GO TO PREVIOUS SECTION, January 29-February 4
PART II
The High Holidays of sports…the frightening potential of annoying college girls…A real life and death situation…After four years of Indiana, I finally see The General…The Bulls pick up the pace…As do the Illini…Finding a niche in Vegas, even without the Fear and Loathing…“No. It’s Iowa.”…Cubs vs. Sox in Mesa…The Most Unholy Holy Grail Ever…Up the Pacific Coast Highway and into the NCAA’s…Sending a man back into the bathroom…A new college town…An amazing day of sports… Officially heading home…a visit to Canton…“For the first time since 1998--”…Last stop: Ann Arbor…the city at night…Surprise for my parents …
February 6, 2005
Ric and I are disagreeing again.
“I’m just saying, I think it should be a national holiday.”
“That’s dumb. It’s the Super Bowl, man. It’s a sporting event.”
“Don’t you think that school and work should be canceled tomorrow?”
“It’s a sporting event.”
“Yeah, but think about it. It’s called Super Bowl Sunday. What other sporting events have an official day-of name?”
“Most people don’t know it as Super Bowl Sunday.”
“Yes they do.”
“No. They don’t. I like the Super Bowl and all. I’m not against it, but it’s not an official holiday.”
Regardless of what Ric says, Super Bowl Sunday is, at the very least, an unofficial national holiday, as evidenced by the amount of people who watch it despite not watching football regularly throughout the season. It’s like the High Holidays of sports; the attendance is always inflated. People don’t gather around in the same staggering numbers for the NBA Finals, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, Final Four, Rose Bowl, Kentucky Derby, or even Wrestlemania. Just for the Super Bowl. This game is an all-American exhibition of spectacle and sport, and when the team matchup and level of play equals or exceeds the game’s hype, there is no better single game sporting event in the world.
Tonight, Meghan and I are going with MJ to Sigma Chi, his fraternity house. Before I agreed to watch it at the house instead of at Mike’s apartment, I had to get a guarantee that I would be able to watch the game, as opposed to sitting in a loud room full of drunk girls who wouldn’t know Donovan McNabb from Don Corleone. I first became aware of this problem in eighth grade when we watched Super Bowl XXX over at Josh’s house and the girls got bored and tried to lead a movement to go hang out at the park behind Josh’s house rather than watching the game. With a big time matchup featuring two preseason favorites in New England and Philly, this is a game that I am really excited to watch.
But this is the Super Bowl, and in order to really watch the game, one first has to slosh through the piles of promotional crap and other distractions. The Super Bowl is a great American sporting event, but sometimes it’s unclear as to whether the emphasis is on “sporting” or “event.” It’s really an incredible phenomenon. The conference title games—which are played either a week or two weeks before the Super Bowl—attract little fan fare outside of the normal football audience, but then shortly after the Super Bowl matchup is set, the buzz begins to grow, and by Super Bowl Sunday the whole country is ready. No other sport has such an increase of interest from the semi-finals to the championship. Part of the game’s appeal is that it is one game as opposed to a series, and part of it is that football—with its three hour games once a week—is the most TV-friendly sport. But basically, I think it just comes down to this: America likes BIG. We like big burgers, big cars, big breasts, big TVs, and we like big games and big televised events. Along with the normal football fans that watch the NFL all year and then watch the Super Bowl as the culmination of the football season, the Super Bowl appeals to a large majority of Americans because everything about it is big.
Even the coin toss is big, and this year they allow the game’s bigness to overwhelm the normal decision making process to an absurd level. Instead of the referee or a former football star flipping the coin, they let some Pop Warner kid do it, and the kid puts the coin flat on his palm, jerks his arm upward, and the coin flies up with no rotation and then lands flat on the ground. In the NFL, games that go into overtime can be won or lost by the result of the coin toss, and here we are at the biggest game of the season and they’re letting some kid do the honors. Unbelievable.
But then the game starts, and it’s a good one, and the fact that Philly is not only in the game but controlling it is surprising; I figured the Patriots would be running away with it by the second quarter. But give credit to the Eagles: they have shown that they are the class of the NFC and a team that belongs in this game. Both defenses are playing hard, and laying out a lot of big hits—big hits: another good “big” that America likes—and New England’s passing game is really sharp, and Terrell Owens has proven everyone wrong by not only playing but playing like Terrell Owens, and Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison continue to make plays and impress me, and everything about the game is going well, except, except…
“Man, do I hate FOX announcers, bro.”
“You hate all non-Chicago announcers,” Mike says, his eyes remaining fixed on the screen.
“That’s not true.”
“Name one.”
“Marv Albert.”
“Fine.”
But Mike is right, for the most part: it’s not that I hate all non-Chicago announcers, it’s just that I find most announcers who work for a network rather than a team to be beyond obnoxious. FOX Sports is the worst. They’re not the only bad ones, but they are the worst of the bunch across the board. I think I dislike their baseball announcers even more than their football announcers.
The thing about announcers is that they serve as the connection between the game and the fans, much in the same way that a rabbi or priest serves as a connection between God and the congregation. Certainly you don’t need a rabbi to be a faithful Jew and have a relationship with God, but there is something comforting about praying with a person who is more committed to and focused on and knowledgeable about God and religion than you are. In a perfect world, the announcer connects the fan to the game in a way that they cannot achieve on their own. This is why listening to radio announcers is much more fulfilling and enjoyable than listening to television announcers: with radio, the announcers have the responsibility of providing the listener with enough specific description as to allow him or her to visualize the game’s action. Because of this, radio announcers—both team and network—are much more on the ball with the game and much more careful with their words, because it is their words that fill in the blanks that are created by a sound-only medium.
This, obviously, is not the same with television announcers. When the fans can see the game as it unfolds, the job of the announcer becomes more difficult: while a fan listening to the radio has an obvious need for the announcer, the fan watching television does not, so it is up to the announcers on television to justify their existence with thoughtful remarks and sparse yet exciting play-by-play. We don’t necessarily need announcers, but get a great call attached to a great sequence, and it’s magic:
“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”
“Havlicek stole the ball!”
“Down goes Frasier!”
“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
“Caught by Clark!”
“And the band is out on the field!”
“Behind the bag! It gets through Buckner!”
“Now—there’s a steal by Bird! Underneath to DJ—he lays it in!”
“Unbelievable!...I don’t believe what I just saw!”
“A spec-tacular move, by Michael Jordan.”
If you know these calls, you don’t even need to hear them. Simply seeing them in print produces an excitement. These calls and others like them are a reminder as to the full strength of the announcer, and when you get a classic call, it raises that moment above the many others in the history of sport. A great announcer will do that; with a good announcer, fans are treated to a broadcast that cackles with life. Take the Gibson home run, for example. Sure it was exciting, sure it was memorable, but that’s not why it is a classic moment. Rather, it was two beasts of the broadcast that placed it ahead of many others in our collective memory and imaginations. One was Gibson’s overreaching, full-body fist-pump that he unleashed as he rounded first base, and the other was the radio call by Jack Buck. Was that a more important home run than the home runs hit by Joe Carter and Bill Mazeroski that won the 1993 and 1960 World Series, respectively? Of course not. But the call sets it apart.
It was Vin Scully who called Game 1 of the 1988 World Series on television, but it is Jack Buck’s famous radio call of the Gibson home run that stands out. Upon first inspection, Scully’s famous line from that broadcast—“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!”—seems to be the more memorable call, but it was Buck’s simple and truthful announcing that is remembered, probably because it summed up the feelings and thoughts of everybody watching the game at home or at the park. “I don’t believe what I just saw.” Who did?
Both Scully and Buck are classic announcers, and both are best known for their affiliation with their teams, the Dodgers and Cardinals respectively. Even when doing national broadcasts, these guys and the other top dogs excel by putting a true passion, emotion, and amazement into their calls. This does not surprise me; guys who work specifically for a team tend to be the best at creating a great broadcast, because they can get more involved with the game personally and show their own bias. Any Bulls fan old enough to remember “The Shot”—Michael Jordan’s 1989 game-winner against Cleveland that sent the Bulls to the second round of the playoffs—remembers the classic call by Bulls announcer Jim Durham:
“Michael at the foul line, a shot on Ehlo—GOOD! The Bulls win! They win it!”
A fan watching the game on TV did not need an announcer to tell him that Jordan had caught the pass and hit the game-winner. But the call by Durham matched the emotions felt by the Bulls fans watching the game, and that made it memorable. It was real. It was spontaneous. It was perfect.
Compare that to the call made by NBC announcer Bob Costas for Jordan’s “last shot” in the 1998 Finals. The Bulls are down one with just under twenty seconds to play in Game 6 at Utah, they lead the series 3 games to 2, and the Jazz have just dumped it down to Karl Malone. As Jordan sneaks behind Malone to double him and swat the ball away, Costas sets the stage:
“Malone is doubled, they swat it and steal it! Here comes Chicago. (Jordan is bringing the ball up court) 17 seconds, 17 seconds from Game 7, or from championship number six. (Jordan dribbles slowly on Bryon Russell before cutting to the free throw line for his shot) Jordan…open…(he shoots and scores) Chicago with the lead!”
The call, though full of a seemingly excited intonation from Costas, feels scripted. Everybody watching the game knows what’s at stake; we are not idiots. We understand that if the Jazz win, we go to Game 7, and if the Bulls win, it’s over. This is not the kind of call you would have heard from either the Bulls TV or radio announcers, or from Utah’s TV or radio announcers. You can almost hear Costas thinking carefully about his word choice, particularly on the pause after the first “17 seconds,” in an effort to enhance NBC’s product by packaging the game in the most Professional and Dramatic way possible. That call, while sort of poetic and definitely to the point, in no way reflects the emotions of either Bulls fans or Jazz fans at that moment. And then still, during the timeout between Jordan’s shot and the game’s final possession for Utah, Costas continues on in his attempt to win the Pulitzer Prize for least spontaneous live announcer with this comment:
“That may have been, (dramatic pause)...who knows, what will unfold in the next several months, (another dramatic pause), but that may have been, the last shot Michael Jordan will ever take in the NBA.”
Then Isiah Thomas jumps into the fold for a bit, talking about how Jordan pushed off Russell, but it seems he caught Costas in mid-dramatic pause, because when Thomas finishes…
“If that’s the last image, (dramatic pause), of Michael Jordan, (obnoxious, yes?), how magnificent is it?”
And finally, in case we still were unsure about what possibly laid ahead, Costas informed us as the Jazz looked to inbound and hopefully (for them) hit their own game winner:
“Stockton, Hornecek, Antoine Carr, Karl Malone, and Bryon Russell. If they score, there’s a Game 7. (This dramatic pause lasted a full four seconds. I’m not kidding. Four whole seconds while in the middle of a sentence. Go to the tape if you don’t believe me. Do you realize how long four seconds is, particularly in the middle of a sentence? Go ahead; count it out. I’ll wait…ridiculous, yes?) If they don’t, for the second straight year, they go out in six.”
They did not score, the Bulls won, and after the celebration and trophy presentation and lots of post game interviews, Costas continues on with his announcer diarrhea-of-the-mouth, going on and on about Jordan’s and this Bulls team’s places in history and dropping dramatic pauses as cheaply as the Ohio State coaches pass out the “big play” stickers that they put on their helmets. I’ll spare you of the transcript in its entirety; I’m sure you get the idea.
Was this enough to ruin the game for me? Not even close. This is Game 6 of the NBA Finals, and my team was on the verge of a sixth championship in eight years. But it’s noticeable and irksome, in the same way that an insincere or out-of-touch rabbi would be bothersome. You’re still enjoying the service, you’re still focused on prayer, but man, what’s with this guy?
This is not to say, however, that I find all network announcers to be as annoying as Bob Costas. Any announcer who is calling a game for a network has to remain “unbiased”—at least for the most part, with no overwhelming swing towards one team—but the good ones still manage to react with genuine emotions. They may have team biases that are not on display, or they may just be reacting to the game as a fan with no vested interest in either team much in the same way that I genuinely respond to the play in the Super Bowl even though I don’t care who wins. Either way, these announcers are enjoyable to listen to. Take Dick Vitale, for example. A lot of people find him really, really annoying, which is understandable. His style is not for everyone. He is loud and repetitive, and his voice and his predictability bother a lot of fans. He also seems to be a mondo-Duke homer. That’s fine. But I enjoy listening to Dickie V because he is genuinely excited about college hoops, and his reactions—though much more overblown than mine—reflect my own emotions when watching the game. Marv Albert is another guy I love listening to. Like most great announcers, he’s got a distinct style and a classic catch phrase, (“Yuls! And it counts!”), and I gotta respect him for allowing his New York bias to sneak out during those epic Bulls-Knicks playoff games in the ’90s. It wasn’t much, but you could always tell.
My brother laughs.
“So, will you be able to manage listening to these guys?”
“Yeah. This is the Super Bowl. They’re just annoying, that’s all.”
At halftime, the score is tied at seven and the game feels like it’s going to be one of the all-time greats. Paul McCartney’s halftime show keeps the momentum up (assuming you enjoy the Beatles), and through the middle of the third quarter the game still feels like a classic. Then things get sloppy, and while trailing 24-14 with 5:40 to go in the game, the Eagles start dragging ass down the field and eat four minutes off the clock before scoring a touchdown to pull within three. Nobody watching could quite understand what was going on. It is basic football: when you need a score and time is a factor, you speed up your offense with a no-huddle and work the sidelines. Instead, McNabb and the Eagles meander to the line and down the field with hardly any sense of urgency. Philly holds New England on their next possession and forces them to punt, but the punt goes down to the four leaving the Eagles with no chance at advancing the ball. As if sensing that the trip down the field will be impossible, the Eagles cut their losses and throw an interception to seal their fate. After a great start, the game ends with an awkward thump (not with a bang, but with a whimper, if you will); it was like watching a great action movie for an hour and a half, filled with big stars, great acting, and an intriguing and entertaining plotline, and then having the screenplay just fall apart at the end as the movie becomes boring and nonsensical. The pick is thrown, and then Brady comes out to kneel the ball down, and then the clock ticks down to zero, and then the confetti starts to fall, and then Meghan’s grandma dies and everything stops.
February 12, 2005
After a few days of “betters” and and a few days of “worsts,” Monica Gordon passed away on February 9, 2005 at the age of 82. Meghan got a call Sunday night during the fourth quarter that Nana—“Nana” on her dad’s side, not to be confused with her mom’s mom, who is called “Nana,” or my Nana—had gone back into the hospital. We stayed with my brother for a few days, waiting to see what would happen rather than just getting back out on the road, and when Nana died we reserved a flight home for the next morning. The funeral was earlier today, Satuday, and we’ll be here a week total before returning to Kansas and continuing our trip.
Meghan went with her family this morning for a closed service, and then at around ten o’clock I drove with Meghan’s friend Danny to the church where the funeral was held. It was a beautiful morning, very sunny and warm, probably around 50 degrees or so, and as always I had the conspicuous feeling that comes any time I’m wearing a suit and tie, particularly when I’m wearing it outside. I only wear suits for special, special occasions, namely those that specify a suit and tie dress code. The last time I wore one was in September when I attended Luke’s grandfather’s funeral, and I can’t remember the last time before that, though it would have definitely been at either a funeral or a wedding, which seem to be the only events that I wear suits for anymore, as I no longer attend synagogue. To that end, I’m always rather self-conscious when I’m in a suit; part of it is that it’s not really “me,” but mostly it’s a physical reminder that something Big is happening, either happy or sad. Today it’s sad.
We get inside, and I’m sitting next to Meghan and her parents on one of the front pews. It’s a really beautiful church, and the family has made a really nice memorial for her that is sitting at the front of the aisle, right at the base of the stage. (In a synagogue, it’s called the Bima. I don’t know what it’s called at a church.) The memorial consists of a collage of pictures of Monica throughout her life, including a nice portrait from a few years ago taken by Meghan’s upstairs neighbor Andy; there are two or three pictures of her and her twin sister Veronica from when they were kids and then when they were older…there is one of her dancing with Don at Don and Bonnie’s wedding…there is one of her in her uniform from World War II, where she was a nurse…there is one of her with Meghan and Shanna as kids, the three of them pulling on their mouths with their index fingers and sticking out their tongues, and another of the three of them donning Cubs hats. Draped over one side of the collage is her nurse’s hat from the military, and on the other is her Cubs hat.
When I first met Monica, towards the end of last August, she was in her room downstairs, watching the Cubs. The Gordons own a two-flat in Rogers Park where they’ve lived for over twenty years. Meghan rents one of the basement apartments, and Monica lives in the other, with Andy and his son Devin living upstairs. As far as I learned in the short time that I knew her, Monica was a woman of habit. She liked her beer—Miller Lite—she liked her cheese crackers—the little cracker sandwiches with the cheddar cheese in the middle—she liked her smokes—Marlboro Lights—and she loved her Cubbies. By the time I met her, her body was extremely frail; she had been on a bowling team for many years, but was no longer able to play. Her skin was soft and wrinkled to an extraordinary extent; it reminded me of what a t-shirt looks like after you untie it from the rubber bands you use to make a tie-dye shirt. Her hair was short, white. She was missing her front teeth. And yet an incredible spirit leapt out of her at first glance; she was clearly happy to be alive and well, and I don’t care what my doctors say: if I’m going out, I’m going out drinking and smoking and laughing it up. Even in her quiet moments, sitting on her favorite chair in the backyard smoking a cigarette, or resting in the kitchen waiting for somebody—anybody—to come through and say hello, or even just petting one of Meghan’s kittens, she was quite clearly Monica Gordon.
The funeral began, and it was a lovely service. I found that I was a bit detached, and there were a few obvious reasons why. First of all, I didn’t have much of an emotional reaction. All people considered, I didn’t know Nana that well, and so I was really in support-mode, particularly for Meghan, because she is A. my girlfriend, and B. in deep mourning right now, as Monica was, as far as I can tell, her favorite non-immediate-family family member. Second of all, I’m a Jew in a church, which leaves me with much less service understanding and familiarity than if Meghan’s family were Jewish. Even at a support-mode Jewish funeral, I would at least be participating in the prayers—if only in my head—maybe even mouthing along with the Sh’ma or the Kaddish. At church, it’s totally different. I’m respectful, obviously, but while I’ve been to churches before I don’t know the prayers, and even the ones with which I am familiar—(“though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”)—carry no personal weight with me. And so I was able to glance around, take in the scene, do some personal reflection, and mostly just be a shoulder for Meghan.
After the service, there was a luncheon at a small restaurant near the church. It was to everyone’s liking, as the people who knew her best instantly knew that it was a place that Monica would have liked. We were in the dining room next to the bar, a small area—not cramp, but not necessarily cozy—filled with deep browns in the walls, tables, and chairs. It reminded me a lot of a 1950’s style basement. Once everybody had ordered, people began talking, and the conversation was light and fun, but with a tinge of sadness as you would expect at any funeral. Still, the mood was generally happy, as Monica had been old and “on her way,” even though her attitude and smile suggested otherwise. I was sitting next to Meghan with the younger guests, but my ear perked up at a conversation going on behind me between Don, Andy, Devin, and Bob, a close friend who lived up the block with his family. At first they were talking about the Sosa trade, but then the talk turned to Monica, and the stories came out. Everybody had a story. With Meghan entrenched in a conversation with some of her friends, I pulled my chair over to the men’s table, sat, and listened.
“I don’t remember if I ever told you this,” Andy said to Don, “but there was one day when Devin and I were walking home from the El after work and we saw Monica out walking. I said ‘Monica, what are you doing?’ And she tried not to smile, and said ‘Nothing.’ So I said to her, ‘OK, what do you want?’ And she looked right at me and said without hesitating, ‘Miller Lite please.’”
Everyone laughed. Andy continued.
“So I said, ‘OK. Devin’s going to take you home, and I’ll get your beer.’”
“Of course,” said Don, who hadn’t heard the story but immediately recognized the behavior as spot on. “She knew I wasn’t buying for her.” He laughed.
“She had everybody in the neighborhood wired,” said Andy.
Bob nodded. “You knew. You just knew. If you saw her, you knew that she would put you on a mission.”
“You know,” Andy began, looking at Don, “you guys really did it the right way. She was always with you, instead of at a home or something, and you always had family together. That was really the right thing.”
Don smiled, staying silent.
The conversation turned back to baseball and the Cubs, and then back to Nana, and then back to the Cubs, each subject weaving back to the other, and as they reflected on how the 2003 season ended and how the 2004 season fell apart, the subjects came back together again.
“It was as if she couldn’t wait any longer,” Bob said. “Maybe if they’d won it two years ago, she would have said, ‘Well, I can go. I’ve seen it all.’”
After hanging out at the bar for a while with Meghan’s friends, I went with her and Danny back to her house for another family and friends gathering in honor of Monica, and as if on cue, Meghan’s perpetually pregnant cat Lynx began giving birth to a new litter of kittens.