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Two nights ago, I was told by someone I know that life is a question mark, that you can never be sure what's going to happen next, that it's one big mystery.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh...

I'll give her that you can never be totally sure of anything, but at the same time, she's making it sound like Mario Kart, where you get hit by lightning or tracked down by a turtle shell at least once every 60 seconds.  Now, I don't know all that much about what's going on with her, but I can honestly say that none of those things have ever happened to me.

Milwaukee, apparently

There are unknowns.  There are lots of unknowns.  In fact, there are very few knowns, and that's even if you count high probability assumptions, such as surviving the morning drive to work.  These things are scary, some are terrifying, some make us stay awake at night, some make us doubt ourselves, and some seem insurmountable.  In no way am I saying that there aren't question marks in life, but that doesn't automatically make life a question mark.  We give out question marks when we run out of our own options, either when we don't have any ideas left or when we don't care enough to find out by ourselves.  Is that really what we want to reduce life to?

Let's pretend that

Clay Matthews

is chasing you down.

What do you do?  Well, you, you scared little ball carrier you, have options.
1. Stand still
2. Run at him
3. Try to avoid him
That's pretty much it.  Now, there's a great chance that by doing any of these three things you're going to get clobbered, but at least in the second two you are in control of your own destiny.  If you try to avoid him, you have a chance to get away.  If you run at him and initiate contact, you have some control of where the hit's happening.  If you stand there and leave it up to him, they'll have to peel you out of the Frozen Tundra.

This isn't something that a positive attitude can solve.  This is something that only effort and passion and hope can solve. 

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

A positive attitude wasn't going to get Andy DuFresne out of Shawshank.  A positive attitude won't save your teeth if Clay Matthews is running at you.  A positive attitude only works when coupled with hope, which my dictionary defines as "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen."  Key word there?  Expectation.



If we wait to see what the scary things are going to do to us, even if we have the best of attitudes, they will inevitably do something other than what we want, and while it may never result in us face-down in the Lambeau Field turf, it could cause other things that are just as bad emotionally, if not physically.  On the other hand, if we take that fear and channel it, and decide that we're going to do something about it and keep it in our own hands, we can do absolutely no worse, and a lot of the time we can do a lot better.  If we expect to come out ahead and we act like it, if we expect to break out of that prison and do something about it, if we expect to juke out that linebacker and start making some moves, there's a chance that we will, but if we sit around and wait to get hit by the scary unknown, the best case will never happen.  Clay Matthews doesn't miss tackles.  Shawshank doesn't let guys out because they feel bad for them.

We need to be bold, we need to expect excellence in the hopes that we will only fall as low as success, and we need to live life as an exclamation point, not a question mark.  Exclamation points accomplish their purpose!  Aren't question marks just waiting to get eliminated?

Seeing the game from a new field

Whenever I tell people that I played baseball growing up, the first question most people ask is, "What position?"  Simple question, simple answer, right?  Ehhh...

The problem is that I didn't really have a position.  Since 2002, when I was 11 and when kids really start getting locked into positions, I've been all over the place.  Quick look: 2002 - SS for the Keystone Display Braves, 3B/1B for the Crystal Lake American Little League All-Stars.  2003 - SS for the Keystone Expos, 1B/C for CLALL.  2004 - 3B for the CL Cyclones.  2005 - 2B for the Cyclones.  2006 - RF for Crystal Lake Central, 2B for the Cyclones, 2007 - CF for CLC, 2B for the Cyclones.  2008 - RF for CLC, 2009 - LF for CLC.  For those of you scoring at home, that's 6-5-3-6-3-2-5-4-9-4-8-4-9-7.

Now, every time I moved, the coach would always say, "it's great that you can play so many positions," which I'm pretty sure was only the first half of a sentence that should have ended with, "because you sure as hell don't excel at any of them."

Young William not excelling in right field in 2008

So when I answer the question I always tell people that I moved around a lot, which is true, but also leaves me without a true identity and makes me sound like a tee ball player, ("Mom!  I got to play six positions and we got juice boxes!") but I also take a lot of pride in it.  Why?  Because when circumstances changed, I was able to adjust in order to change with them.

One of the toughest things to do in the real world is to keep an open mind about things.  It's much easier to entrench yourself in an opinion, a mindset, and an identity, and never give in to the concept that maybe, possibly, there are better options out there.  Humans, it seems, are proud beings, stubborn beings, and defensive beings, which combines into the perfect storm of closed-mindedness.  Why think when we can react?  Why even bother listening to other people's opinions when we could ignore them and pound our own even deeper into our brains.

Truth is, nobody is absolutely, 100% correct about everything.  Nobody knows how to solve every problem that's out there, nobody knows who God is, nobody knows how to completely stop Aaron Rodgers, nobody has written the best novel of all time, nobody has painted the best picture of all time, nobody knows why Tiger Woods betrayed Elin Steve Williams, nobody knows the meaning of life, nobody knows who Jack the Ripper was, nobody knows why LeBron James is such a gigantic douche, nobody knows how I Can't Believe It's Not Butter can't be at least a little bit butter, and nobody knows how they get so much cheese into a Cheez-It.  There are millions of theories on every topic, but not one is absolutely accepted by everyone because they're not facts.

So why do people insist that they do?

I know, I know.  Proud, stubborn, defensive.  But what do we gain from that?  It's hard to put aside our personal pride sometimes, but when things change, be it in ourselves, the people we're interacting with, or our surroundings, if we stay stagnant we're going to become irrelevant.  If I'm playing second and a better second baseman comes along, I won't play if I insist on being a second baseman.  I'll get moved to the bench, and eventually get cut.  But I can still play the game if I'm willing to move elsewhere.  A "position change" doesn't have to be a total shift in mindset, it just means that we can be willing to adjust our perspective based on additional information.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold onto our opinions about things.  Just because somebody disagrees doesn't mean that we should automatically change to agree with them.  I just think that we should be open-minded enough to know that, chances are, our opinion isn't the strongest or best one out there.  There are probably other things to consider, and it's okay to consider them.  It's okay to believe that there might be better options out there than the one we have.

[Note from Mom]:  "You should tie this into evolution.  The most adaptable, not the strongest, are the ones who survive."

Brilliant woman, brilliant statement.  And she's right.  Dinosaurs, if you take the extreme example, were much more powerful than apes.  A dinosaur could tear an ape to pieces.  But they couldn't adjust to shifts in the climate, so they disappeared.  They stuck to their cold-blooded, flesh-tearing guns and it didn't work, while apes were able to survive and turn into baseball players because they didn't have any one method of survival.  I'm sure that their lifestyle pre-Ice Age was much different than the one they chose during the Ice Age, and they lived to tell the tale.  The dinosaurs didn't adjust, got put on the bench, and then the Great Coach in the Sky decided that they ran out of innings.

"It seems delightful, but so unnecessary"

Three years ago this summer I was in Bloomington, IL for a baseball showcase (They told me I was a DIII level prospect, I didn't believe them, they were right) and my Dad and I stopped for dinner at the original Jimmy John's.  Pretty cool to begin with, but the even cooler part was a sign on the wall.  Anybody who's visited a Jimmy John's knows about all the funny signs (One in Milwaukee said "Hippies Not Welcome," or something to that effect) that riddle the walls, but this one was a little bit different.  It was titled "How Much Is Enough?" and went like this:

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”
The American then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then?”
The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions?” asked the fisherman, “Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evening, sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos!”

The moral of the story is no secret; why be stressed and miserable for years and years so that you can do what you love later if you can do what you love now?

I know, I know, it's pretty hard to eat Cheetos, drink Bud Heavy, sit on your couch, and watch the Golf Channel for your entire life without getting evicted, losing all your friends, having your parents think you're a slob, and having girls never talk to you, and that's the one thing that you truly excel at, but let me explain:

No matter what your dream job is, chances are that there are things you'd rather be doing, but those things also don't provide you with funds.  What the Mexican man did was figure out a way to get all three into his day.  He was good at fishing, loved fishing, and could get paid to fish, so he did it, and then used it to live a comfortable life with his wife and family.  Could he have made more money doing something else?  Yes.  Could he have had a nicer boat?  Yes.  A bigger house?  Yes.  But what's the use?  When our family visited friends in Australia, we were telling them about how whipped cream is sweet in the States (it's literally just "whipped cream" down under).  One of the daughters seemed a little bit perplexed when she heard this, then finally said, "It seems delightful, but so unnecessary.."

Sure, the added sweetness seems nice, but if it's whipped cream you're looking for, doesn't unsweetened get the job done?  If we really stretch the analogy, the added sugar will harm your body in the long run blah blah blah etc etc.

Unfortunately, that's a dangerous road to go down.  Settling for less is never a good thing, and even if you like something, you're good at it, and you're getting paid, it doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a better situation out there which you like more, you're better at, and you could get paid more.  It also doesn't mean that we need to pretend that a situation is something that it isn't.  I'm all for positive attitudes, but it's never good to pretend that you love something just because you're currently doing it.  Finding the positives is a good thing, looking on the bright side is a good thing, but feigning passion always seems to lead to disaster.

One of my recent favorite songs is Doc Pomus, by Ben Folds, namely because of two wonderfully written lyrics (written by Nick Hornby).

1. "Out they pour, the hits and the misses."

2. "He could never be one of those happy cripples / The kind that smile and tell you life's okay."

Good things happen and bad things happen.  That's unavoidable, but what is totally in our control is our reaction to them.  If something comes along to cripple us, we don't have to just sit and take it.  If we're stuck doing something we don't love, we don't just have to stay with the job.  If somebody breaks our heart, we don't just have to feel sorry for ourselves.  If things aren't okay, we need to do something to fix it, to try to find that dream combination of love and skill and support.  It's always there.

The key is finding the right balance.  Just because something is delightful doesn't mean it's unnecessary and just because something is unnecessary doesn't mean we have to settle and pretend it's delightful.  Sometimes it's good to step back and say, "Why am I doing this?  What am I looking to gain?"  At age 60, the American executive and the Mexican fisherman would have had the same life, but life isn't always about destinations.  A lot of the time it's about the journey.

Brothers Need Brothers - Teammates in the Game of Life

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how happy I was that the Mavs had won the NBA Finals, and more specifically, about how cool it was to see a bunch of teams full of foxhole guys reigning on the top of the American sporting world, especially when the most recent "defining moment" of that world was The Decision.  That got me to thinking about how much I miss my teammates, and for the past three weeks I've been sitting on my couch watching videos of my Little League years, spraying cheez whiz straight into my mouth, looking at old pictures of my high school teams, and crying profusely.  However, now that it's all out of my system (but not really), I have time to do other things, like thinking constructively on the issue.

With a few exceptions, all of the friends from high school that I have actively stayed in touch with through my first two years of college are former teammates (about .4 seconds after writing that sentence I realized that there is no such thing as a former teammate).  You see, teammates have a special relationship that can't just be created through any friendship.  Teammates are stuck with each other.  They can't jump ship, they can't choose new teammates, and they can't completely ignore each other.  At least while they're on the field they have to interact in a working unit.

Over the course of a season, or, in the long term, a career, almost every team will hit both a hot streak and a slump, and on a smaller scale there will be hissy fits, incredible personal runs, game-losing screw-ups, game-winning plays, "Did you just see that?" greatness, "Did you just see that?" failures, and everything in between.  Through all of the joy, pain, crap, and mediocrity, you learn to deal with these people in about every different setting imaginable, and the most important part is that, unless you perform the ultimate sacrilege and quit, you're stuck with them for months on end.  I've stayed close with my teammates, even the ones that I wasn't super close to in high school, because I can go to them about any number of scenarios and they will know how to handle my emotional states.  After seeing me spike helmets, perform borderline-flagrant fouls, cuss, laugh, cry, jump with joy, fall to my knees in pain, get injured, hit home runs, strike batters out, give up home runs, strike out at the plate, airball shots, hang my head, stick my chest out, draw charges, argue calls, shove teammates, hug teammates, and punch lockers, it's not that tough to read my feelings after a low GPA, a breakup, or a job offer.  Sports, especially baseball, are based off of locker room chemistry more than I think anybody gives enough credit for anymore, and more than that, it's based on keeping each other even-keel.  The highs can't get too high or you'll come crashing down.  The lows can't get too low or you won't be able to rise out of it.  If one person starts riding these, other people start riding these, and sooner or later you always end up on the bottom, so it's the job of teammates to make pull each other through anything; to tell them to flush a strikeout and move on, to give them a butt-pat after a home run and remind them to move on, to keep the player balanced so the team can be balanced.

What do I miss about sports?  I miss the feel of the dirt, I miss the smell of the grass, I miss seeing curveballs snap into the strikezone, I miss stealing bases, and I miss hitting the ball on the sweet spot, I miss getting playing 32 of 32 minutes, I miss the mixture of pride and exhaustion, but most of all, I miss being on a team and I miss having teammates.

Luckily for me, I have two outstanding brothers.

Over the course of a season, or, in the long term, a career a lifetime, almost every team family will hit both a hot streak have high times and a slump tough times, and on a smaller scale there will be hissy fits, incredible personal runs, game-losing seemingly life-altering screw-ups, game-winning plays moments of personal triumph, "Did you just see that?" greatness, "Did you just see that?" failures, and everything in between.  Through all of the joy, pain, crap, and mediocrity, you learn to deal with these people in about every different setting imaginable, and the most important part is that, unless you perform the ultimate sacrilege and quit, you're stuck with them for months on end forever.  I've stayed close with my teammates, even the ones that I wasn't super close to in high school, brothers, because I can go to them about any number of scenarios and they will know how to handle my emotional states.  After seeing me spike helmets, perform borderline-flagrant fouls, cuss, laugh, cry, jump with joy, fall to my knees in pain, get injured, hit home runs, strike batters out, give up home runs, strike out at the plate, airball shots, hang my head, stick my chest out, draw charges, argue calls, shove teammates, hug teammates, punch lockers, punch them, throw temper tantrums, quit on them, bully them, tattle on them, support them, stand up for them, need them to stand up for me, after riding in cars with me, after waiting for me in the car while I puke away my carsickness, after crossing oceans with me, after insisting that I play one more inning, one more quarter, one more set of downs, after boxing with me, after singing with me, after hugging me, after watching me break down, after watching me exude cockiness, and after living with me for twenty years, it's not that tough to read my feelings after a low GPA, a breakup, or a job offer.  Sports, especially baseball, Families are based off of locker room chemistry more than I think anybody gives enough credit for anymore, and more than that, it's based on keeping each other even-keel.  The highs can't get too high or you'll come crashing down.  The lows can't get too low or you won't be able to rise out of it.  If one person starts riding these, other people start riding these, and sooner or later you always end up on the bottom, so it's the job of teammates brothers to make pull each other through anything; to tell them to flush a strikeout failure and move on, to give them a butt-pat after a home run success and remind them to move on, to keep the player brother balanced so the team family can be balanced.

As Dante Shepherd of SurvivingTheWorld.net so wonderfully states, "Life is a lot like a baseball game - You want your team to win, you want it to be a thriller, you don't want it to be called short on account of nature, and you wouldn't mind if it went into extra innings."  In this game of life, it's nice to have some good teammates.

When I was little, I spent just about every second playing with my brothers.  We'd pull out the Indians and the Orioles lineups and play series after series in the backyard; Michael always spotting me just enough runs to keep me interested but just few enough to still be able to come back.  We'd throw elbows on the cement of the basement basketball court.  We'd check each other into the drywall (the same drywall which I once threw a ping-pong paddle through).  We'd never finish a single game of football without a fight breaking out.  And it couldn't have been more perfect.

When I got to high school, it was Michael who took me under his wing.  I was known as his brother and that wasn't a problem for me.  He'd made a name for himself as hard-working, athletic, good-natured, and, as way too many of my female friends told me, a good looking dude.  He was the one who took me out to the batting cages to hit after school with his teammates.  He was the one who brought me to lift weights and play in open gyms.  He was the one that showed me how much diligence had to be put into school work.

When Stuart got to high school, I tried to do the same thing, and I hope I succeeded.  I feel like I did.  Stuart and I got very close during my senior and his freshman years.  We took care of each other.  That's important.  It's the constant that's held us together through all the years.

Michael and Stuart have been there for me through everything, and not just because they have to (at least I don't think that's why).  When I broke up with my girlfriend of two years, it was Michael who gave me a hug and walked with me, even if I had trouble saying anything.  When my baseball career ended, it was Michael and Stuart who were there to comfort me.  When I got into Notre Dame, they were the ones I wanted to talk to.  When I have philosophical issues, I go to Stuart.  When they lost (Michael coaching, Stuart playing) a mere five wins away from the Little League World Series, I felt like I'd gotten kicked in the stomach too.  They've been there for me for every single second, momentous or mundane, of my entire life, and I know that that will never change.

I brag about my brothers, I'm proud of my brothers, and I love my brothers.  They are my heroes, they are my best friends, and they are rocks that I can build off of.  When I graduate college, they'll be cheering.  When I get engaged, they'll be the first to know.  When my first kid is born, they'll be there to see.  When that kid busts into the Majors they'll be wearing his uniform in the stands next to me.  When I need someone to talk to they'll open up, when I don't want to talk they'll sit and wait with me.  When I want to celebrate they'll be the ones popping the cork and dancing with me, when I want to mourn they'll each have an arm around me.

My brothers and I are stuck together for the rest of our lives, but that doesn't really matter.  After being on the same team for so long, I don't think any of us would ever want to take our talents elsewhere.  You see, we don't even really have a choice.  Having been raised together, having learned to rely on each other, having come to trust each other and wanting to fight for each other and being ready to jump in the foxhole together, trying to operate without each other would be like trying to turn a 6-4-3 double play without two of the players.  And that's what separates brothers from any other type of friend, from any other type of teammate, from any other type of relationship.  That's what makes it special.  One of the more regular readers of this blog (of the 6 or 7 that there are) asked me to write about what it means to be a brother, and I guess that I can't really give a prescription or a recipe for what to do, but I can tell you how I feel towards my brothers and about brothers in general.

Brothers don't just love their brothers.  Brothers don't just appreciate having their brothers around.  Brothers Need Brothers, and will continue to need them for the rest of this infinite ballgame.

Championship Teams

Two things:

1.  Bill Simmons' new site, grantland.com, is excellent.  I strongly recommend reading every article.  And if you don't have time for that, just the ones by Simmons and Klosterman, and if you don't have time for that just the ones by Simmons, and if you don't have time for that, reevaluate your priorities.  Thanks to morebaseball.com for the tip.

Moving on...

2.  While being overpaid to stock shoes this morning, and still reveling in the scent of vanilla, choruses of angels (probably something having to do with Moses), soft summer breeze, and the faint sound of children laughing that have been following me (everybody?  I can't be the only one, right?) since the Mavs beat the Heat, I realized that, although my father didn't accomplish the rare Quadruple Crown of having his favorite teams in the four major sports (Packers, Giants, Bulls, Blackhawks) holding championships, we did have a situation where every title that had been won in the past twelve months was won by teams that prided themselves on their team-first mentalities.

Now, because A) I don't really know enough about hockey to start putting pen to paper on it, and B) all hockey teams seem to be pretty unselfish, we're going to skip over the Blackhawks.  I'm sorry.  That leaves us with, in chronological order, the Giants, the Pack, and the Mavs.


After years of carrying around Barry Bonds in order to score more runs than other teams, the Giants finally felt guilty and decided to make up for it by not scoring any runs in the 2010 season.

Actual Barry Bonds head to body size ratio

That's actually an exaggeration, but the Giants did finish 17th in the majors in runs scored, the lowest of any playoff team.  Instead, they rallied around their pitching, defense, a midget they found on the street named Cody Ross, a hobo living under the Golden Gate Bridge named Brian Wilson, and had a group meeting sometime in late August/early September to decide that they were the best team in the Majors and it would probably be fun to win the World Series.  Try to name a star on that team.  Sure, Wilson was good, but he could only pitch 1/9th of the innings.  Lincecum was solid, but only had a few playoff starts.  Ross hit well.  Juan Uribe had some clutch at-bats.  But get this: Edgar Renteria was the World Series MVP.


Let's let that sink in.


The man is 35, which isn't too old until you think about the fact that he abandoned his amateur status (which they should really give you a card to carry around for) at age 16, in 1992.  The man has a lot of innings under his belt.  The Giants stayed within themselves, played for themselves, believed in themselves, and won.  Outstanding.


The Packers put themselves in a similar boat by sneaking into the playoffs with must-win wins in the last three weeks of the season.  They then proceeded to blow through the playoffs like an invisible shank to Jay Cutler's knee.  They did this all with a total of 80+ missed games due to injuries to Week 1 starters, and then, just for good measure, Charles Woodson and Donald Driver got hurt mid-game.
 

At some point during the year, I'm convinced that Aaron Rodgers just decided that they weren't going to lose anymore, held a meeting, shared his opinion, and everybody cashed in on it, leading to your Super Bowl Champions list including Jordy Nelson and some guy named Brett Swain, who doesn't even have a picture on his Wikipedia page.


Coolest moment of the whole thing though? (Besides that awesome picture of Rodgers and Matthews on the podium that shows before Sportscenter)  The fact that during the post-game interviews, Greg Jennings kept referring to Donald Driver as the Packers No. 1 Receiver, even though Jennings out-received Driver by 25 receptions and 700 yards during the regular season.  Hell, Driver was 4th in yards.  Except it was his team, his receiving core, and that was fine with everybody because of all the intangibles that he had provided.

Yep, that's the one.

And then there are the Mavs.  The wonderful, wonderful Mavs.  Sure they had Dirk, but who else?  Jason Terry?  He didn't even start.  Jason Kidd?  Way past his prime.  There were exactly zero minutes in the series when Dallas had the talent on the floor advantage.  But they won because they decided they were going to win.  The popular opinion is that it happened right after Dwyane Wade knocked down the 3 in front of the Mavs' bench, but who's to say that it didn't happen the second that the tattoo artist finished putting the Larry O'Brien Trophy on Jason Terry's arm.  Everybody was watching Lebron James last summer while Dirk & Co. re-signed and got better.  I'm convinced that at some point, the Mavs were walking out of practice and somebody said, "Let's win the Finals," and that was it.  It was done.


Simmons really hit the nail on the head in his retro-diary of Game 6.  In his second-to-last paragraph he says, "When Dirk briefly disappeared under the arena after the final buzzer, presumably to cry and collect himself, it was the most genuine sports moment of the year. He barely made it, you could see him choking up. LeBron would have done it at midcourt in front of everyone, partly for effect, and maybe that's one of the biggest differences between them right now. You play basketball for you and your teammates, not for everyone else."

That last sentence really hits home with me.  There's something about being on a team, a true team, that is absolutely impossible to replace with anything else.  "You play basketball for you and your teammates, not for everyone else."

Although I didn't think about this at the time, looking back, it seems like the three teams that I talked about played without even realizing that there were people in the stands.  As anybody who has ever played on a team with real chemistry knows, there's something special about that bond.  You go through bad stuff together, you celebrate good stuff together, and you get to know each other better than you know just about anybody.  My teammates and my coaches have taught me that if you're going into a foxhole, you don't always want the most talented, but you do want people who are going to fight like hell until the bitter end.  You want people who won't let themselves lose and won't let you lose.  These teams did that.

My favorite teammates

These guys proved to themselves and to their teammates that they were the best.  There's a reason that announcers say that teams "shock the world," but nobody has ever claimed to be shocked themselves after a solid win.  They always know.  They always believe.  These three teams firmly believed that they were the greatest teams in the world, and they set out to, and did, verify it.

Reflections

Last night was frustrating for me.  Seeing the Bulls lose was tough, but in all honesty an NBA Championship was a stretch this year.  D-Rose can only do so much (especially when he stops getting the ball to Luol in the 4th), and the team still needs to mature and figure out their identity.  Yes, watching a thirteen point lead disappear in a matter of seconds was tough, but what was even worse was watching Lebron James flop, cry, bitch, and bullshit his way through that basketball game.

Before I get the "you hate him because he's the best" argument, I'll admit a few things:
1. Yes, he's the best player in the NBA.  Not the most valuable to his team, but absolutely the best.
2. He's an adult and can play wherever he wants to play.  He technically didn't owe Cleveland (home of your Major League Best Indians!) anything.

There.  That's out of the way.  Please wait a few minutes while I go confess to my sins of appreciating a douche bag.

While you wait, please notice: A. The score, B. Lebron being a baby, C. Dwyane Wade being embarrassed by Lebron's bitchiness

Thanks for waiting. 

The reason that Lebron James will never be better than Michael Jordan, will never be more valuable than Kobe Bryant, and will eventually get eclipsed by Derrick Rose and countless others is his inability to take responsibility for anything.  He is 26 years old and an 8 year NBA vet, but if you were to ask him, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear him claim that none of his 1,233 career NBA fouls should have been called, and that none of his teams' 249 regular season losses were his fault.

That being said, I do think that Lebron James Game 5 performance was one of the most important of all time.  Important in that every young athlete, before being allowed to compete in Little League, YMCA Basketball, Pop Warner football, or Mite hockey, must be required to watch James' reactions, his flops, and his "look at me" celebrations.  If any of those kids ever do anything similar to what he did in that game, they should be banned from all competition for the rest of their lives.

Kobe Bryant is out to beat people.  Michael Jordan went out to humiliate people.  Derrick Rose is out to prove himself, and is humble enough to realize that he hasn't accomplished anything yet.  Lebron James is out to make people watch him.  He's not a competitor, he's an entertainer.  Give him a Globetrotters uniform.

*******

On a related note, is there anything worse than watching a sporting event that you're extremely invested in with someone who is cheering for the same outcome but is less invested than you are?  "Young William," I hear you ask, "Are you talking about watching the Bulls with your mother?"

"Yes."

If you can't be with thousands of others cheering with you, sometimes the next best thing is to be absolutely alone.  I was forced to leave my lucky chair in the family room after I was reprimanded by more than one person for reacting negatively to the flagrant foul called on Carlos Boozer (his first good defensive play of the series, also, clearly not a flagrant.  He went for the ball, he made contact with the ball, he fouled in the process.  He was forced to foul due to the angle of the drive.  The NBA rulebook (No. 12, Part B, Section IV a.) states that a flagrant foul is called when there is "unnecessary" contact.  Boozer's contact to James was necessary), leaving the much lower quality basement TV, a much less comfy chair, but much more inner peace as I could watch the game as I saw fit.  This obviously wasn't ideal, so I propose the following:

We really need two separate airings of big games.  That way, the more invested fans can watch, scream, and cry in peace, and then let the more casual fans see everything (maybe even condensed into a one hour special) later on that night.  ESPN, let's talk.

Who needs elbows anyway

I don't normally just talk about sports on their own.  In fact, I don't know if I ever have, but this deserves some recognition.

Rajon Rondo just returned to a game in which the Celtics had an 18 point lead after sustaining a dislocated elbow a few minutes earlier.

I'll give you a little time to comprehend that.

More time.

Still haven't fully understood the magnitude of that?  Me neither.

This is shades of Billingsley in the Astrodome in the Texas State Championship, shades of Mary Lou Retton, shades of Paul Pierce.  My goodness.  I went through a period of not loving the NBA, not trusting the NBA, not wanting to be a fan, but that has all just disappeared.  For me, the NBA just went back into the category of "Sports My Grandfather Would Be Proud Of" along with baseball, hockey, pre-concussion rules NFL, and boxing.

I have no reason to be proud of Rajon Rondo, the Boston Celtics, or the NBA, but the fact that David Stern isn't rigging anything anymore, The Lakers losing to the Mavs Kobe losing to Dirk, and the concept of somebody doing something as gutsy as this in GAME 3 OF THE SEMIFINALS is unreal.  Last summer, the Heat LeBron James did something that everybody knew was against every rule in the masculinity book.  He pulled the ol' I'm a testicleless pussy "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" card, and took his bitchass talents to South Beach.  It was the saddest thing to happen in professional sports since Cliff Lee started against CC Sabathia in the World Series.

Except it was the greatest thing too.

Nobody else wanted to be LeBron James.  You could feel loyalty exploding from players, from fans, from coaches, from Carmelo Anthony, from GMs, from Dan Gilbert.  Derrick Rose decided that he was going to be the best player in the NBA and he did it.  Paul Pierce called out James from the start of the season, and then everybody dropped the gloves.  Pretty soon LeBron is throwing elbows at his coach, everybody realizes that Chris Bosh is a fake, GMs started trading again, the Bulls win without a single supporting castmember for Rose while Boozer and Noah are out, Blake Griffin is so good that he gets Baron Davis to play well again for a while, and everybody pretty much decides to create the best NBA season in recent memory (ever?).

We had an awesome first round.  Chris Paul balled again, Tyler Hansbrough proved that he's not a slouch (for now), Shane Battier finally beat his old Texas rivals once he got out of Texas, and the Knicks got smoked when Karma-elo finally came around.  Now this?  Down 2-0, the Celtics not only pull ahead by 10 in the third, but then EXTEND THE LEAD when their point guard goes down with a nasty injury.

AND THEN HE COMES BACK IN.

I didn't see this live, only online, but in my head I've romanticized this to follow the script from Miracle where Herb Brooks chews out Jack O'Callahan for being injured, except this time Ronjo is the one chewing out the trainer.

Rondo: "What the hell is wrong with you?? Pop it back in!"
Rondo: "I said pop it back in!!"
Trainer: "But it's dislocated.  You can't play."
Rondo: "Yeah, I know.  My bones aren't in the joints.  You know what, back off, I'll do it myself.  I've got no time for quitters."
Doc Rivers: "Come on Rajon, nobody's quitting here."
Rondo: "You worry about coaching this series.  There's plenty there to keep you busy!"

Then he pops it back in and goes and checks himself in at the scorer's table.

If you're the Heat, how do you react to this.  Not only has a Rondoless Boston team just extended the lead on you by 8 points, but now he's coming back in?  With his adrenaline raging?  In front of the one of the top two fan bases in all of sports?  Would it be okay to just forfeit and hope that Game 4 went better?

I've heard theories (that I think I believe) that LeBron James would have stayed in Cleveland if he would have had a father figure in his life.  The father's role is generally to stress hard work, loyalty, perseverance, etc, while the mother has historically been the one who comes in and makes you feel better after pops bitches you out.  They're the "do what makes you feel best, don't worry about what you're expected or relied on to do" people.  (In general).  So when LeBron was frustrated in Cleveland (home of your first place Indians!), LeMama finished with Delonte, rolled out of bed, and told BronBron to go have fun and take the easy way out as long as it would make it happy!  Yay!

Before you hit me with the "what about the Big 3 in Boston?" argument, listen to this.  Allen and Garnet were in terrible situations where they weren't going to win titles anytime soon.  They were past their primes, trying to get one last shot in.  The Cavs had been close.  LeBron was without a doubt one of the top two players in the league, without a doubt most valuable, and Dan Gilbert was bringing in talent to try to get him a title.  LeBron James was in control.  All he needed to do was stick it out, but he didn't.

If you had to pick a group of five dudes that I wouldn't want to piss off, it would be Rajon Rondo (always looks like he's going to kill somebody, scrappy as hell), Paul Pierce (survived a knife fight), Shaq (big, produced a rap album, meaning that he's probably a thug), Kevin Garnett (does anybody know what's going on in his mind?), and Ray Allen (but only because of his dad Jake Shuttlesworth).  The Heat won those first two games in Miami, but then went into the Boston Garden, House of Legends, of Bird and Parish and McHale and Havlicek, of 17 Championships.  Then, they have to mess with a just-hurt-enough-where-he-can-play-but-it-hurts-like-hell-and-he's-out-for-blood Team Engine (similar to MJ's flu game).  Uh oh.

It was clearly set up by whoever is in charge that the Celtics, everybody's least favorite team to play, were given rival New York, led by Anthony, and then huge rival Miami, led by the world's biggest narcissist.

Blue-collar city vs Prima Donna city.  The Old Guard vs two and a half of the best players of the next generation.  Reigning champs of the East vs the challengers.  And Boston even spotted the Heatles two games and a 10 to 9 arm advantage.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that the NBA is as much fun as ever.