In the Win Column

Music and sports have been indelibly linked together since the beginning of …well since the beginning of music and sports. This relationship dates all the way back to the ancient days of Medieval competition when there were trumpet players who played trumpets with flags hanging from them. Or at least this is what I learn from going to Medieval Times. Now, we can’t help but be surrounded by music whenever we attend a sporting event or watch it on TV. In baseball, each player has his own personal song selections to be played whenever he comes to the plate, as well as closers who have their own song for when they emerge from the bullpen. It helps establish a sense of identity, of purpose (and it also serves as a way to debate which closer the song “Enter Sandman” really belongs to). Basically, what I’m trying to say is that music is often a big part of sports. We know this – and we also know that fans love to sing. Whether their team is losing or winning, fans love to make up songs that resemble other songs and sing very loudly. Sometimes they’ll start on their own, and sometimes they’re helped along by the organ player, such as the “Potvin Sucks” chant (I’m looking at you, Rangers fans).

I love music almost as much as I love sports, which explains why I love the moments in a sporting event when music can be used in the most perfect and opportune ways. I tear up a little when I watch Whitney Houston performing the national anthem before Super Bowl XXV and I get happier than any person should be allowed to get whenever I hear fans start the “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, GOOOOOOODBYE” chant at the end of games. I don’t know what it is exactly, but for some reason I get all giddy whenever I hear it. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a game on TV between two teams I could care less about, but when I start to hear that chant at the end of a game, some switch is flipped on inside me and I can’t help but think, “This is why I love sports.”

Before I get all sentimental on you for another 10,000 words, let me cut to the point of what #100 on this list is about. As I hinted at in the previous paragraph, it is none other than the seminal 1969 song, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by the seminal fictional band of the ’60’s, Steam. Most people don’t know that Steam was in fact a fictional band. They didn’t exist. At all. The song was actually written by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer. It’s okay if you don’t know who any of these people are, because I sure as hell don’t. But what I do know, is that this little song that they penned together in the great year of 1969, would continue to live on in stadiums and arenas around the world a good 40 years after it was conceived, with no end in sight. 1969; the year of Joe Namath’s guarantee and the year of the Amazin’ Mets and the year of “One small step for man…” and the year that Ryan Adams bought his first real six-string at the Five and Dime and played it ’til his fingers bled, was a year that also brought along a song that would serve as an anthem for sports fans for years to come. An anthem for saying goodbye to a hated rival, whether it be during a deciding playoff game or when a player gets ejected for throwing an elbow at your point guard’s jaw.

It’s the sound of 20,000 people, 50,000 people, even 70,000 people singing along, the haunting tune carried upwards and out into the air that hangs about the playing field, that seems to give me the chills; a unique kind of chills. And under certain circumstances, the power of this moment is amplified exponentially. For example, during a crucial Game 7 of a playoff series (extra points for the World Series, NBA Finals or Stanley Cup). When your team is about to close out the series and advance, or better yet, win a title, and you’re watching the clock, willing it to move faster and the chant erupts, first from the upper levels and then moves like an avalanche until it envelopes the whole stadium in an infectious roar. That’s a great moment. Or how about when the chant is started in the opposing team’s house? When all the hometown faithful have left and the visitors are the only ones remaining. The Giants played the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay for a Wild Card playoff game in January 2008 during their Super Bowl run. With the Giants up 24-14 and the clock winding down, Raymond James Stadium was emptied of all the Bucs fans and suddenly the 10,000+ diehard Giants fans that made the trip to South Florida were left in a sea of blue and as the chant started, Ahmad Bradshaw walked towards the south endzone and raised his arms to the crowd and it felt like a home game. It felt like home, like I was standing in Giants Stadium again, and it’s the little things like this that remind me why I love sports so much. It’s the championships and the adrenaline and the camaraderie, but it’s also the little things in between that you don’t usually take the time to notice or appreciate. That’s what this list is about. The little things that you can only notice if you really pay attention. And sometimes these little things can be as simple as a Steam song from 1969. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

And I bet that’s the first time someone has ever written 1,000 words about Steam. But I could be wrong…

I would have never guessed that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs back in 2003. Never in my wildest dreams. I mean, if you look at David Ortiz’s stats from 2000-2003 (the first three seasons where he started at least 100 games), the numbers just scream Power Hitter. So it’s only a natural progression. Just look: 2000, he hit 10 home runs and drove in 63 runs in 130 games. In 2001, 18 homers and 48 RBI’s in half a season, and in 2002, 20 home runs and 75 RBI’s in 125 games. Then in 2003, suddenly he’s a 30 home run hitter. Thirty-one homers and 101 runs batted in. In 2004, the Sox Championship season, Ortiz homered 41 times and drove in 139 runs. Now you can argue that this statistical leap can be owed to the fact that Ortiz was batting behind Ramirez. In his six seasons in Minnesota, Ortiz never batted behind a hitter like Ramirez (apparently the steroids never made it up to the Great White North). But nevertheless, the statistical jump is impossible to ignore. You’re gonna tell me, with a straight face, that going from hitting 10, 18 and 20 home runs to hitting 41, 47 and 54 home runs (his totals from 2004-2006) is a normal progression? Basically what I’m trying to say is that no one should be the least bit suprised by this revelation. The guy gained about 30 pounds and started hitting balls to Lansdowne Street, and we’re supposed to look the other way and accept it as normal.

Now we already now about Manny, it’s old news. Yes, he just tested positive and finished serving a 50-game suspension. He still has skeptics on his back and now he has to deal with tests from 2003. But we’re not surprised by this either. So if we’re not suprised by this, if this makes sense to us, than why are we continuing to act like our world is being shattered every time another name leaks? The late Ken Caminiti (may he rest in peace) had already told Sports Illustrated, years ago, that at least half of the league was using performance-enhancing drugs.  Jose Canseco made similar allegations. Of course everyone takes his claims with a grain of salt (or a whole ocean’s worth of salt) because it seems that Canseco might be a few blades short of a lawnmower, but regardless, there have been enough big names already linked to steroids that how can we possibly, as fans, sit here and not grow suspicious of just about every major star we’ve followed in the last 10-15 years. Barry Bonds, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, and the list goes on.

It’s time for us to accept, as baseball fans, that this is the way the game was played in the last decade. We can almost come to the conclusion that no one has had a distinct advantage because of the sheer number of players who were juicing. Like the dead-ball era, this has simply been another phase that professional baseball has gone through, and will hopefully bounce back from. There’s no doubt that the allure of the home run brought baseball back from the edge of despair following the 1994 strike. I have no doubt that there is still hope for baseball to redeem itself from this ordeal. The asterisks are something we will look back on not with fondness or with disgust, but with an understanding of where the sport has gone and where it’s headed in the future.

With hundreds of more names still to be revealed, the only thing left for baseball to do is to look ahead to the future of the game and work on protecting the game’s integrity moving forward; there’s simply no use in dwelling on past mistakes anymore. The more we argue about who’s stats are tainted and which teams’ championships are tainted, the more we remain stagnant and stuck in a muddled past full of mistakes and regrets. It’s time to move on, baseball (and hope that Pujols’ name never appears on a list – he’s our only hope now).

Whether it’s a cruel punishment inflicted on sports fans for no reason or some kind of alternate parallel universe opened in the space-time continuum by Biff stealing Marty’s sports betting book, the past few weeks have been a bizarro-world retread of the last two summers’ most irritating sports stories.  Two years ago I distinctly remember being assaulted with constant wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Vick Incident. Nauseatingly repetitive coverage that was probably more torture than that which was inflicted on the poor dogs he was accused of killing. But he went to jail, the Falcons still suck, and whatever.

Last summer, with Vick starting his own prison team like Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard, the talking heads on Around the Horn needed something else to wring their hands over, so they picked Brett Favre’s anti-retirement journey. Thank God that Brett is about as indecisive as a fat kid staring down the Dollar Menu, because we were gifted a solid 4 weeks of following around the *Legendary Quarterback* like he was our first middle school crush. Eventually the drama died out and the New York Bretts were invented and this gray-bearded 39-year old gunslinger tricked half of Long Island and Queens into actually thinking that they were cheering for a good team for about 11 weeks before he remembered that he was in fact really a gray-bearded 39 year old silhouette of his former self and tanked the last 5 weeks of the season worse than the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

So entering this summer, yours truly could only imagine what the sports world would throw at us this time. What lovely turds would they drop on our doorstep in a flaming paper bag? How about Lance Armstrong tests positive for elephant steroids? Nope. Michael Phelps smoking pot? Shit, did that already. So you can imagine my confusion (and amazement!) when I woke up one morning and opened espn.com on my iPhone 3G from AT&T (unnecessary product plug #1) to find out that Brett Favre, the *Legendary Quarterback* wanted to play football again. Like a kid throwing a tantrum because his mommy made him leave his friends to come in and eat dinner, poor Brett felt left out again. HE JUST WANTS TO PLAY, GODDAMNIT, said everyone. And so who would the lucky team be this time? The Vikings? HE WANTS TO PLAY THE PACKERS TWICE A YEAR, everyone said, HE WANTS REVENGE!!!! Oh I get it. Excuse me one second while I staple my hand to my face. How could I be so naive? He just wants to get back at Green Bay for mistreating him. Right? No. Not everything is about you, Brett. I’m sorry you don’t realize this, but Green Bay was ready to move on from an old guy that threw up wounded-duck pseudo-Hail Mary’s everytime he ran out of options and threw more interceptions in his career than any other quarterback EVER. It wasn’t personal, it’s just that Aaron Rodgers got less action in 4 years than I did through all of high school and they didn’t want their #1 draft pick to rot on the bench. It was time.

But I digress. So now Brett has the Vikings hanging on his every move for 2 months while they’re supposed to be preparing for the 2009 season and choosing between Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte to be their QB 1 (yikes!) and now here you come with your media circus and your Southern twang. If that wasn’t enough, (and trust me, it was) we also get, as a package deal, Michael Vick, Round 2! AWESOME! Now he’s out of prison and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t want a job in the NFL again. “PLAYING FOOTBALL IN THE NFL IS A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT” says Vick and we’re supposed to sympathize with him now. I get it. Will he play or will Goodell suspend him??? I’m on the edge of my seat. So I’m on vacation again, which is where I usually am when these stories unfold, and I’m checking the flux capacitor to make sure I’m in the right year, as the best of (more like worst of) the past few summers’ sports stories replay themselves like a montage in a bad 80’s movie.

As enthralled as I have been to follow this thrilling coverage, I’m reluctant to say that yesterday Favre decided to stay retired (for now) and on Monday, Goodell handed down a conditional reinstatement to Vick, essentially allowing him to play in the league again by Week 6, if he can find a team that can tolerate the thousands of rabid PETA protesters that will likely picket outside of every game he starts from now on.

Maybe in a few years we can look forward to “BRETT FAVRE! MICHAEL VICK! IT’S SUPER BOWL XLV ON FOX!!!”