The Zong

When I started this blog, I did so reluctantly, mostly because of all the fun I had being derisive of those who had blogs. That said, I didn’t want to write about my family, or my travels (”To the East Bay and Back Again” was actually a working title for my online travel diary), and especially not about my life. Some things are simply not for public consumption. Instead, I thought that my comments about sports and politics, while almost never welcomed in the public arena, were somewhat clever, if not actually worth the time it took to listen to them.

And so, after a bit more than a year of doing this, I’m semi-officially taking a semi-indefinite leave of absence from The Zong. Reasons range from a lack of readership to the fact that I have a couple other projects in the works, and I suppose I’ve grown kind of tired at screaming my opinions into the chasm without much changing. I mean, I kind of expect that to happen in the political sphere, but things are downright miserable right now for fans of the San Francisco sports franchises, as perennially pathetic as they are, and I guess I think there are better ways to spend my time than actually giving a shit about it.

The thing is, I grew up going to Niner and Giants games, and the teams are dear to me independent of past successes and failures because they taught me why it is that professional sports are cool (and important) to me. Ideally, I wish I could enjoy watching them the way that I used to, wish that I could simply turn the game off after the ninth inning or fourth quarter and not really need to know anything else until the next game started. (Please note that this isn’t a diatribe about the good old days; I’m not fond of reminiscing just for the sake of manufacturing some supposed aged wisdom. With apologies to my legions of New England compatriots, the 2008 Super Bowl was one of the most exciting games I’ve ever seen.)

It’s not out of the question that I’ll enjoy sports again, and maybe it’s just that I’m too old to ignore the shit that goes on in and around the sports franchises I love, but the simple fact is, what ails my sports teams ails most of the professional sports world, and it goes far beyond the simple fact that the 49ers and Giants stink.

Nobody can accuse me of being a fairweather fan, or of not supporting my teams. The amount of money I’ve spent on tickets to events, merchandise, and the uber-expensive, overrated concessions probably trumps that spent by anyone I know on the same items, and I’ve spent my adult life and most of my childhood living and dying with each pitch and play. I scream obscenities in public places when the games are on television, and I’ve gotten into some pretty verbally abusive conversations with opposing fans in every professional sports stadium in California.

In light of all of this, I have in the last few years truly begun to wonder (as many have) why the hell I even care. Between the fact that BALCO and Barry Bonds have transformed a storied, once-proud franchise into the pond-scum of the major leagues and the maddening class-warfare being waged by the clueless blue-blooded fucks who have run the 49ers, an NFL team with five Lombardi trophies, into the ground, I suppose I don’t need to look farther than my own backyard to find out what’s wrong with all of this, but the fact is, it’s like this everywhere. Show me the owner of your favorite sports franchise, and I’ll bet he or she is probably a rich asshole who votes Republican and doesn’t really care what happens to you as long as your seat is filled. Show me your team’s best, most revered player, and I’ll bet he’s at best a racist, homophobic jock douchebag who has never had a real job in his life, and at worst he’s one of the most horrible people on the whole planet.

These are the people we’re paying money to watch. These are the people who I lose my voice cheering for (or cussing at) whenever the spirit hits me.

That said, I know we’re paying for a theatrical construct. Buying a ticket to a football or baseball game is like buying a ticket to see anything else, and these sports themselves are still wonderfully dramatic and have many great things to offer. They offer us a type of refuge from having to justify things, and we get to root for heroic visages brandishing great athletic talent in the name of our home cities. The thing is, when they start electrocuting dogs and doing anything, no matter how brazenly against the rules, in order to win, and when the owners continue to demonstrate that they care nothing for the sports they field teams in and only about the bottom line, it’s pretty fucking hard for me to grit my teeth and give them my credit card, and it makes me feel like an idiot for caring at all.

Will the Giants finally get back to being a baseball team instead of a traveling media circus now that Bonds is no longer in the lineup? Not overnight. They look to be among the worst teams in baseball right now, with a terrible farm system, and they’ve rewarded their General Manager (who got a lot of ink in the Mitchell Report) for all that success with a contract extension. It seems that, in the final reckoning, the greatest villain at Willie Mays Plaza for the last decade has been owner Peter Magowan. Expect massive cuts in payroll once he realizes that all those people who got up to leave in the seventh inning after Bonds’ last at bat aren’t coming back. Ever.

Even so, the worst franchise owner in San Francisco is south of AT&T Park. The pages of this blog already have plenty of paragraphs devoted to the Yorks, who seem to care much more about the upholstery of their fantasy luxury boxes than about their actual football team, and it shows. The only hope I have for the 49ers is that the Yorks finally listen to reason and sell the franchise to some folks who really care about the history of the team and about the game itself. Then, at least, even if the team continues to suck, I’ll know that there’s a good reason for it.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to feel like this about pro sports in general. I hope it doesn’t last too much longer, but as long as so many of them cheat, lie, cut costs, and deface their own legacies (in other words, as long as they keep acting like politicians) and continue to make money on it, I’ll derive a lot less joy from their successes.

Anyhow, I guess I’m certainly done blogging about it.

- M.G.