Mike Celizic Fondled Me as a Child
Why do companies still pay this man anything to write such retarded drivel that it belongs on a junior high sports messageboard?
I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with Alex Rodriguez: he doesn’t understand why he — or anyone — should play a game or do anything else in life.
“The only reason I play the game is to win a world championship,” he said Tuesday when he had occasion to throw out another of his inane comments that sounded — like everything else he says in public — as if it had been scripted by a team of innocuous-quote writers and carefully rehearsed in front of a test audience. “That hasn’t changed. From year to year it hasn’t changed.”
There you have it, folks. A-Rod doesn’t play because he enjoys baseball. He doesn’t play because he enjoys competition. He doesn’t play because he makes a lot of money. He doesn’t play because it’s a good way to meet chicks. He doesn’t play because it’s really, really cool to pull on a freshly-laundered set of Yankee pinstripes every day. And he doesn’t play because he loves what he does and feels like the luckiest guy in the world to have a job that slobs like us can only dream of.
He plays to win a championship. It’s the only reason. That’s what he said.
Mike Celizic's rankings of good reasons to play baseball:
- Enjoyment of the game
- Love of competition
- Meeting "chicks"
- Wearing fresh laundry
- Cool uniforms
- Feeling lucky not to be a slob
- Winning
I mean what a jerk that Rodriguez guy is! Not playing the game to wear a uniform? He should be more like Celizic, who obviously became a journalist "for the chicks."
Just look at the stuff this overpaid ballplayer has said in the past:
"It's not about me. It's all about winning championships here."
"I'm just trying to make it known that I care about one thing and that's winning."
"We just want to win. That's the bottom line."
"The only thing that matters here is winning a championship."
Oh, wait. That wasn't Rodriguez. Those were all Derek Jeter. Well I'm sure Celizic ripped Derek a new proverbial butthole on those comments, right?
If the line about playing only to win a championship is actually true — and there’s no telling if anything he ever says is what he actually thinks — he’s been spending a lot of money on his multiple shrinks and hasn’t gotten a damned thing of value out of it. If the only reason to do anything is to win, then you may as well do nothing.
Think about it. It’s like saying the only reason to take up a career in science is to win the Nobel Prize, the only reason to play in a symphony orchestra is to make it to first chair in the Vienna Philharmonic, the only reason to dance ballet is to be the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi, the only reason to take up politics is to be President of the United States, the only reason to become a lawyer is to be a Supreme Court justice, the only reason to write a sports column is to win a Pulitzer Prize.
I don't think Celizic gets it. None of those things are competition athletics. In competition athletics, the entire point is to try and win. Comparing a competitive sport and winning a championship to a lawyer becoming a Supreme Court Justice is askin to comparing Mike Celizic to someone who has won a Pultizer Prize. That's better.
That is a recipe for misery and failure, because when you say winning the championship is the only reason you play, you’re also saying you don’t play because it’s the thing that makes you feel most fully alive.
Misery and failure like that loser Jeter, right? Who is miserable and failed since 2000? Yep, miserable. His house comes complete with marble floors and hot and cold running starlets, but he doesn't feel fully alive I am sure.
Mike Celizic's updated rankings of good reasons to play baseball:
- Enjoyment of the game
- Love of competition
- Meeting "chicks"
- Wearing fresh laundry
- Cool uniforms
- Feeling lucky not to be a slob
- Feeling alive
- Winning
In a perfect world, which is one in which power and sustenance and clothing and education and rent are free, the only reason to do anything is because that’s what you love doing. It’s one of the few things I’ve tried to get my kids to understand: find something you love doing and get a job doing it. If you love it, you’ll love going to work, you’ll work hard to get better, and the odds are you’ll make a good living at it. It may not make you fabulously wealthy, but it will provide your needs, and you’ll enjoy your life. The alternative is to spend 40 years doing something that makes you miserable.
It’s great to dream about being the best and to do everything you can to climb the mountain of your profession. But no matter how much you read and folks like me write about how so-and-so’s career won’t be complete unless he wins a championship, it doesn’t make him a lesser human being for failing to do so.
So it's Mike Celizic's job to write about guys who haven't won championships being failures, but that doesn't make those athletes lesser human beings unless they care whether they win a championship or not, in which case they are failures as well as assholes.
Everybody get that logic?
Sure, it would have been great if Dan Marino would have won a Super Bowl, and the failure to do so always gets mentioned when we write about him. But we also point out that he was one of the greatest quarterbacks and certainly the best passer the NFL has ever seen; he’s also a terrific human being. As far as I can tell, he’s none the worse psychologically for not having won the big game, because he played for the love of the game and got everything he could out of his talent.
We can’t help but point out A-Rod’s failures in clutch situations, but if he were honest about what he’s thinking instead of trying to be some sort of perfect, comic-book hero, we’d have a lot easier time accepting him. Yankee fans aren’t happy with his postseason play, but what really drives them nuts is his smarmy insincerity. I don’t think the two are unrelated.
It's OK to rip a guy to shreads for some perceived failure in so-called "clutch" situations, but if the guy actually wants to succeed and has the unmitigated gall to declare he cares about winning, then he's an insincere smarmy bastard who should be run out of town.
“My burden has always been the same since I was 18,” he said Tuesday when talking about his raison d’etre.
That’s right, sports fans, What most players call a dream, he calls a burden, as if he’s doing all of us a favor by shouldering it without complaint and soldiering on until he can say, “Mission accomplished.”
I wish there were some context on that quote, but of course not. People like Celizic are the reason there's a burden on the guy - he's expected to hit 70 homeruns every year and save children from burning buildings while rounding second base, and shoot fireworks from his ass when he crosses the plate. Anything less and he's a choking loser failure who says phony things while eating puppies and planning the next 9/11.
Can there be anything more absurdly grandiose? Can there be any more question about why he’s so hard to embrace?
I can't be the only one who applies this last paragraph to the author.
For anyone who is interested in reading a guy who actually understands baseball, I advise you to look at Rob Neyer's article on Rodriguez, where he makes the bold and ridiculous statement that A-Rod is, in fact, a good player.
posted by Mr. Faded Glory @ 1:59 PM
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comments
4 Comments:
all i can think of are obscenities. i applaud your restraint.
All I can say is that the three of you are idiots and Mike Celizic actually has a clue and perspective of things in life outside of sport. And the analogy of fondling you as a child is morally wrong and embarassingly immature. I applaud your idiocracy.
Haha, you waited 2 1/2 years to post anonymously?
Who wants to bet that's actually Mike Celizic's kid.
Mr. Mike Celizic co-wrote a book with Mr. Dick Traum call A Victory For Humanity in it in one of the chapters they tell the story of one of the members of the Achilles Track Club, and how he had glories of running the marathon, but also how he had graduations from one drug use to a another, it seems to me that Mr. Traum and Mr. Celizic forgott to focus on the main purpose of the Achilles Track Club, which was long distance running not how one specific member had drug problesm, what about the contribution of that member to the running world in the early days of Achilles, that what they wrote is totally irelevant to marathoning, and that is not fear to that member, who was not given the option to defend his running carear. I happen to know that specific member and today for the past eight teen years he has been drug free and just reasonaly graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Florida International University, and has been admidted into the school of graduate of the same institution. Mr. Traum & Mr. Celizic should be reprehended by the Marathon commission for not staying with the subject of long distance running, they did not take in consideration that individuals contribution to the running world for the disable atletes, for whom he open many doors.
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