Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

Sorry to deliver bad news of any sort, but Mr. Faded Glory is taking a break to get his house in order attempt to move his home base eastward.

This hiatus is not indicative of either really good nor really bad news, the break is solely indicative of increased concentration needed elsewhere.

Because I can never truly shut up, I will return, hopefully shortly. Until then, you can follow me on Twitter. See you soon.

Three competing – but tired – stories still plague our airwaves, hurting our ears and frustrating sensibilities. Not so for sports media, however, which demonstrates irrelevance with each character study. Let’s deliver our backhanded compliments and be gone from these topics forever:

I. Vick.

So Michael Vick signed with Philadelphia, probably because of a Donovan McNabb connection. This occurred late last week, after rampant speculation swirled around the Bills, Packers and Panthers, and really no one else. No one mentioned the Eagles, not even as a remote possibility. Previously, I wondered how precisely zero of the hundreds of columnists and reporters assigned to the Vick circuit could even speculate on an Eagles connection? None. Nice reporting.

Still, it’s tough for me to see the relevance. Sure, Vick may fit the prototype of the Wildcat or whatever cockamamie scheme the Eagles might uncork, but does anyone really believe he’ll return to his ultra-athletic ceiling? Jamal Lewis hasn’t been the same runner since he served time in the house – he was particularly abysmal immediately after his return to the field – and he only did four months! Vick may be an NFL player, but alas, he’s 29, and now probably just a marginal one.

And, of course, how he merits only a quick 6-game suspension for a cruel, knowing, and complicit crime is beyond me, especially while Donte Stallworth earns a full year for an accidental crime, replete with contrite, no-contest settlements. I’m fine with the NFL issuing strict deterrents. I’m not fine with its capricious and arbitrary rendering of justice.

II. Favre

And a nation is not surprised. I’ll spare you any lecture wondering if Brett is diva or douchebag. (He’s both.) Once again, however, Favre and Childress‘ earlier denial – issued three weeks prior, fully deterred Brett’s media lapdogs. Once again, the NFL’s cadre of meathead reporters bolted at the first denial, and didn’t even sniff this until today, when, hello, they were contacted. This after two years of speculation! Even Chris Mortenson‘s stupid bus didn’t stop in Bumfuck, Mississippi or wherever King Hayseed lived.

But here Favre is, finally showing up in St. Paul basically alongside a press release, with the Vikings stroking Brett’s ego and lauding the opportunity. Some opportunity – Minneapolis pays $12 million for a paltry QB Rating upgrade of 1.5 over Sage Rosenfels.

Congratulations, Minnesota, you’ve purchased the NFL’s version of Toronto Raptor Hakeem Olajuwon. I cannot be the only person on Earth who thinks Brett Favre circa 2009 is a downgrade from Sage Rosenfels. Can I?

III. Strasburg

Each story I read about Steven Strasburg, new Washington National wunderkind, I cannot help but feel pangs of memory, evoking Mark Prior. Sigh.

Maybe Strasburg‘s a bust, maybe he’s not – but throughout the media today, you could practically sense sportswriters chortling at Scott Boras “failing” to earn his initial $50 million contract demand. Which just goes to show – sportswriters toil outside the business world for a reason.

All Boras does is represent a client to the best of his ability – throwing out a pipe dream number, and negotiating downward to a workable solution that, oh by the way, turns out to be the best rookie contract in history and allows Strasburg to escape after a scant 4 years – well before he even sniffs his prime. Wow, what a failure!

Boras aside, I’ll never understand the tendency of fans and media to side with big labor. In Strasburg‘s case, and in the case of Michael Crabtree, we watch two youngsters with virtually no leverage simply asking for the best deal they can get, respective of their market value. Yet the zeitgeist scolds each for not rushing into camp, or inking a bad deal quickly – when each has little leverage to do the opposite.

Basically, Crabtree is in a pickle – he needs to get to camp in a hurry to validate his expectations and ease his transition. This is a huge bargaining chip for every behemoth corporation football team – Crabtree needs camp to play and to develop his image. The team has no such obstacle.

It’s similar with Strasburg - each writer practically scolds the kid, assuming his agent coerced him into making a demand simply to avoid signing with the Nats. But what’s the incentive for Strasburg to return to school or go play in the Independent League? He doesn’t want to do that – it could at least harm his market value and at worst decimate that value. So once again, the team has additional bargaining chips – there’s certainly more incentive for Strasburg to sign than to hold out. No matter the portrayal, it ain’t the other way around.

But nope – we scoff and snort and castigate these kids; sitting on the precipice of the only thing they know how to do, and perhaps the only chance they’ll have to make a living doing so. We hope they’ll rush to the aid of these behemoth corporations – sports teams with no real care for the player nor the audience, and scold the players for worrying about their own bottom line. And we can’t scold the corporations for the one-sided negotiatiing, strong-arming, and worrying about the same?

And we assume we’d be different how?

Kevin Gregg or Mel Rojas, Cubs fans?

You pick. Now we’re done.

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As you know, MFG makes it a practice not rooting for Goliath. Not that we rooted against Tiger Woods’ downfall yesterday, but, well, we watched.

We’re also not eager to dance on someone’s grave, even a Goliath we normally cheer against. For example, Skip Bayless on First Take this morning excoriated Tiger, claiming he’s never been clutch, and this was proof. Um, we don’t go that far. We’re not idiots.

But finally, someone else played with Tiger Woods, and that someone else won. Sure, Tiger’s fended off unheralded players before – Rocco Mediate, Bob May. And sure, he’s succumbed to unheralded players before: See also Johnson, Z., and Beem, R. But never quite in the same tournament, the same pairing, nor in such dramatic fashion. That’s what sticks with us after Y.E. Yang’s win – the palpable, unquenched drama. What a finish. What a shame CBS’ announcers reverted to contemptuous cheerleaders miffed at Tiger’s loss. But nonetheless, what a PGA Championship!

Statisticians and sports fans would tell you that through sheer probability, sooner or later Tiger’s 14-for-14 streak would be broken. As it turns out, they were right. But Tiger’s failure to secure a 15th major title actually prompts several further questions.

1. Is Tiger done?

No, he is not.

2. Is Tiger’s prime over?

Maybe. Now, don’t get yourself in a frenzy, Tiger apologists, he’s still great. But as we look in the rearview mirror, and compare Woods to his only peer, Jack Nicklaus, the similarity of the two through their first 52 majors is stunning. Both earned a first major at a young age of 21-22, each rose quickly to claim double-digits in major titles: Tiger 14, Jack 12. Jack earned a higher percentage of top-10 finishes, Tiger earned a higher percentage of titles.

Next year, Woods will be 34. Nicklaus won precisely six major titles after turning 34, and golfers’ prime is generally thought to be within the mid-30s, later than other major sports – tennis, baseball, football, basketball. That seems to point to Woods’ cruise to 20 major titles.

Golfers also earn the bulk of their major titles within a nine-year window. Nicklaus was no exception. Woods, however, is enduring not-quite-a-drought, but at least the regressing to the mean of his previous luck, clutch, or the law of averages. In addition – one of Woods’ claim to revolution is his treatment of golf as a sport. He’s put on thirty pounds in ten years, rock-solid muscle, cross-trains like a basketball star, and unleashes drives with torque heretofore unseen. He’s even had reconstructive knee surgery. Did his prime possibly arrive quicker than other golfers? You know, like an actual athlete? And could it be gone now?

Maybe and maybe not.

3. Has the field gotten better?

I think so. Through Tiger’s ascension and reinvention, media types often bemoaned the lack of a clear-cut rival. Nicklaus, for a short time, bemoaned this himself (Sour grapes?). No Arnold, Watson, Trevino nor Norman supposedly existed to counteract Woods’ greatness, some say. The closest challenger was Phil in 2006, coming off two straight majors and botching Winged Foot. After Tiger returned to form that same year, however, Phil was an afterthought.

But despite solid pros like Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, and Paddy Harrington‘s failures to break the plane of three majors, the field itself has to be better. The sheer number of quality players who can pull off a major upset – that’s you, Yang – has to dwarf the mid-level players around in NIcklaus’ era. This isn’t baseball – where more teams mean worse relief pitchers. In golf, more individuals and practice and equipment and companies and innovations mean the bottom gets better among a crowded field, not watered down. Tiger’s now entered a gray area where guys come up hungering to beat him. Instead of watering down a field, the chance rises that one will pull an Iverson to Tiger’s Jordan.

The underdogs (Yang, Beem) have always proved the toughest to challenge Tiger once they find their moment, relishing the sheer spectacle rather than joining his race against history. Though Tiger’s history is dotted with one-off winners and losers, the age and quaity run the gamut. I suspect this once was the same for Jack – one year he’s trading firsts and seconds with Arnold and Gary; suddenly he’s 35 and trading firsts and seconds with Watson and Norman.

4. Can we appreciate Tiger more with his second-place finish, rather than with a first-place finish?

At first I read this column, and thought it was the biggest homer job ever. However, I’m wrong.

Historians who claim Nicklaus’ superiority to Tiger have the 18 majors (currently) to lord over Woods. Should Tiger tie NIcklaus’ win record, he almost certainly will not tie Nicklaus’ record for second-place major finishes – an astonishing 19. With Woods’ second-place sputter Sunday, he clocks in with six. (Side note: A Colin Cowherd rant today actually suggested Jack’s 19 made him less of a closer than Tiger. I will never understand Meathead Radio.)

But the seconds that make us appreciate them both, actually. The genius of Tiger, including metamorphosis from slugger into steady, is his unwavering poise and production in majors. Guys like Harrington, Phil, Donald, Westwood, etc. may all vacillate between 65s and 75s, but Woods parlays steady excellence into cool execution throughout the tournament. Fourteen times before yesterday, he’s gone out on Sunday with a lead and played solid, cool, remarkably efficient golf. The precision alone as admirable as any Phil comeback win — how can anyone be so mercilessly effective, no wrinkles, warts, nothing?

And even yesterday, around the time of Harrington’s horrific 8th hole, each golfer challenging appeared to get the yips. Lucas Glover fell from a razor-thin two strokes back to four, Ernie Els tumbled, neither Rory McIlroy nor Henrik Stenson could get over the hump. That’s Tiger. He doesn’t falter, and once the field is in position to have to take chances, go low, aim for the pin, they will. The sense was Tiger – once again – did enough to win. Once everyone crumbled, he would.

Except he didn’t. But this is exactly what NIcklaus did – he played well enough, calmly enough, and efficiently enough to always have a chance at the end – 37 times finishing in the top two. Yesterday Tiger was in at the end, which is all you can do as a player, athlete, or winner.

Maybe for Tiger, the law of averages may begin to even out – he may start losing more tight ones than during his previous streak of 14. But the top-twos, and the playoffs, and the close shaves shouldn’t diminish his luster as a player. They bolster Jack’s rep; how could they detract from Woods?

5. What’s next?

Some say it’s another cruise through Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, courses Tiger has appeared to own. (Um, like Bethpage? Or Augusta?) Others say he’ll never be the same after his surgery.

They’re both right. I don’t think he’ll be the same – the runaway wins are likely gone for good, a ruthless efficiency the reward for sacrifice of big drives and big eagles. But I don’t think he’s done by any stretch.

I do think, similar to Nicklaus, Tiger marches toward 18 majors. And I think he’ll get there – but it’s not a foregone conclusion, and he may not get beyond.

But with Sunday’s second place, suddenly it’s a little more clear how peerless golf’s two giants really are. Destined to be forever entertwined, Tiger chases a legend, and finishing second doesn’t even widen the gap between the pair.

It narrows it.

Remember the halcyon days of, uh, Monday, when I wrote this tempered column, warning us Cub fans not to panic or become infuriated?

Even I didn’t foresee the worst three games of the season. Harden losing a no-hitter, then the game blown by a wild Marmol on Monday. Jeff Samardzija proving to be a massive head case/bust/douchebag on Tuesday, during a national media slobberfest over Pedro Martinez‘ return. And the predictable shellacking by Cliff Lee and Ryan Howard today (and semi-predictable meltdown of Ryan Dempster.).

Suddenly the Cubs are dead team walking; never mind that the Cardinals play the sisters of the poor for the next two weeks. A scorching September might still be enough for the postseason, but really, without Zambrano, Lilly, and/or Ramirez, the Cubs are toast.

All over the web, you can find Cubs fans demanding the team blow up the roster and start all over as soon as 2010. Poppycock. Bad luck and injuries hit this year, but through the last three seasons, this collection of talent has been pretty good, albeit unlucky in October’s crapshoot. Next year we’ll have a few contract years and additions and et cetera, and maybe Soriano will bring a lighter bat and we’ll turn out OK.

But it’s never easy; it won’t ever be easy, and our hate boils for another offseason. Thanks for playing, Rich Harden, Reed Johnson, Kevin Gregg, and other soon-to-be-departeds. Thanks for nothing, cadre-of-suck-at-second-base.

Maybe next year, the perfect storm of injury and slump (See, e.g. Soriano, Alfonso, and Soto, Geovany) will have passed, and we can get back to business as usual.

Until then, we’ll turn to the Colts, who prep for their first preseason game tonight, and have no similar injury concerns as … uh … what?

Sigh.

Our company’s conference rooms are fairly chic, quite honestly, and as I sat through a semi-important meeting, I watched the sky darken through the full-length windows. Periwinkle and gray rolling into an eerie steel blue, daylight suddenly becoming a bizarre mid-morning night.

Back on the third floor, the lightning flickered and flashed in the imminent distance. Then my voice mail, left by the traveling Ms. Faded Glory – the cat was out.

Yes, Franklin is just a cat. Yes, he’s certainly smart enough to find shelter in the neighborhood. Yes, I would worry incessantly about my furry friend, trapped in an impending monsoon.

So I left. Close enough to lunch hour, no one would really care. Besides, everyone in the Midwest always freaks the fuck out about the sign of any storm – and it never turns into anything but a heavy rain and some fierce wind.  Kansas City stations are known to pre-empt the NBA Finals. Wichita stations can’t even write their warnings over Hi-Def; so I watched the NBA Finals in low-def this June.

So I wasn’t worried. The threat of a storm almost always is more daunting than its actual incarnation.

Except today.

The sky turned black, and I turned left off the main street onto Republic Av., a quick jaunt to my house, where my cat would excoriate me for leaving him out amid the rumbling thunder.  Then, the water. My wipers at full blast, but suddenly sheets of angry rain pounded the glass. I could barely see the taillights in front of me. Could barely see the light before my tree-lined neighborhood. As I turned up my street, rain and hail pelting my car, I saw taillights of people pulling over – afraid of the limbs and branches arching over the street, smacking together, shedding leaves, cracking in the wind.

A limb down in the street, I swerved. Large branch smacking my car to the right, I jumped. Running over another limb, just spattering onto the pavement. Thick rain, howling wind, branches everywhere, and I eked the car into the driveway, finally seeing my home. I honked the horn, but there’s no way Franklin could have heard that. I could barely hear the thing. Cripes, the sky was falling.

Rain torrents drenched my shirt, pants, shoes and socks before I could even reach the door. I heard a howl, a painful wail – a cat’s cry. But he wasn’t there- I stormed through the mud, through the bushes, my pants ruined. No Franklin.

Soaked to the bone, I retreated to my house – branches flying through the air, leaves dotting the lawn, street and sky. I knew I’d go look for Franklin, I’d come this far. I ripped off my business-casual and yanked a dry tee over my head. I stumbled into gym shorts and was back in the mud and rain.

My backyard and patio looked like a lake. Standing water lapped at my ankles. No Franklin. I shouted, but he wouldn’t hear. My yard-waste dumpster toppled and flew across my lawn. A neighbor’s tree fell – crackling loudly, as though it laughed heartily before crushing her shed. I stomped around front, opening the garage door as a safe respite for Franklin. No cat.

Already soaked again, I wiped water from my face, and stumbled barefoot down the sidewalk, past one neighbor’s drive and onto another’s porch, securely below a brick overhang. The rain quieter for a second, I again bellowed for Franklin, and again heard nothing. I knew he was there once – where was he? I hopped down the porch and into my neighbor’s drive, peering into her porch windows, wind whipping, rain plummeting.

I stomped back through my front yard, and onto my stoop, then inside, just to find dryness for a second. Deep breaths. I swirled back around, and headed out again. But I hadn’t even heard it – a loud crack or smack – but another limb had fallen – huge, a crack all the way up the walnut tree by the porch – right in the very spot I stood only ten seconds before. I do not embellish. The limb covered the entire driveway.

Without hesitating, I ran to the huge branch, swiping twigs and sticks aside, ignoring the scratches and hoping Franklin was not underneath; part of me certain he was. But nothing was there, just water and wind and water everywhere. Mindlessly, I traipsed up the neighbor’s drive, toward her garage, back toward her second dead tree.

I looked at her house, her back door, her back stoop. And there he was.

Franklin. Matted, wet fur clumped against his skin, confused and angry eyes uncertain if I was a predator or a mirage.

And I stood there. Soaked. In a torrential downpour. My drenched, smartmouth cat within arm’s length.

I had never been happier, or more relieved. Never in my life.

I scooped him up. He recoiled and whined and even screeched as I hopped back through the yard, kicking slush up with my footsteps. But inside my living room, I dumped him on the carpet, and shed my soppy shirt. He shook.

Twenty minutes later I sat with this cat, Franklin, on the couch. He tried to clean away his wet fur, but he couldn’t, and in the end, he just looked up at me, purring and purring. I just smiled; about ready to fucking cry. What was this, the Sixth-Sense episode of Scrubs?

And I don’t write about Franklin because I’m some weird cat lover. I write about him because deep down, I know, this silly cat, this pet, this friend of mine is proof that someday I have the capacity to be a dad. Someday.

Because today, during a storm with 100 mph wind and ‘tornadic tendencies’ and five inches of rain within 15 minutes, today when I found the cat, and he was safe, I was as happy as I’d ever been .

Not unlike a father.

Frazzled and dedicated and committed and relieved. And happy, I guess.

(Lyrical title hat tip: Right Turn, AIC.)

Don’t bother rolling your eyes, I’m basically trying to calm myself.

Actually, I’m not that desperate, even though we’re all frustrated with the latest pathetic showing in Colorado.

A full third of the season remains, and there’s no point in overreacting. But it’s easy to look up at the Cardinals in the division, look up at the Rockies and Giants in the Wild Card, look at the ever-growing injury ward, and wonder how the hell we’re going to make up three games?

After the Cubs leave Denver tonight (Thanks for the fucking late-night Getaway Game, Denver. Can’t sell out a day game. Jerks.) they will have been soundly housed by the Rockies. Beaten, battered, embarrassed and flummoxed by a team that’s improbably impossible to get out. Add to that two-fifths of our starting rotation becoming injured, and star player Aramis Ramirez heading for the bench, and it seems like trouble. Not a good series.

What’s worse, the Cardinals currently ride the crest of their schedule, facing the Pirates, Reds, Padres, and only the Dodgers over their next 20 games. I shouldn’t remind you that we face Philly next, the Dodgers next week, and the Giants after that. As much valleys as the Cubs have discovered this season, three games feels like a canyon.

But it’s not. It’s frustrating, but it’s elastic. The Cubs can make it up With Ryan Theriot and Kosuke Fukudome the only players untouched by the injury bug all season, Derrek Lee hooked up to the rejuvenation machine, and Milton Bradley finally showing signs of breaking out of his Cub-slump, the Cubs continue to battle and hang in the race. During the meat of Chicago’s schedule and the potatoes of Saint Louis’, the gaps are bound to bend. AFter August 31, we may still be looking up at the Deadbirds; but we’ll still be in it.

And I suppose it’s tribute to the Cubs that they’ve hung in the race and separated from the Central with all these injuries and unsolved age-33 slumps and everything. No, this team isn’t all that great without Aramis, and no, the rotation isn’t imposing at all without Zambrano and Lilly. But no, they’re not out of it yet, not even against Philadelphia, not even with skittish Jeff Samardjiza starting Wednesday.

And so, no, the sky is not falling.

Although, strangely enough, the Cubs have turned into dead-team-walking ever since we joined Twitter. Just pointing that out. (Gulp.)

I’m sure the split second I began blogging about my hatred of Twitter, most of you probably chortled, and proceeded to circle a future date on the calendar, predicting exactly when I would join Twitter, followed by my pathetic rationalization or mea culpa.

Well, this is it: Mr_FadedGlory

Yes, I still detest Twitter’s bludgeoning of the English language. I still hate the idea of becoming even more plugged into an online community. I would still like to own a Jitterbug instead of a Blackberry.

But I’m not joining just to tell the world about my trip to the dentist or my DVR breaking during Conan. I’m in this to promote my writing, hopefully networking with similar writers, bloggers and thinkers, and maybe catching some additional eyes or viewers or even colleagues. Almost improbably, I’m changing my Twitter tune.

As many of you know, on the side I work in the world of advertising and public relations. And as many marketers trapped in this possession would tell you; we hate nearly all of the tools at their disposal: pop-up ads, AdWords, ConstantContact, Twitter, ten-second AM radio spots, business-builder newspaper ads, LED billboards, and a multitude of options within a plugged-in life. All are bought and sold based on hope and chance; the great, necessary swindle of advertising.

But we use them all. We buy them all. And Twitter is an easy, free way for me to socially interact with similar writers, bloggers and followers, and maybe work my way into a different network. It’s a little unclean, sure, but no different than SEO or email blasts. And if Facebook is like a neverending high school reunion, Twitter is a daily trip to a schmoozefest cocktail party. You take a deep breath, you plunge in, and hope to make inroads with people who can help you. Regardless, If Mr. Faded Glory, These Monks, An Insurrection, or anything is going to find an audience, I’ve got to do something different.

That’s Twitter. It’s not revolutionizing journalism. It’s not killing human contact. It’s not totally butchering grammar. It’s moving marketing discussions from a breakfast mixer to a computer screen. That can’t be completely awful.

I’ve decried banal facebook status updates for the better part of two years; hoping someday the litany of single moms who describe potty-training in happy detail would migrate to Twitter, sparing the rest of us.

Now I’ve realized: They’re not the problem. I’m the problem – I’m hoping my friend network would stimulate, instead of depress. Why should they change? It’s just as simple for me to glom onto Twitter rather than urging moms (Really, I thought raising kids was busy) to do the same.

So I’m there, solely to push Mr. Faded Glory, These Monks, and whatever else I do. Now you know this going in.

See you soon.

Mr_FadedGlory

(Yes, I’m also on LinkedIn. And you’re right, it’s totally stupid.)