Getting to First Base

Yesterday I was browsing the Michael Phelps facebook page - not his personal profile but the public fan page - and I came accross this discussion of the merits of his accomplishments:

Why in the world do we care so much about a human who can swim really fast and win a bunch of shiny things? Who really gives a s*** as it doesn’t mean a thing to my life or your life. Why are people who make great advances and actually better/prolong people’s lives (discoverers of new medicines, surgeries, devices, etc.) quickly forgotten (or not even known in the first place). For example, who knows the name of the physician that pioneered coronary bypass surgery and thus improved/saved/prolonged the lives of literally millions of people? I’m quite sure no one on this board knows this person (without googling it of course). The world makes no sense… we “worship” (this was the word use by a Chinese fan of Phelps on CNN.com today) such trivial events like winning a bunch of shiny things and ignore those who truly better our society…. completely crazy.

On some level, I do actually agree with this guy. “Worship” is an awfully strong word to use on an athlete, isn’t it? I have to stop and think about my priorities all the time, and I ponder whether it’s healthy or worthwhile at all to devote so much of myself to following and writing about sports. And then I wonder about people who play sports professionally - is it worth sacrificing family time and jeopardizing their future health to have, at best, a few years of elite professioanl performance? And of course, I wonder the same thing on a greater scale about Olympians. These people dedicate so much of themselves for such a long time, with the ultimate goal of competing in widely televised amateur games. When it’s phrased that way, I wonder why anyone would sit out their childhood and become a slave to a sport.

I also look at fans and how much we do for sports. We cast aside our regular budgets to go to a big game, scoffing at gas prices as we travel all over for our teams. We plan our social lives around who’s playing whom, and whether it’s on TV. We may wear embarrassing clothing or body paint, or make posters proposing marriage to our favorite pitcher (Yeah, I did that once), in some interminable quest to look like a bigger fan than the other people in our section of the stadium. And some of us study, study, study; buying volume after volume of books that break down every aspect of our sport, converting the games on the field into charts on a page.

All of this…for what? Sometimes I fear that when I die, God’s going to be pissed that I spent so much time on baseball. He’ll look at my daily blog-reading time, add up the hours at the ballpark or in front of the TV or radio, and just shake His head at what a waste of a life I was. And in the meantime, I think some of my friends feel the same way. It is kind of silly, isn’t it? And yet, I’m still a sports nut, and I will not stop anytime soon, because sometimes real heroes emerge from sports. Sometimes a single hit in one ballgame is enough to send the usually mean-spirited cynics at Deadspin to the edge of tears (or further), because sometimes a child with cancer uses baseball to show us how to be better people.

If you haven’t already, learn about life and humanity from John Challis, an 18-year-old who just died of cancer. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazettte ran an excellent, bookmarkable story on Challis this spring. I can learn a lot from this kid:

“I guess I can see why people see me as an inspiration,” he said. “But why do people think it’s so hard to see things the way I do? All I’m doing is making the best of a situation.”

John then raises his voice.

“Why can’t people just see the best in things? It gets you so much further in life. It’s always negative this and negative that. That’s all you see and hear.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

So rest in peace, John Challis. Though I never met you, you inspired me today. You showed me, through baseball and football, how to be human and how to be strong. You’ll never win eight gold medals or set any kind of world record, but you showed that you know more about life and love than most adults, let alone teenagers, and your message is a bright beam of light in a dark cynical age.

“I used to be afraid, but I’m not afraid of dying now, if that’s what you want to know. Because life ain’t about how many breaths you take. It’s what you do with those breaths.” - John Challis

The Olympics have barely started, and already there has been senseless violence in Beijing. My own cynicism got the best of me when I first read the story; I wasn’t the least bit surprised that something like that has happened at these Olympics. I was just talking to a friend about how I wouldn’t be surprised if something horrible (besides the restriction of information, unbreathable air, and alleged sanctioned racism) was going to happen there this month in Beijing.

I still think that’s a possibility, but I don’t think this murder had anything to do with those problems. It was one man, one knife, and God-knows what kind of motive, if any. He probably knew that his intended targets were family members of an athlete, but how? And why was his last mission in life to take them down? It doesn’t make any sense.

I still wish a different site had been chosen for these Games, so China could devote more time to actually following through on the tall promises they made to the IOC in 2001. They had a lot more than their air pollution to clean up before yesterday’s opening ceremonies, and these things take time. In winning the right to host the Olympics, China has placed themselves under an international microscope, exposing a lot of ugly shadows to the world. I’m curious to see how all the negativity that has led up to the Olympics will affect their public image in the future; whether people will be disinclined to do business or travel with them, whether there’s any kind of international pressure for them as a nation to clean up some of the human rights issues they promised the IOC they’d fix.

But in the meantime, I hope the U.S. men’s volleyball team finds a way to get through this. One of their own had his family ruthlessly attacked without warning or explanation. But they’ve all made it to this point athletically; it would be sad if all their hard work was taken away because some jerk with a knife decided to ruin a family. If they decide they are still able to play in their scheduled match against Venezuela tomorrow, I hope they can win it, as if to throw a giant middle finger to the misguided individual who took a horrible route to try to steal the team’s opportunity to succeed.