?

Maybe a “national baseball writer.”

Wait – could he be completely clueless?

Like everything else he writes, Mariotti’s abrupt, murky departure appears borne as a result of a tantrum. Clearly he’ll surface somewhere else, on some national Web site, probably within the week.

Despite what you may think, this isn’t another victory for cyberspace in a phony battle of Web vs. print sportswriters. I’m inclined to disagree with The Big Lead, and perhaps most bloggers, who assume each departure from staid print ranks equals a victory in the Web’s (or their own) march toward relevance.  I don’t believe each newspaper columnist bolting from a newsroom signals defeat.

Rather, it opens the door for newer, fresher voices writing for newspapers that actually learn to straddle Web and print lines. Maybe writing on typical deadline, maybe not. Maybe short-form, maybe long. Maybe investigative, maybe a blog. Old-boy, dinosaur columnists who leave simply chasing a paycheck,  or their presupposed relevance, may open the doors for younger, tech-savvy scribes. Perhaps even writers whose columns don’t make us want to punch them in the face.

While typical columnists like Roberts, Reilly, Wojiechowski (urp), Jemele Hill, Mariotti, etc. may seek greener pastures online and away from large newspapers, it’s possible they compromise any or all of their cache in the process.

Sure, Yahoo and ESPN boast burgeoning stables of respected columnists – but who has time to digest – or find – all these folks, writing from whichever angle every single day? For every Jeff Passan or Pat Forde, who shoehorn nicely into expanded hit counts – there exists a Wojiechowski, with grating attempts at humor, or Skip Bayless, relegated fully to TV, or Woody Paige, exiled back to Denver.

There’s also a dime-a-dozen talented columnists like J.A. Adande, who effectively toiled in the shadows of Bill Plaschke and TJ Simers at the LA Times. Now, however, he toils in the shadows of Bill Simmons, Marc Stein, Buster Olney, and Len Pasquarelli. What’s really changed for him? He now faces less column shelf-life, and less individual panache.

And while newspapers face declining circulation and a reinvention of the entire business – they aren’t going away, (Except maybe the Sun-Times…) including stalwarts like the New York Times, Washington Post or Chicago Tribune – all of which incorporate effective web-only content. Someday, more newspapers will “get it,” effectively blurring lines between Web hits and ink stains. This will be in part because of younger columnists getting their chances now – not overpaid, irrelevant gasbags who cashed in and damned the industry.

On the plus side, the mad rush of local hacks under one roof at ESPN, Yahoo, SI or elsewhere simply encourages us to avoid those sites further. Sick of Bayless, Wojo, Hill, Scoop Jackson, or Rick Reilly? You’re in luck! You only need delete one bookmark! So be careful what you yearn for, larger-than-life hometown columnists, if the .coms dangle your champagne dreams and a sudden chance to bolt your stomping grounds. Your local audience may actually share the same wish.

“We’re naming our kid Geovany.”

“What? You’re insane.”

“Think about it. You’re not pregnant. That’s far away. It rolls off the tongue. Gee-oh-VAHN-ee.”

“It’s terrible. Sounds like a mobster.”

“Can call him Geo for short.”

“I’m done talking to you.”

“Maybe just a middle name, then. At least think about it.”

(Crickets chirp.)

“Well, then, how about Aramis?”

–

You might be wondering when our next Cubs check-up will occur. Indeed, it’s been a while.

Well, even if you’re not wondering, it’s been tabled indefinitely. The Cubs keep playing solid baseball. What, I’m gonna complain about a superfluous double switch in tonight’s 6th inning?

(Actually, why are all National League managers repeatedly tempted to pull off an unnecessary double-switch? Does it assert some sort of imaginary intelligence? Look at me, I’m double-switching! Next thing you know, I’ll bat the freaking pitcher eighth.)

A meaningful, arduous September approaches, and the Cubs appear to be improving, even as the schedule finishes with a gauntlet. Mister Faded Glory watches quietly, loudly, boisterously, excitedly, and everything in between. In this space, however, he* offers nary a peep.

Carry on.

* Is this a record for narrative-flipping within a post? I, We, He, Mister. . . Just wait, we/I/he’ll work in a ‘you‘ yet.

For some reason I always assumed the converse was true. Not sure why, I probably just forgot the White Sox existed once again. In any event, our less-than-strenuous civic decision just got a little more muddled. From a light-hearted ESPN interview and via Jeff Flanagan‘s Star blog:

Obama [asked who he would root for during a Crosstown Chicago World Series]: “Oh, that’s easy. White Sox. I’m not one of these fair weather fans. You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer, beautiful people up there. People aren’t watching the game. It’s not serious. White Sox, that’s baseball. South side.”

Well, there you have it. So much for trying to endear yourself to the most voters, you know. Not that Obama needed to pander to Cubs fans – but a refrain from labeling and insulting the country’s largest fan base might have made sense.

Rest assured, however – Obama must be a true Pale Hose fan; he’s clearly more worried about legions of Cub fans rather than concerning himself with his own team. I haven’t seen the ESPN interview, but I guess it’s additionally possible he huffed a can of paint, or sucker-punched a Royals coach.

Sure, maybe it’s stupid to abandon a vote just because the candidate roots for the wrong team, and maybe it’s a little premature, but, well, here we are. In fact, I’d totally jump ship except McCain himself seemed strangely vexed, unable to choose a side in the heated crosstown matchup of the White Stockings and the Whales. That Federal League, it’s a bitch.

Part of me can’t believe I’m doing this, but my head keeps nodding.

Jason Whitlock says it better than I ever could, or did, about the summer’s Olympics.  When he’s not simply playing contrarian, he actually churns out a decent column once in a while. This one is worth reading.

I backed off my initial rant surrounding NBC’s Olympic coverage, assuming the Peacock would play its typical live-taped-saved games throughout the Olympiad. Granted, I had no evidence at that time, and no case – I could have watched the event I wanted on a separate network live, had I bothered to check the network schedule out.

Following the Michael Phelps races and the gymnastics coverage (and mainly the anecdotal zeitgeist), I recanted almost completely. The coverage I checked out was, quite simply, OK. For an irrelevant bunch of sports, some exciting (track, that cycle-circle thing), some mind-numbing (swimming, water polo), it worked.

Till this, today.

So I guess I was fucking right all along.

If ESPN does indeed outbid NBC for the Olympics, as rumored in today’s Times, the coverage might be better, and might totally eliminate the ridiculous tape-delay packaging, antithetical to all sports consumption — but the hype will absolutely kill us. Remember the X-Games’ Darkmane, those horrific commercials running during every network break all through July? How about the stupid live spots with the kid pimping morning SportsCenter? And, uh, anything and everything FAVRE. Need I say more?

Obviously, Mister Faded Glory is so hopelessly narcissistic that he lets each and every four of you in on most of his innermost dialogues. In fact, MFG’s been trying to do this as coherently and amusingly as possible for nearly six years – which boggles the mind (Our current strategy: Gain two readers per year. Which should put us on pace to overtake the insipid Bleed Cubbie Blue by nearly 2154.).

In any case, maintaining a blog requires a certain amount of narcissism, arrogance, self-deprecation and self-loathing. So it was no surprise to me to read the August 11 issue of Newsweek - that’s right, fuckers, I read actual print – and learn all about a phony disorder currently plaguing waiting rooms all across the country – namely, thousands of males assuming they’re a primary character in their own reality TV show. (Which is patently absurd: None of these douchebags are in my TV show.)

If you think about it, however, this is life in the now. Each of us, armed with a blog, livejournal, facebook, myspace, or whatever – we’ve all convinced ourselves our daily minutiae is more important than your daily minutiae. Some of us even have written entire novels about self-indulgent narcissists swimming in each other’s malaise. (How’s that for self-reference?)

In any case, no disorder exists featuring these oversensitive, overwrought, overanalyzed symptoms.  Rather, it’s a fact of life for many Gen X, Gen X.5, or Gen Y males. None of us are the macho archetypes of the 1940s or the grizzled savage action heroes of the 1970s or early 1980s. Instead, we’ve been weaned on a pop culture featuring self-obsessed dweebs – everyman – furrowing through inner monologues. From The Wonder Years through Scrubs, this is our life. And it’s no wonder any of us with blogs cast ourselves as the lead, the Kevin Arnold or J.D. Dorian within our own lives, amid requisite soundtracks. (Cue Joe Cocker or New Slang. My personal preference? Well, duh.)

Anyway, most of us appear afflicted with this disorder, a profound bloggers’ disease of self-importance. At least, however, I haven’t descended further into Twitter-territory – offering you personal anecdotes by the millisecond, assuming each of my thoughts is of utmost importance and/or interest. And you thought wordy posts were a problem – what about this?

• MFG84sez:Can’t wait for my state fair should I get a Pronto Pup or ten thsand sno cones
• MFG84sez:Daunte Culpepper? What about Daunte Cul-salt?
• MFG84sez:FTW – how can all these bloggers call The Big Lead the US Weekly of Sports Blogs. U kno what’s the US Weekly of sports blogs? SPORTS BLOGS.
• MFG84sez:He’llbe back, he went out for his urinalysis. HOW CAN NUN UV YOU SEEN FLETCH?
• MFG84sez:ChaseUtley=DREAMY ZOMG was that outloud? LOLLERSK8S!!11!

Seriously, I’ve already got this blog to highlight my neuroses and stupidity – I don’t need a service cataloging my severely boring trains of thought. Sure, I’m as big a narcissist as any male suffering from MyOwnTVShow paranoia. Don’t need Twitter to further my dementia.

Um…right?

• MFG84sez: Unflappable? That’s right – I can’t be flapped.

Zuh.