The magical run of the Royals

The Kansas City Royals are in the World Series. Repeat after me. The freakin' Kansas City Royals are in the World Series.

No, it's not the 1980s. George Brett isn't playing third base and nearly hitting .400 for the season. Dan Quisenberry isn't saving games with his submarine delivery. Willie Wilson isn't stealing bases and flying around the outfield. Don Denkinger is nowhere to be seen. But somehow, someway, the Kansas City Royals have made it back to the World Series for the first time in 29 years.

What's going on? How did a team with a low payroll, a team that's been synonymous with failure for nearly thirty years, a team that was barely playing .500 baseball at the All Star Break, reach baseball's pinnacle? A combination of factors.

The first is that it seems we are now truly in the post-steroid era. Offensive numbers have been down across the board in baseball, which means that good pitching (especially relief pitching), great defense, great execution and timely hitting can take a team far in a limited number of games. And it means that a team that hit the fewest home runs in baseball can beat a team that hit the most home runs if they do everything else right. So far, the Royals have been doing everything right.

The second factor is that a number of players on this team are getting hot at the right time. The term "small sample size" is often used in sports, especially baseball, to deride players who play well in short spurts but get exposed with more playing time. Nearly every player has a 2-3 week stretch where they play above the mean, where every hit finds a gap. That might not account for much in a 162-game season. But when it happens in October, it's magical.

Let's look at some have the players who've shined for the Royals this postseason. There's Mike Moustakas, who hit .212 for the year with 15 home runs, and was sent to the minors in May after a terrible start to the season. He's hit 4 home runs during the postseason, in addition to playing spectacular defense. Outfielder Lorenzo Cain hit .533 in the series against the Orioles. First baseman Eric Hosmer, a .270 hitter during the season, has hit .448 in the playoffs. If you believe in the concept of clutch performance, then these guys are clutch. Or they just have just fantastic timing.

Then there's the bunting. Oh, the bunting. Baseball fans in general are in two camps on bunting: there are those who hate the idea of giving up an out to advance a runner (and will show you the statistics to prove it's a bad idea), and those who believe that finding any way you can to push a run across home plate is perfectly acceptable. Ned Yost likes to bunt, even when he's got a guy hitting over .500 at the plate. And while not every sacrifice has worked for the Royals this postseason, many have. Again, they're making the most of a small sample size. You can call it small ball, call it boring, call it terrible strategy. But the Royals have yet to lose in the playoffs.

Whatever happens in the World Series, this is a great story for baseball. Yes, the Royals are proving that a small market team that has no big-name stars and a manageable payroll can go far. That should give hope to every fan of  small-market teams. But all the stars have to align. In the big picture, the statistics still show that in baseball, spending equals winning. Maybe what we're seeing this year is an anomaly. If it is, we should all enjoy it while it lasts.

Requiem for a lost season

  
There's a certain ennui to the waning days of the baseball season, particularly when a team has long lost hope of making the postseason. The crowds thin out, the buzz that accompanies the early weeks of the season is gone, the players are just trying to make it to the end of the season without getting hurt. Nearly everyone involved—the players, the fans, the coaches—want it to be over with, but they also want to see things end on a positive note. To send everyone into the gloom of winter with the promise of light and warmth. Nowhere is this more true than in Minnesota.

It's been a rough stretch for the Minnesota Twins and their fans. They've just finished their fourth straight season of 90-plus losses, once again came in last in the American League Central, and they don't appear close to turning the corner. They don't pitch well, they don't hit well, they don't field well. They're not particularly fun to watch, and they have little personality. They're not lovable losers. They're not a team of former champions whose time has passed. They're not a team of talented youngsters exhibiting growing pains but on the verge of greatness. They're just a bad baseball team.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 2010, after nearly three decades of playing in the sterile confines of the Metrodome, the Twins moved to their new outdoor ballpark in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Outdoor baseball was back, frigid northern weather be damned. The timing of Target Field's opening was fortuitous, as the Twins were in the midst of a run of success that had seen them win eight AL Central crowns in ten years. This after they had been mentioned as possible candidates for contraction. Much like the Moneyball Oakland As, the Twins were seen as a small market success story, a team that had built its success on developing players and managing its payroll wisely.

At the center of this success were the M&M boys, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Mauer, Minnesota born and bred, was on his way perhaps to becoming the greatest offensive catcher of all time. He was coming off an MVP season and had already won three batting titles. Morneau, also a former MVP, had established himself as one of the more formidable sluggers in the game. They were surrounded by solid young veterans Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel, and the Paul Bunyon-esque slugger Jim Thome. Their pitching was strong from top to bottom, despite not having a true ace. Their defense was solid.

Most of all, what they had going for them was "the Twins way," a term that has been uttered with much derision the past few years. What was the Twins way? Playing solid fundamental baseball, taking advantage of every opportunity, not beating themselves with dumb mistakes. Twins hitters got hits with men on base, the fielders didn't commit many errors, and the pitchers pitched to contact because they trusted their fielders to catch the ball. While this style of play never got the Twins to the World Series, it did win them much admiration.

That success, combined with their beautiful new outdoor ballpark, made the Twins the hottest ticket in town. Target Field was the place to be on a summer night in Minneapolis. It didn't really matter how well the Twins were playing, or that hitting home runs in the new park was a bit of a challenge. There was beer, food, people watching and warm weather. Sure, half the people in the crowd weren't watching, but who cared. It was a party.

The party ended, at least on the field, in 2011. One year into a massive eight-year, $184 million contract, Joe Mauer was felled by a mystery ailment that doctors with the team described as "bilateral leg weakness." Justin Morneau, who had suffered a concussion in 2010, continued to feel the affects of that concussion and was not the same player. A pitching staff that at one point had seemed to have several members capable of being aces was exposed as having none. Ill-conceived trades brought in players not familiar with the Twins Way. The fundamentals disappeared. The party in the stands went on, but on the field an era was ending.

It's a Wednesday night in mid-September at Target Field, and the buzz has faded. The 64-87 Twins are taking on the mighty Detroit Tigers, who are in a fight with the Kansas City Royals for the division crown. Target Field is maybe a third full, as fans soak up the dying days of summer. It's about 70 degrees at game time, but as the sun goes down you can feel autumn creeping in. It's a gorgeous night. I keep thinking of this song.

Try to remember the kind of September

when life was slow and oh so mellow

The fans around me show varying degrees of interest in the game. Behind me, a man talks to his son about his carpal tunnel syndrome. It could be the way he's holding his mouse. He also might need new glasses, because the HR person says his prescription could be affecting the angle at which he views the computer screen. Another young man talks about his brother, who's so taken with his new girlfriend that he immediately heads over to her house after work. An older man in front of me is wearing a Mauer jersey and diligently keeping score. He's brought his own peanuts with him. A young woman in front of me flips through Facebook on her iPhone.

Between the third and fourth inning, I wander over to the Twins Town Tavern, a bar with windows over looking the field. During the early months of the season, this place is packed with fans trying to keep warm. As the weather gets warmer, the crowds thin out. On this night, most of the people at the Twins Town Tavern have no interest in the game. At the bar, five women in Twins gear are doing shots of Tequila. They appear at least halfway to being half in the bag.

The only one not drinking is Sue Nelson, longtime organist for the Twins. Her organ sits in front of one of the open windows at the bar, overlooking the field. She only plays when Twins players are at bat. As part of the intricate musical choreography of a modern-day ballpark, she wears an earpiece, through which she's told when she can play. In between innings, Sue says hi to kids and takes pictures with anyone who asks. I ask Sue if she ever gets depressed when the season is winding down. "Always" she says. "It's so depressing." Even at the end of a fourth straight losing season, she remains cheerful and passionate about her Twins.

On the field, the Twins are trying to give fans something to be passionate about. Pitching for the Twins is Kyle Gibson, a young pitcher who team officials are hoping can be a top of the rotation starter, if not an ace. Gibson was called up in the middle of the 2013 season, and the organization hoped he might provide a spark. He quickly proved he wasn't ready, and got hit hard. This year, he's been maddeningly inconsistent, brilliant in one start, dreadful the next. 

On this night, against a terrific Tigers lineup, Gibson quickly gets in trouble. Two runs in the first inning, then two more in the second as Miguel Cabrera rips a two-run double to left field. This after the Twins had scored three runs in the bottom of the first. It looks like it's going to be one of those nights for Gibson. But after the second inning, Gibson remarkably settles down and keeps the Tigers off the scoreboard as he slogs through four more innings. Sometimes, the guys you want out on the mound are the ones who can give up a few runs early on and then bear down to keep their team in the game. Maybe Gibson can be one of those guys.

David Price, pitching for the Tigers, has already proven himself to be one of those guys. Tonight, he's not. He's already thrown 89 pitches by the fifth inning. He's hanging on, showing stretches of dominance. In the fifth he strikes out Joe Mauer on three pitches. But in the sixth, it all caves in. Doubles by Aaron Hicks and Jordan Schaeffer. A triple by Brian Dozier. A soft opposite field double by Joe Mauer. By the end of the sixth, the Twins have take the lead, 6-4. Against the powerful Tigers lineup, that doesn't appear to be a safe lead.

At this point in the game, only the hardcore fans are paying attention. Even to them, this game means little. Tonight, the big star of the game is the giant water bugs dropping from the sky. They're two inches long. They live mostly near water, but are attracted to lights, which would explain why they're spending the evening at the Twins game. Every few minutes, one of them drops near an unsuspecting fan, causing panic. A couple in the front row of my section bolts for the concourse when one of the bugs lands near their feet.

On the big screen, it's time for kiss cam, a staple of most modern-day stadiums. These days it's one of the highlights of Twins games. Some couples give each other a quick peck on the lips. Others go to town. Inevitably, the camera lands on two people who clearly aren't a couple, eliciting a chuckle from the crowd. At the end, a young man gets on his knee and pulls out a ring for his gal. She cries, they kiss and embrace, the crowd cheers. The camera lingers a little too long for my comfort.

Kyle Gibson isn't the only bright spot for the Twins tonight. Rookie shortstop-turned-center fielder Danny Santana, who's been a revelation this year, collects three hits and drives in two runs. Joe Mauer also has three hits. He's been hitting well since he returned from a pulled stomach muscle suffered in June. Still, he's only hitting around .270, nearly 50 points below his career average. Before the injury, Twins fans were turning on the hometown boy and booing him with increasing frequency. After a late season concussion in 2013, the Twins decided to move Mauer from catcher to first base, hoping that would keep him in the lineup for more games. Some observers even suggested that moving him to a less physically taxing position might result in more productivity at the plate. It hasn't worked out that way.

For many Twins fans, the frustration with Mauer has been growing for awhile. Some cite the injuries, some harp on the inability to hit for power or in the clutch, and some are just bugged by a low-key manner that can appear as lack of desire. To his detractors, Mauer hasn't lived up to his massive contract. While his beautiful swing and patient, careful approach to each at bat has produced three batting titles and a high on-base percentage, it drives some fans crazy. A trait that particularly irks fans is his penchant for taking the first pitch of an at-bat, which has led many pitchers to throw first-pitch fastballs for a strike. Most great hitters would accept the invitation, but not Mauer. Every once in a while he'll turn on one for a home run, and make it look graceful and easy. And every time he does it, you wonder why he can't do it more often

It's the eighth inning now, and the game has slowed to a glacial pace. There's been a lot of talk this season about the length of games, which now regularly last three hours at a minimum. And the eighth inning seems generally be the biggest culprit, especially in close games. It's when managers get into the chess game. One will make the first move by bringing in a pinch hitter, and the opposing manager will counter with a pitching change. Each is weighing the cold data of the stats sheet against the gut feel of who has the hot hand. In the eighth inning of an October playoff game, this maneuvering can make for great theater. The eighth inning of a meaningless game in September is interminable. Tonight, the eighth takes about 45 minutes, and includes four pitching changes between the two teams. The Twins score two more runs to increase their lead to 8-4.

There's been an increasing amount of chatter that this might be manager Ron Gardenhire's last season with the club. Gardenhire has, for the most part, remained blameless for the current string of futility. Much of the blame has landed on ownership for being unwilling to spend enough to bring in top shelf talent despite the increase in revenue produced by Target Field. That criticism goes back to when the team was regularly winning the division. In its quest to prove their fiscal responsibility, Twins ownership decided it couldn't afford to keep players like Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, players who might have put them over the top. Management has also taken the heat for bad trades, bets on bargain basement free agents, and a farm system that hasn't produced any significant talent.

The Twins have had a lot of stability at the manager position, and that's admirable in the current sports landscape. Tom Kelly, who led the team to World Series victories in 1987 and 1991, managed for 16 years. Gardenhire is currently in his 13th season. Both have been loyal to the organization, and thoroughly committed to the Twins way. And the organization rewards that loyalty. After the World Series victory in 1991, and a 92-win season in 1992, Kelly suffered through eight straight losing seasons, and the threat of contraction, before the Twins turned it around in 2001. Gardenhire was his heir, preaching the Twins way and overseeing the team's run of success in the first decade of the new century . 

Still, it's hard to stay above the fray when you're the manager of a team that's had four straight 90-plus loss seasons. And Gardy just seems tired, all too often relying on the stock clichés about "tough nights" and "battling" in his post-game press conferences. While most fans recognize he doesn't have a lot of talent to work with, there's still a sense that another voice might be able inject some new energy, and get more out of the players than Gardy has been able to.

[Editors note: Ron Gardenhire was fired today]

And maybe it's time for a change in the Twins way, which has become more of a term of ridicule than praise in this town. For years Twins fans have reflexively cringed every time they see a highlight of former Twin David Ortiz pulling a monstrous home run to right field at Fenway Park, something he's been doing regularly for the past 13 seasons. Ortiz came up with the Twins, and the club let him go in 2002 as a free agent after a few injury-plagued, underwhelming seasons. After signing with the Red Sox in 2003, all Ortiz has done is become one of the greatest clutch hitters of his generation and a future Hall of Famer. One of the keys to his success in Boston is that Red Sox coaches encouraged him to be a slugger, to use his size and strength to pull the ball to right field. Twins coaches had wanted him to focus more on hitting the ball up the middle and to the opposite field. Why? Because that was the Twins way. For an organization that's made a lot of smart moves, that was easily it's dumbest.

Touch me

take me to that other place

reach me

you know I'm not a hopeless case

But tonight, at least for one night, things are looking up. In the ninth, reliever Jared Burton sets down the Tigers in order, and what's left of the crowd goes home happy. As the fielders line up to shake hands with the closer, and fans head to out into the cool September night, U2's "Beautiful Day" plays over the speakers.

I didn't feel very good about attending this game. I wanted to go with my daughter, Martha, but it was a school night, and she didn't really feel like going. But my wife and I have been separated for nearly a year, and Wednesday's are one of my nights with Martha. When I told my wife I was going to the game anyway, she was furious, with good reason. I chose a meaningless baseball game over spending a night with my daughter. It was a bad decision on my part, one of many thoughtless decisions I've made over the past year. But it was my last game of the season, and it was a beautiful night, and I wanted to be there, to be reminded why a meaningless baseball game in dreadful season can be a thing of joy and beauty and sadness. Just like life.

Why sports and morality don't mix

In an article for Minnpost today, Doug Grow asked whether the Adrian Peterson case will cost the Vikings. I'd like to widen the lens on that issue a bit and ask a larger question. Will the Peterson story—on top of the Ray Rice story, the Ray McDonald story, and the Greg Hardy story (not to mention the overlooked one-in-three players likely to suffer from brain trauma story)—cost the NFL? The likely answer is no.

There will certainly be short term consequences for both the team and the league in the wake of the team's decision to activate Peterson for Sunday's game. Earlier today, hotel chain Radisson announced it was suspending its limited sponsorship of the team, and Nike stores in the Mall of America began removing Adrian Peterson Vikings jerseys. Governor Dayton, a man who spent a lot of political capital to get partial state funding for the new Vikings stadium, called Adrian Peterson a public embarrassment to Minnesota. U.S. Bank, who many believe will ultimately buy the naming rights for said new Vikings stadium, said it will continue to monitor the situation.

Reaction from league sponsors to these recent stories hasn't been quite as strong. Long-time NFL sponsor AnheuserBusch released a rather tepid statement of disapproval, saying "we are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code." Still, the fact that they said anything that could possibly upset the NFL should be of concern to league officials.

[Note: Early Wednesday morning, the Vikings reversed course and put Adrian Peterson on something called the exempt/commissioner's permission list, which will keep him away from the team until the legal process is settled.]

In the long run, though, I think we can all be fairly certain that Anheuser Busch will continue to be an NFL sponsor, and that A-B products will continue to flow from the taps at NFL stadiums across the land. Just as we can be sure that Radisson will at some point come back to th w home of the Vikings. Why? Because all is ultimately forgiven in sports.

To be sure, many Vikings fans are likely done with Adrian Peterson. I'd count myself among that group. I'll let others engage in the debate over the merits of discipline and corporal punishment, and the role of culture. For me, hitting a 4-year-old with a tree branch until they bleed is child abuse. Whether a jury in Texas believes that to be the case remains to be seen. But I don't believe he should play again until that gets sorted out. And once it does, then he needs to get some parenting help.

But what's interesting to me is the moral and ethical gymnastics that sports fans perform when it comes to cases like this. I'd like to believe the majority of Vikings fans were appalled by this story, and I'd be willing to bet that if the perpetrator were a Target executive, or a politician, or a teacher, they'd expect (and perhaps demand) that the person be fired from their job immediately. But when it comes to a star athlete, we suddenly start talking about due process and rush to judgement. That's exactly what we've seen from some fans in the Adrian Peterson case. Ultimately what matters to us most is this: Our team needs him!

This attitude has always distorted the way fans view athletes and criminal behavior. As a sports fan myself, I'm no less guilty. In other cases of athletes-gone-wrong, I've found  myself willing to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. There's even a part of me that feels some sadness for Adrian Peterson, that this incident will tarnish what seemed destined to be a legendary career, one that he worked very hard to achieve. Would I feel the same sympathy for your average citizen accused of a similar crime? Likely not.

I wish I better understood the psychology behind this, but I have some ideas. To some extent, sports has always been seen as a refuge from the messiness of the world and our lives. Call it our bread and circus if you want, but I've always thought that term has an air of moral superiority to it. Yes, we like the entertainment, but we also crave the clarity of sports. Teams win or lose. Players either succeed or they fail. There is no nuance in the final score. And we don't want that clarity to be muddied by the issues and problems that plague our society. When those problems encroach on the playing field, what we really want to say is "can't we just go back to talking about the game?"

That's the refrain you've been hearing from a lot of football fans over the last few days. And while many are disgusted by Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, and perhaps more than a few are concerned about brain damage among players, they'll see their way through the current storm with their fan-dom intact. And when this all blows over, some might be bigger fans than ever. Because many need this game in their lives. And that's why, in the long run, these stories won't cost the NFL a dime.

Favorite Album Friday: It's All About The Replacements

Well, after a good start, I've kind of dropped the ball with the Favorite Album Friday posts. But on the eve of this weekend's big Replacements reunion concert, I figure now is as a good a time as any to get back on track. Throughout the week here in Minnesota, there have been plenty of tributes to the band and reminiscences about their inconsistent and drunken live shows. And so tonight I pay tribute to my favorite album by one of my all-time favorite bands: Tim, by the Replacements. Because if there was ever a poster-band for failing to live up to expectations, it was the Replacements.

At one time, for many hardcore Replacements fans, Tim was more than just the first major-label for the band. It was a dividing line that separated what kind of fan you were. You were either one of the fans who loved their early, faster, more ragged period, culminating in Let it Be, or you were one of the fans who latched on to the band after Tim, a period that saw them make increasingly poppy, more slickly produced records as they tried to chase after the ever-elusive brass ring of pop stardom. That, of course, was the narrative of many Indie bands from the 1980s: low-fi beginnings, the establishment of small yet devoted fan bases, and the struggle to make into the mainstream. And in many cases, you had the fans who believed the early years were the truest iteration of the band.

In retrospect, the narrative is ridiculous. All bands change and evolve over time. Musicians get better at their craft and expect more from themselves. Songwriters become more introspective. Bands learn that better production can add depth to their songs. That's the path that the Replacements tried to follow but never really could. But for the Replacements, the one thing that never changed was the thing that people loved about them: their attitude, their spirit, and their sense of humor. And all of that is captured on Tim.
 
I know a lot of people who don't care for the Replacements, and they are people whose musical taste I respect. I hesitate to say that they don't "get" the Replacements, because that makes it sound Replacements fans are part of some club that has special insight into music. It's not that at all. Nor is it a Minnesota thing. I'm not from here, and even though I've lived her for more than a decade, I'll never be a Minnesotan. But I do think that many Replacements fans discovered the band at a particularly impressionable time in their lives, and for that reason they will always be special.

That was the case for me. I first heard the Replacements in the fall of 1986, when I was a shy 15-year-old who loved the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and was just beginning to discover Indie music. The song was "Kiss Me on The Bus." I heard it on WLIR, a long Island station that played a lot of new wave music. I couldn't get that song out of my head for days. I was intrigued. Who was this band? Who names an album "Tim"? Where's Minneapolis? So I went out to the "record store" and bought the "cassette" of Tim. And everything changed after that.

How? Well, I just heard music, and thought about it, differently after listening to Tim. There was nothing great about the musicianship. Paul Westerberg wasn't a great singer. But his songwriting was real, and his singing was heartfelt. He sang about wanting to be something, and about the fear that he would never be anything at all. That kind of vulnerability was unlike anything I had heard in pop or rock music, and for a 15-year-old, it was easy to relate to. Listening back to it now, Tim is the sound of a band giving it everything its got, and hoping that would be enough. You can feel it in every song.

I could spend a lot of time on every song from Tim, but I won't. They're all great. Whether he's pushing off adulthood in "Hold My Life," expressing adolescent cynicism and angst on "Bastards of Young," or wallowing in regret on "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg is at his best on this album. His humor, sincerity, anger and pathos are on full display. And the spirit of the music is undeniable.

There might be some Replacements fans out there who still don't care for Tim, who think it tried too hard to smooth the band's rough edges. If there are, I'd recommend they give it another listen. I try to listen to it at least once a year, and nearly 30 years after I first heard it, it still hits me in the place only great music can reach.

And with that, I'll leave you with my favorite Replacements song, and one of the greatest videos of all time. Here's "Left of the Dial". If you've never heard the band before, this will tell you everything you need to know.

Am I Ready For Some Football?

Several years ago, when I was a senior in college, I sat down to watch a football game in the living room of the off-campus apartment I shared with two friends. The game, if I remember correctly, was between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers. I had little rooting interest in the game, but it was Sunday, it was football, and I was trying to avoid whatever work I had to do (a habit I've never been able to shake).

At one point in the game, and I can't be sure if I'm remembering this correctly, I recoiled at a particularly violent hit that left a player immobile for several moments. And it was at at that moment that I thought to myself "I can't watch this game anymore. It's too violent." I was thinking, of course, not just about that particular game but about the game of football itself. I had been a football fan all my life, but in that moment, I felt like I needed to take a stand. As a liberal, enlightened soon-to-be college graduate, I was going to cut football from my life as a protest against the violence of the sport and the culture that it embodied. I was done.

More than twenty years later, I have yet to follow up on that bold proclamation. I may have stopped watching football for a few weeks, maybe even a month, but my boycott was fairly short lived. "I'll just check in to see what the score is" turned into "maybe I'll just watch the first quarter," and pretty soon I was back to watching games from start to finish. My discomfort with the violence of the game remained, but it didn't stop me from being a fan. It's one of many statements of intention I've made in my life that I've either forgotten or failed to see through.

This memory of kind-of-but-not-really taking a stance has been rekindled not only by the upcoming football season, but also by Steve Almond's new book, "Against Football: One Man's Reluctant Manifesto" (excerpted in the latest Village Voice). In the book Almond lays out his arguments for why he can no longer morally stomach a game that he has followed for more than 40 years, and why we should take a hard look at the role the "Football Industrial Complex" plays in our society.

Almond is a terrific writer and an insightful cultural critic. His arguments against football are multifaceted. He takes on the violence of the game and its impact on the long-term health of players, the greed of the league and its owners, the hypocrisy of the people who cover the sport, and the impact of the sport on our institutions of higher learning. Most significantly, he doesn't let fans off the hook by blaming it all on the coaches, Roger Goodell, TV, or the NCAA . He argues that we fans are the ones who have enabled football to become a sanctified, morally palatable form of entertainment. And the power of his critique of the game comes from the fact that he is a fan.

Almond is not alone in his stance. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece for the New Yorker in 2009 in which he compared football to dog fighting, and in an interview with Slate asked whether it is ethical to watch football. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a 2012 piece for the Atlantic following the suicide of former NFL linebacker Junior Seau (a suicide that is widely believed to stem from the brain trauma he had suffered as a player), concluded that, at least for him, it was not. For Coates, the NFL's refusal to acknowledge the damage the game was doing to its players was the last straw. "For me," Coates wrote, "the hardest portion is living apart--destroying something that binds me to friends and family. With people whom I would not pass another words, I can debate the greatest running back of all time. It's like losing a language."

I remember reading that article at the time, and feeling uncomfortable because, despite similar concerns, I was not ready to take that step. Steve Almond's arguments make me feel uncomfortable as well. I applaud the decision he's made, but I'm not there yet. I love watching football, and talking about football, and listening to guys talk about football. But I can't deny my discomfort with many aspects of the game has grown, and gets stronger every season. Like Coates, I'm uncomfortable with being a fan of a game that impacts the brains of those who play it, and I have questions about the ethics of supporting a business that clearly has little regard for the safety of its employees. And I'm uncomfortable with the knowledge that my continued support of the game makes it unlikely that the NFL or the NCAA will ever seriously address brain injuries.

But what makes me most uncomfortable is the knowledge that I am a moral agent in this. In Steve Almond's view, I'm complicit in feeding the beast. I can't argue against that judgement. The question for me is whether I'm willing to accept that.

Death and the Cult of Celebrity

Years ago, when I was in high school, I had a friend over at my house and we were watching television. As I flipped around the channels (I think I actually had to go up to the cable box and turn the dial), there was a news report about the death of former New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals manager Dick Howser from a brain tumor. I commented that it was sad. "Why is it sad?" my friend asked me. "Did you know him?"

Of course I didn't know Dick Howser personally. But his death, after a very public battle with cancer, struck me as sad. He wasn't that old, he had put on a very brave face despite knowing his fate, and he seemed like a nice guy. I had no better answer than that. And I've thought about that conversation since the news broke last night that Robin Williams had been found dead, of an apparent suicide. I think of it every time someone in the public eye dies before their time.

Many articles have appeared today extolling the talents of the hyper-kinetic Williams, while others have explored his battles with addiction and the connection between creativity and mental illness. All I can add is that Robin Williams made me laugh, and that it's clear that many artists have demons that they cannot keep at bay. If there is anything good to come of Williams's death, it is that it will remind people of how crippling a disease depression can be, how relentless it is.

But what I'm interested in is how we react to these deaths. The death of Robin Williams comes in the midst of a summer of carnage and mayhem around the world. Just within the past few weeks we've seen war in Gaza, violence and brutality in Iraq, an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, and the senseless shooting down of a commercial airliner. Yes, we notice these things, we express our outrage and our fear, but we keep them at bay. But if you spent any time on social media last night, you saw an outpouring of grief and shock and sadness over the death of a single, albeit very talented, individual. And there was a palpable sense that everyone needed to stop what they were doing and acknowledge what a loss this is.

And so again I come back to that question my friend asked me years ago. Why is the death of Robin Williams so sad to so many people? Why is it sadder than the unnecessary deaths of people in Gaza, Iraq, and Sierra Leone? Or, for that matter, the thousands of people who take their lives each year? It isn't. But I think it's hard for many of us to wrap our heads around the violence and death and poverty that exists in many parts of the world. Many of the problems in the world are complex and deep-rooted, and to dwell on the dark side of humanity for too long would make many of us want to curl up in the fetal position.

I don't necessarily think this is all about our obsession with celebrity, although in some cases that may play a role. We do, in some sense, live vicariously through famous people. But ultimately, it seems we come together to mourn for actors and writers and musicians and athletes because they've brought us joy, they've touched us with their art, they've shown us the better side of humanity. And losing that source of joy, that connection to something larger, can be incredibly sad. I have no better answer than that.

Favorite Album Friday #4: Joe Henry's Trampoline

For this week's Favorite Album Friday selection, I've chosen the album Trampoline by singer/songwriter Joe Henry.

Never heard of Joe Henry? That's too bad. He's a gem, and he might be one of the most overlooked singer/songwriters of his generation. If there's a word to describe Joe Henry's career, it would be eclectic. His catalog veers from straight ahead rock to folk to alt-country to jazz to trip hop to Tin Pan Alley, and even when you think he's going far beyond his range he somehow manages to pull it off. In a way, his career reminds me of Tom Waits, who started off as a balladeer before venturing into more avante-garde territory. Trampoline, released in 1996, is an album that seems to mark Henry's transition into more varied and experimental territory, both musically and lyrically.

From the opening strains of "Bob and Ray," Trampoline is an album of whispers and sighs, distant voices and dreams, dark and smoky songs driven by sinister guitar lines and snapping drums. Its songs are tales of plane crashes, murder, dreams, and lost love. But mostly it's an album about ghosts, with the word itself appearing in several songs. We all, Henry seems to be saying, are haunted by some kind of ghost.  "I kept your ghost, but I don't know how to give it back to you," Henry sings over a mournful steel guitar in the song "Parade." It's a pretty dark album, but not overwhelmingly so. Pump organ, strings, horns, mellotron, and samples of an opera singers add to the sonic layers of the album, creating a dreamlike quality to the music. And amidst the darkness there is the improbably sunny, mandolin-driven "Go With God," a song in which Henry channels Paul Simon.

Ultimately, as I'm finding, Trampoline is an album that's hard to capture in words and defies categorization, so best to just go and listen to it yourself. Here's a taste: