About Last Night…

I loved REM best when Michael Stipe couldn’t articulate and Peter Buck barely knew how to play the guitar. I fell in love with The Replacements when Paul Westerburg wrote song lyrics from the personals section of the City Pages or about his crush on the cashier at a convenience store and Bobby Stinson was drunk all of the time, often taking the stage in a giant diaper and nothing else.

Used Cars is still my favorite Stephen Spielberg movie. Mean Streets is my favorite Martin Scorcese film. I think that Edward Norton’s best performance ever was in Primal Fear. I like watching raw talent start to bloom. Even when it stinks, you can see the talent beginning to gain momentum and you can sense just how badly they want to get better and better.

On the flip side, nothing is more maddening than watching someone mail it in or simply give up….

I never enjoyed watching the Mavericks more than in the 1999-2000 season when 20 year old second year player Dirk Nowitzki began to demonstrate that he was special. He seemed to learn something new — and get better — every game. Rookie Greg Buckner brought an intensity to the floor that energized other players. Steve Nash was just beginning to become Steve Nash. That team had a losing record, but they played hard, had fun and you could see that things were headed in a positive direction. It was a far cry and a refreshing change from the Mavs of just a few years earlier.

Back in the mid-90’s, when I was single and not yet a father, I was able to go to 20-25 games a year and I still vividly recall watching for the moment when the Three-J’s Mavericks would decide to quit. It happened almost every game. You could just see them decide to pack it in. Sometimes it actually happened when they were ahead. The 1995-1996 Mavs were far more talented than the 1999-2000 Mavs but, as a unit, they were losers and I hated them.

Cowboys fans will never forget the 1990 season when it became vividly clear that the future was exceedingly bright. That team went 7-9, but you loved watching every single minute of that season. You knew the talent was there and the head coach was going to get everything there was to get out of that bunch.

This year should be the Rangers equivalent of the Cowboys circa 1990 or the Mavs circa 1999.   Should be the Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash or Hootenanny that precedes Let it Be and Tim.  I was pretty sure it would be. 

Now, not so much. 

And it’s not the losing.  I can take losing. In some ways, nothing is more fun than to watch a young team or ball club start to come together and learn how to fight and win, even when they haven’t quite figured out the winning part yet.

What drives me crazy is quitting. The way the mid-90’s Mavs quit made me sick. As much as I had always respected Troy Aikman, there came a time near the end of his career when he started quitting on plays, and — it seemed to me — on games too, and it was painful to watch. I think that the NBA should have banned Stephon Marbury for life for quitting on the Knicks.

I’ve only been around Ron Washington a handful of times. He’s clearly a very nice man. He clearly loves and respects the game of baseball. By all accounts, he’s an excellent teacher. But he’s now proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he is not a leader.

Folks can sugar coat it all they want, but the bottom line is that Ron Washington quit on a rally last night.  It might have led to something, or it might not have.  We’ll never know.  Either way, it sent a horrible message — certainly to the fans, and probably to at least part of the clubhouse if not all of it.   

I’m sure it was more a matter of very poor judgment than a conscious decision. I don’t believe that Washington thought that having Omar Vizquel pinch hit for the leader of his ball club with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh was tantamount to a slap in the collective face of his clubhouse, but that’s surely what it seemed like.

I’ve been writing about the Rangers in one place or another for many years now and it all started because I was a fan. Part of me is still just a Rangers fan, but I’m trying to achieve more and more of the dispassionate objectivity that a journalist is supposed to have. But I’ll always be a sports fan with an appreciation for people who play the game — whatever game that is — with heart, tenacity and passion. I still hate quitting in any form.

Perhaps if I was purely that emotionless, wholly objective journalist that I’m supposed to be by now, I wouldn’t be experiencing this visceral reaction to last night’s debacle. But the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach and I’m not going to try and pretend that it doesn‘t.

This is a young ball club that’s only going to get younger over the next year and a half. Talented, but very, very young. They need stalwart leadership. Michael Young has done his part, showing the kids that you play hurt if you can possibly get yourself out there and, like it or not, do what‘s best for the ballclub. Kevin Millwood — this year anyway — has done his part. Since the end of his disappointing 2008 season, he’s gotten himself into good shape and has done his best to show the young pitchers in this organization the value of hard work and determination. Ian Kinsler has done his part, leaving it all out there on the field and manning up to his mistakes rather than making excuses.

But yesterday, the manager told these young players that it’s OK to give up sometimes. I’m not sure how he can dig himself out of that hole and I’m not sure that this young ball club — this up-and-coming organization — can afford to ratify that message in any way, shape or form.

The President of this organization has indicated that “toughness” (for lack of a better word) is the brand he’d like to put on this ball club. What happened last night was anything but. Intentional or not, it sent a message to players and fans alike that surrendering is acceptable.