Open Thread and goodness: August 20th, 2010
2010-08-20Oh, man. Not a lot to talk about tonight, eh? Sorry again about the lack of in-depth stuff here recently: again, I’ve only got a few days of summer vacation left before I likely never have one again, and that’s been taking priority recently.
-Re: Brett Favre and LeBron: I feel like there’s something to be said about sports fans’ obsession with narrative. The thing about sports is that they are not a story: they’re what happens when the best athletes in the world compete with a common goal in mind. The LeBron/Favre backlash does seem to speak for the sports-as-a-narrative thing, which is interesting in and of itself.
Part of me feels like all of this is sports fans playing the role of Sammi Sweetheart talking about how everything isn’t a fairy tale while Ronnie drunk (and possibly high on coke) is making out with multiple strippers and climbing up onto the stage. Some things aren’t supposed to be fairy tales. Embrace the strategy and the game, embrace the ridiculousness, and realize that it wasn’t all that long ago that Ron Artest and Kobe Bryant were the most reviled basketball players on the planet. The game is the game, man.
Honestly, that’s all I really have for tonight. Until later, guys.
By the way, enjoy your work Scott. I remember reading somewhere that you were working on a book about the Cavs. If that is true, is it still in the works? Would look forward to it immensely!
Sad thing is, Cleveland sports doesn’t lend itself to a consistency of competiveness let along excellency. The Cavs have had two good stretches…1988-1992 and again from 2006-2010 and still came up short (Thanks to Jordan then, the Orlando juggernaut last year, personal selfishness and meltdowns this year). The Tribe was awful from 1954-1994. Then they had a great run, but chronically underachieved in the playoffs, had a fluke return to glory in 2007 (melted down against Boston) and are now back to being irrelevant. The Browns are well the Browns. Like Scott said, we had it for seven years with… Read more »
Wow, I look really superficial after Scott’s last post. Guess it’s the software engineer in me. I’m hopeful that the Cavs will be able to rebuild and also adopt a bit more of a team-first philosophy. This is the hangover, the part where we realize how bad an idea it was to let a single player dictate everything the team did. Look at Durant and see how to handle star players correctly. If Durant wanted to leave, I would wager that he’d be being shopped around right now. The big advantage the Cavs have is Gilbert; having an involved owner… Read more »
I agree, and I hope John realizes you unloaded because you feel he’s worth it.
Agreed on the constant infusion of bullshit storylines. I’m more concerned here with the abstract level of narrative as it applies to Krolk’s blog. It’s the 800-lb. gorilla of a question right now: Why are we here? What is Cavs: The Blog’s narrative? It’s a meta-level, existential question that JK himself has framed a couple of times. Maybe I’m more neurotic than the average Cleveland sports fan, but I can’t force myself to care as much about the team that’s going to wear those new uniforms as I do about how freaking weird and sad the whole thing feels right… Read more »
Wow, tl;dr indeed.
Apologies.
I think the reason stuff like Lebron or Farve stories get beaten to death is that they’re the only sports stories that really fit a narrative. They had a process, there were developments towards the result during the process, and the stories both had a protagonist controlled ending. 99% of sports does not. The example that really drives me nuts are football color guys’ “keys to the game” which usually consist of obvious goals and often focus on one or two specific players. Then the color guy harps on these keys over and over, even if they turned out to… Read more »
That sports “is a strategy or a game” is also a narrative in itself. Sports is a fairy tale, a tragedy, a comedy, a business, politics, pop culture, fashion, statistics, art. It is all or any of these depending upon how you look at it, what kind of perspective you bring to your fandom. Perhaps your issue is not the narrative so much as that the LeBron/Favre narrative seems kind of derivative. The fact that they can only be hero or villain and nothing in between. Unlike we the commentariat, however, you have the opportunity to redefine that narrative. Show… Read more »
BTW, Krolik, Scott is right on with his message to you. As a young writer who is just barely feeling out his early 20s, perseverance and fortitude will be your greatest allies (especially when looking for work in this Godforsaken media culture). Heed his warnings!
^ Something makes me think the guy above takes offense to Krolik’s posit on sports narrative because he himself is a writer for Esquire. Good job, John. One of our hometown’s best writing exports has given you a compliment–well, if you can see it underneath the endearing recoil.
“The thing about sports is that they are *not* a story” — really? Krolik, you’re killing me. I’m dying here. Seriously. First the Frogs start deconstructing literature. Now this. You’re a smart kid. Intellectual fancy aside, you’re either a player or a fan — and in both cases, narrative rules. Stripped of narrative, human beings are groupings of atoms. Stripped of narrative, this blog, that team, and your favorite song all cease to mean anything. They’re “just what happens when ____________”; you can fill in the blank with any damn phrase, but doing so doesn’t mean that you’ve uncovered a… Read more »