Stillman Wanted a Championship
Posted on February 9, 2007
Stillman had spent a lifetime waiting for a championship, and when it finally came, he barely noticed because he was too busy dying. When the first baseman— his first baseman, the one whose jersey he’d worn for years, the one whose trading card was worth hundreds of dollars, the one he’d loved as desperately as he’d ever loved anyone—gloved a slow grounder and trotted to the bag to record the final out, the city erupted as one, a simultaneous civic orgasm.
Stillman didn’t feel the city’s collective shudder because he sat slumped against his bathroom wall, his head dangling limply over the toilet, a thin line of vomit stretching from his lip into the water. Without furniture or a TV—almost everything was either repossessed or broken—his apartment felt cavernous in the silence; the sound of his retching echoed through the rooms. While the team mobbed each other on the field, Stillman cried from the pain—his tongue burning from the bile and his stomach twisted like a rag being squeezed dry. Tears plopped into the toilet and swirled downward when he tried to flush the smell away.
Outside, neighbors banged pans together and howled at the moon. They hugged strangers and gave each other beers. They toasted their heroes and re-affirmed their faith in god. Outside, somewhere, was his son.
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Filed Under TMC, Baseball | 2 Comments
The Worst Thing About Watching Your Father Stab Himself to Death
Posted on February 3, 2007
On the soccer field, he was alone, but he was never lonely. Like a monk deep in meditation, a Buddhist perched beneath the Bodhi tree, he crouched between goalposts, an 8 foot by 8 yard sanctuary that no one could violate. Every step an opponent took inside the box, even a toe across the 18, was a threat that had to be warded off by any means necessary.
He’d been described, by various terrible writers, as a whirling dervish, an unstoppable force, a madman in a technicolor dreamcoat. He’d been an inspirational story, a cautionary tale, and a flash-in-the-pan, sometimes all at once. The pain of loss, one writer said, was etched on his face, carved into the premature wrinkles around his grey eyes and evident in the military set of his jaw as he assaulted a sailing corner kick.
Eventually, the terrible writers from the local papers were overtaken by mediocre writers from the national papers. They flocked to Northeast Philly to pimp his pain and fill the void of human interest stories, left by a lull between runaway brides and dead American girls in Aruba. For a week, he was the human interest story, the kid whose father had stabbed himself in the thigh during a meth binge and bled to death on the couch, and whose mother was dying of AIDS in a prison cell. A great story, a real American tragedy—the confluence of drugs, violence, and sex in a crumbling city. If only he were black; then they could really push it to the next level.
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Filed Under TMC, Soccer | 3 Comments
The International Government Football League: Emails from Donald Rumsfeld to George W. Bush
Posted on February 2, 2007
July 4th, 2003
Subject: International Governmental Football League
From: Donald Rumsfeld [mightybombjack@whitehouse.gov]
To: George W. Bush [JesusSon@whitehouse.gov]
Mr. President,
The UN has approved our proposal of establishing the International Governmental Football League (IGFL) as an alternate means of settling diplomatic disputes. The rules are as follows:
1. Kofi Annan will act as Commissioner, unless we can persuade David Stern to leave the NBA.
2. All nations must field a team comprised of, and coached by, government employees. Even some rogue factions—Iraq and Al Qaeda, for example—have agreed to join the league.
3. We will play a 10 game season, followed by a 10-team playoff. Teams will not enter the playoffs based on won-loss records, but rather playoff seeding will be determined by a complex computer ranking system that takes into account fifty-eight carefully chosen factors, including: quality of victory, team colors, attractiveness of cheerleaders, strength of schedule, average yards per punt, number of Hail Mary passes completed, number of flea-flickers run, and an international text message poll.
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Filed Under TMC, Football, International Sport | 2 Comments
The Passion of Matt Millen
Posted on February 2, 2007
Sunday afternoon in December, and Ford Field was empty. Matt stood at midfield, scanning the seats for signs of life. Usually there were at least a few people in the stands, some wearing brown bags on their heads and others wearing blue t-shirts lettered in silver with “Fire Millen!” Others would sit glumly, slumped forward so drastically and so sadly that you could only see the tops of their heads and the backs of their XXL Sanders jerseys. And most weeks, there were opposing fans too. Those idiots in the cheeseheads were always there. And those bratwurst sucking fatties from Chicago—Matt hated them more than anyone (more, even, than that backstabbing Johnnie Morton) with their copycat mustaches and their Butkus jerseys and their jowly cheering for a team that never even had a good wide receiver, despite being around since at least 1961. Probably even longer than that, Matt thought. Like, 60 years longer. Matt shook his head and limped toward the sideline; this was no time to get caught up in details—there was a game to be played, and no one was in the stadium.
Cringing, Matt took a seat on the visitor’s bench. It hurt to sit, but it hurt even more to stand. His knees were so bad that he’d had an elevator installed in his house. Sure, it was a rancher, but it was nice to have an elevator anyway, just in case they ever added a second floor. Then no one would be laughing, and he’d never let anyone get on his elevator with him. Until then, the elevator was only good for lining up at the opposite end of the hallway, having someone press the Close Door button, and racing to get in before the door shut on him. He always won.
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