Oh, 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.
“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 deep Truth about humans and events. The craving for narrative is fundamental to the species, not to sports fans.
Don’t detach, brother. Grieve. We’ve suffered an enormous loss. Me, I’m hurting like a motherfucker, and I’ve got to tell you: It’s hard for me to truly give a shit about what’s left of the Cavaliers.
“Embrace the strategy and the game” is a lovely thought, and maybe — somewhere like Southern California — it denotes a healthy psychic relationship with pro sports. But it’s a funny prescription coming from the guy who made Cavs: The Blog such a great place to hang. I’m not saying you didn’t focus on strategy and the game. I’m saying that that focus was subordinate to some very specific, very passionate, often thrilling storylines.
Now? Not so much. Now, “the game is the game.” Next, maybe: Cavs: The Tautology.
^ 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.
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!
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 us the more interesting story. I myself am frankly sick of the black and white BS that ESPN continuously pumps out, and that is one of the major reasons I like to come around here. Both for your perspective and for the views of many of the people who’ve been commenting here the last few years.
And remember, we are allowed to feel like this for a little while, no matter what ESPN, out-played narratives, or newly minted Heat fans have to say.
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 have NOTHING to do with the result. The whole thing is morphed into a story that usually doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, they miss the stuff that WOULD be cool to notice, like why a formation consistently forces a LB out of position, or the amazing play of some guard that sprung two gamebreaking runs. BUT NO, we need to keep hearing about Joe the MLBs completely ordinary play because he was a Key to The Game (TM).
Another obvious example is NASCAR. As someone who’ll occasionally watch a race (or at least the last 30 laps), the amount of manufactured storylines is nearly farcical. Wrecks turn into multi-week or even multi-season feuds. Jeff won this race in 1997, he knows how to get around here. Here comes Danica, let’s shove her down your throat even though she’s dead last.
And this stuff happens everywhere. PTI is essentially “Let’s turn everything into storytime!” Announcers get picked for how well they can shove narratives (and product pitches) into games.
The best announcing I’ve heard in years was during the World Cup. They were informative, pithy, and mostly just knew when to shut up. It was amazing. Everyone I know loved them (logical fallacy alert).
Anyway, this got a bit angrier than I wanted, but the “everything has a storyline” philosophy dumbs down the actual sporting event and often feels manufactured or just plain lazy. And it turns things that HAVE a bit of a narrative into a feeding frenzy because the “how’s it going to end?” question hooks casual viewers like LOST or other TV series do, and every bit of minutiae plays into that story.
So yeah, bring on the games. I’m actually excited to see the Cavs. I want to see what their offense looks like and if they can compete. And hey, if they’re bad, cheaper tickets and fewer casual fans cheering harder for chalupas and t-shirt tosses than good plays. I can live with that.
Wow, tl;dr indeed.
Apologies.
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 now. And I believe that it’s only going to get moreso. I’ve thought a lot about the whole shebang down at the Q — the intro in particular. It was reprehensible in many ways to this old boy, but man, it was thrilling if you had spent as many nights as I did in the $1 seats at the Arena watching Bill Fitch coach a bunch of stiffs. Everything about it — the video, the music, the lights, the belching fire — made me smile and laugh out loud with joy.
You don’t need me to tell you that it isn’t going to feel that way again for a while, maybe ever. And I don’t need you to tell me to get over it. Eventually, I will. Not yet.
Anyway, enough. I’ll just add that I did’t mean to sound offended by JK’s initial post, or condescending by calling him “kid.” But I’m 58 years old and I’ve been writing for a living for a long time — yeah, for Esquire the past twelve years; thanks for the compliment — and a talent like John Krolik’s doesn’t come around every day.
I agree, and I hope John realizes you unloaded because you feel he’s worth it.
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 is huge as long as someone smart is making the basketball decisions. The Cavs seem willing to spend, if they spend smartly, they should be able to turn it around (Note: assumes the CBA doesn’t change the structure of the league, which it will).
I’m getting off my main point, which is that I think things will be alright once they start playing games again. All of this existential angst will mostly disappear, and we’ll have on-court happenings to talk about again. The people who were only watching for the spectacle will disappear until the Cavs win 60 again. The rest of us will be here, talking about hilariously insignificant 10-day contract players, trade exceptions, and all of the other things that people like me are invariably driven to argue about.
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 LeBron, you know just the national exposure and the great feeling that comes with knowing your team is relevant and on the map! That was new for Cleveland but like always the rug was pulled from under us and it’s back to being just another team again. And this plays into the narrative of Cleveland sports. Everytime a Browns, Cavs, or Indians game is on nationally, which will pretty much be never for a while, the announcers can talk about 1964 and flash pictures of The Shot, The Drive, The Fumble, The Red Sox collapse, and now LeBron in a Heat uniform to rub in the point. LeBron gave us a chance to get rid of that, but like usual in Cleveland he bailed without a championship. It sucks but there is your Cleveland narrative. What I am curious to hear is if some secrets will eventually be revealed about this past Cavs team. What the hell really happened? Delonte and Gloria? The elbow? Shaq killing the morale? Darth Riley and DWade hanging out behind the scenes getting in LeBron’s ear? LeBron just being flat-out intimidated by Garnett, Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed? I think some stuff is bound to come out, especially now that LeBron isn’t sheltered by the Cavs anymore.
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!