From the Road: Day 3
Fanhood, heartbreak and more thoughts from the road.
Hello from the sky somewhere between Boston and St. Louis. Fantastic night at The Brattle Theater in Boston with our pal Howard Bryant — he introduced our conversation for Big Fan with a story about Malcolm X and Paul Robeson as only Howard can do, and as Mike said, he somehow landed that plane. Incredible.
The funniest part of the night might be that we kind of had to cut it a little bit short because, and this is true, they had to clear the theater for an 8 p.m. showing of, I kid you not, Desperately Seeking Susan. Yes, the 1985 Madonna film.
As such, we didn’t get to tell my favorite story in the book — the Mookie story.
We’ll try to tell it tonight in St. Louis.
Oh, hey, here’s a little essay about BIG FAN that I wrote for Barnes and Noble!
It was roughly 248 degrees in Boston on Tuesday, which I felt deeply because I decided to walk from our hotel to Fenway Park and the Red Sox store to get a hat to wear (and then give away). That’s normally a walk I love. The heat made me love it a bit less.
But along the way, I saw one of my favorite places in Boston — the Temple of Groom barber shop/hair salon. I’ve never been in there, but I love that someone wanted to open up a hair salon, and they undoubtedly batted around many, many name ideas before finally going, “Wait! The Temple of Groom! Of course!”
And every time I see it, I immediately try to think of as many movie/hair puns as I possibly can. A few I came up with on this walk to Fenway.
The Follicles of Narnia
No Country for Bald Men
Dye Hard
Shaving Private Ryan
Weave In Las Vegas
Funny Curl
Comb Alone
As I said, it was very hot.
We are talking nightly about the fan experience, so it was only fitting that Tuesday night, I had one of the worst of my life. After the delightful event, meeting as many of you as we could (again, apologies that was cut short, but Desperately Seeking Susan!) and a glorious dinner with Mike’s family, I made it back to the hotel in time to catch the final quarter of the Cavaliers-Knicks playoff game.
As you now know, the Cavaliers were up by 22 with about seven and a half minutes left, and I was in total shock. I have totally written off the Cavs team multiple times during these playoffs because they are such a weird team, and time after time, they have pleasantly surprised me by becoming their best selves just when it seemed like the ride was ending. I honestly don’t think the Cavs match up with the Knicks AT ALL. But then they not only matched up with the Knicks, they were blowing the Knicks out of Madison Square Garden. Their defense was suffocating. Donovan Mitchell was Superman. Evan Mobley was everywhere. James Harden was … well, lousy, but it didn’t matter.
The Cavs were up TWENTY-TWO WITH SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES LEFT IN THE GAME.
And then, it started to go wrong. Here’s what made it a terrible fan experience — I could see it happening in real time. All Cavs fans could. Probably all basketball fans could. The Knicks went on a little 8-0 run, and the lead was just 14, and it felt like absolutely no time had gone off the clock. Larry Munson, the wonderful old Georgia radio announcer, used to shout, “Somebody’s poured molasses on the clock.”
Somebody had poured molasses, and superglue, and tar on the MSG clock.
What do you do as a fan in that moment? There’s nothing you CAN do other than to hope that someone on the Cavs — a player, the coach, somebody — will step up and do something to change the momentum, shift the direction. disrupt the flow. But no one did. I don’t know if Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson fell asleep or froze or somehow (this seems impossible to me) didn’t fully understand the danger of the moment, but he just watched on with this semi-glazed look on his face.
What possibly could have been going through his mind as he watched the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson blow by Harden time after time after time after time? Was he thinking, “It will probably be fine?” What thoughts popped in his head as he watched the Cavaliers offense downshift into “Let’s miss free throws and turn the ball over and settle for Harden taking long jumpers” mode? I mean, there’s only so much any coach — particularly an NBA coach can do — but at some point you have to do SOMETHING, don’t you?
He did nothing. He didn’t even call timeout.
And the Knicks just kept coming back and coming back, and Madison Square Garden turned into the Roman Coliseum just as the lions were let out, and the fan in me knew with all my heart that the Cavs were going to blow it, and all that was left to see was how they would do it.
They did it by having Sam Merrill’s final three-point shot go halfway down and the, like gas station sushi, come right back up. How close was it to going down? Unless I am mistaken, it sounded to me like the fabulous Mike Breen said “BA-” like he was going to shout out his signature call “BANG!” but managed to stop himself like a batter checking his swing.
The Cavaliers were so shell-shocked they decided not to even show up for the overtime. I couldn’t really blame them. James Harden did make a final behind-the-head pass to nobody, leaving everybody with a compelling image of what collapse looks like.*
*Harden finished the game 5-for-16 from the field, 1-for-8 from three, with three assists, six turnovers, and five fouls. I’ve written this before — I’ve never rooted for any player quite like him. He’s one of the greatest players in NBA history. And when he’s bad, he’s break-your-spirit bad.
So this is the fan’s life. I fully expected the Cavaliers to lose Game 1 — and frankly, I didn’t see them winning more than one game in this series. I was ready for it. I was fully prepared to think, “You know what? This Cleveland playoff run has been so much more fulfilling than I ever could have expected. I’m going to just enjoy the ride from here on in.”
And then the team pulled me back in only to tear my heart right out of my chest.
Sports!
It’s so weird to be out on tour with a new book when I’ve already fully written my next book. I’ve been on tour before when I was WORKING on my next book, but Fifty Seasons: Stories of the Baseball Player Years That Echo (working subtitle), is already for presale, it’s essentially done (with some notes and edits to come), we’ve got a cover (to be revealed soon!), and it’s obviously buzzing around in my head because I’ve been slaving away on it for the last year.
I love telling the stories from BIG FAN, of course, and I’m deeply in love with the book, I think it’s so fun and so uplifting and so perfect for our time, but there’s also a part of me thinking, “Hey, let’s talk about Fidrych in ‘76!”
Being an author is such a wonderful but weird thing.
One of my heroes, Gerald Early, will be moderating our panel tonight at the St. Louis County Library — Gerald is one of those incredibly smart, incredibly thoughtful, incredibly cool people that I find it amazing that we are friends. Anyone who has seen him talk on any of Ken Burns’ documentaries probably thinks the same two things I thought:
What an amazing guy!
I wish he were my friend!
And I can’t wait to see the direction that Gerald will take tonight’s panel. That’s the really fun part of this tour; it’s a different show every night. It was one thing when Seth Meyers moderated Monday, another thing with Howard, it will be its own thing with Gerald tonight, entirely different when Jason Kander moderates tomorrow in Kansas City, and something else when Justin Halpern moderates Friday in LA.