Give Me Wings. No; Real, Actual Wings

Gene therapy transforms eyesight of 12 born with rare defect

Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration.

The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was hailed as a major accomplishment for gene therapy. They have now treated an additional nine patients, including five children, and find that the best results are achieved in the youngest patients, whose defective retinal cells have not had time to die off.

The youngest patient, 9-year-old Corey Haas, was considered legally blind before the treatment began. He was confined largely to his house and driveway when playing, had immense difficulties in navigating an obstacle course and required special enlarging equipment for books and help in the classroom.

Today, after a single injection of a gene-therapy product in one eye, he rides his bike around the neighborhood, needs no assistance in the classroom, navigates the obstacle course quickly and has even played his first game of softball.

What an unvarnished good this is! You were blind, said the doctors, but now you can see. Downright biblical. Jesus with a lab coat.

Obviously, this kind of thing is designed for those whose eyesight was thought to be irreparably damaged by various genetic forms of degradation. My own vision, clouded as it is by astigmatism and the like, is a much more manageable 20/400, which allows me to utilize contact lenses and glasses in an ultimately successful attempt to attain normal sight. It’s non-essential for those of us who are merely blind compared to Ted Williams, not blind in reality.

However, should gene therapy become available to the point where it’s feasible for my doctor to prescribe it, I want to make my stance on the matter as clear as possible:

I will mainline that shit DIRECTLY INTO MY AORTA if I need to.

Look, I’ve heard all sorts of things about flaws being an inherent part of one’s character, ultimately necessary in the full construction of a personality.  I tend to subscribe to that point of view, except for the fact that physical flaws don’t count. A bad leg isn’t a character trait; it’s an impediment. Same with oily skin, or a bum ticker, or whatever. If there’s an option to improve one or all of the various maladies that beset me (as they do you all), I don’t see why we should stop for anything but tests to make sure this stuff doesn’t cause you to grow horns.*

*And who says that’s a bad thing?  I can think of lots of uses…well, OK, I can think of one use (handy-dandy can-opener), but that’s one more use than you had before you grew horns.

This plays heavily into my view of the steroid problem in sports, which is as follows: the problem with steroids is that the steroids they use are not good enough. Use them all you want, Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire or Manny Alexander or whomever. I don’t have a problem with what you’re doing. It’s the chemists I have a problem with. Come on, guys! You’re telling me this stuff is still giving our poor baseball players bacne? Step your game up!

As is customary, the trap here is economic. To mangle a great philosopher, with great purchasing power comes the ability to turn yourself into Spider-man. I can make my eyesight 20/10 through your standard gene therapy cocktail, but what’s to stop my richer neighbors from adding telescoping vision, or the ability to view the heat spectrum, or elbow-mounted machine guns?*

*I consider the lack of elbow-mounted machine guns, heat-seeking toenails, and laser hair to be compelling evidence against Intelligent Design, as all are frankly unforgivable oversights that would have gotten a putative Designer fired a long time ago.

It’s a far greater disparity than the fact that he has a Porsche and I have a Toyota – the only real difference is speed, aesthetics, and the amount of speeding tickets he gets compared to me—because such enhancements will fundamentally change who you are. “All men are created equal” may not look so profound when some of us have grafted wings to our backs, while others muddy along on the ground, still wholly human. “All men”, perhaps, but we’ll leave that second word behind. Perhaps sooner than you think. Or want.

Bagging It

A few nights ago, my friends and I were at our usual Wednesday night karaoke haunt, Sully’s Pub. Nice place, that Sully’s. I’d never thought I’d be a regular at a bar, but I like the atmosphere there—it borders on charming without pretending to it. The usual crowd is a mix of slumming hipsters, angel-voiced war vets, crooning ex-drama stars, and a Led Zeppelin-obsessed man named Jonathan, who looks like a meek investment banker but we think might be a serial killer. The clientele rotates on a regular basis, but you tend to see at least a few of the same faces crop up at some point each week.

When the douche walked in, therefore, it was easy to spot him.

Backwards hat? That’s the first sign, and not a good one. Reversed caps work on a precious few people. Actually, the only one I can think of is Ken Griffey Jr., and even then, it only works when he’s in the Home Run Derby, which he’s too old to participate in anyways, so the point is moot.

Pink shirt? OK, well, in certain situations, I can see one working. In fact, my friend Zach has made the pink shirt a key part of his wardrobe. Still, as we will see, it is often an indicator of true douchebaggery.

Purposely-ripped jeans? Unambiguously douche. We’re nearing critical d-bag level and honestly need only one thing to complete the image.

Sandals? At night? In a bar? Who are you kidding?

I do so hate to judge a person based on his appearance, but honestly, it’s disingenuous not to do so. Merely neglecting how a person presents himself in developing your assessment of him suggests powers of perception that you do not actually possess. Appearance can be by necessity or choice, but it is never insignificant.

In our own subject’s case, his appearance was obviously calculated to convey a sense of laid-back dudeness—to say, in a sense, that it would be perfectly OK and in fact preferred to call him “bro”. He had the typical lips-parted half-smile of the greater North East d-bag*, with dull eyes and just the barest hint of stubble.

*A short digression on the different types of d-bag. One would think they’re the same all over, and in truth there are certain commonalities that link douche to douche in the grand douche circle of life (if represented visually, such a circle would vaguely resemble a badly-drawn barbed-wire tattoo). In the interest of assembling as authoritative a compendium of the various types of douche as is possible in this space, I will briefly address their distinguishing characteristics:

North East D-Bag: Already addressed in some detail. Crucially, a NEDB will often pop his collar for reasons unknown (possibly in a pale and unwitting imitation of a peacock, though protection from Vampires has not been ruled out). The more advanced versions of this variant will wear several collared shirts, all with collars a-poppin’, tripling or even quadrupling the douche level like some kind of douche layer cake. NEDBs can often be found behind a friend’s house (the friend will usually be named Foley) for the express purposes of drinking a thirty-cube of Miller.

Guidouche: I’m subjecting myself to this once again this year, because I consider running the Guidouche Gauntlet to be some kind of rite of passage, like hunting down and killing an elephant or a lion (only both would be bright orange). Guidouches typically wear muscle shirts or tank tops, tan themselves to a fine burnt sienna hue, spike their hair in blowout fashion, and make kissy-faces. Guidouches are dormant for the entirety of the workweek, but come alive immediately upon exiting work on Friday. They retreat to clubs for the duration of the weekend, venturing out only to flex on the beach during the day. A Guidouche lives his life in a kind of tunnel—his vision too clouded by a haze of Axe body spray and pulsing strobe lights to ever see anything but the equally bronzed girl at the bar.

Lord Fauntleroy Douchington: “Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever BEEN on a yacht, but FATHER’s is just FANTASTIC! MUFFY and I spent nearly two weeks on it, and it was just the most MARVELOUS time (father’s terribly rich, so I haven’t had to work for AGES)! “ Lord Douchington, at one point in his life, watched one of those 1980s teen romantic comedies where the nerd moves to a new town and gets the girl, all while dealing with a cadre of spoiled rich kids led by the likes of Billy Zabka. Lord Douchington looked up to Zabka and has spent his entire life trying to tie a sweater around his neck in exactly the correct fashion.

Roidouche: When this variant goes to the supermarket, he has to ask for help in reaching for the muscle supplements on the top shelf. Swimming is a no-no—not only is it a slimming activity, the only stroke the Roidouche can manage is a dog paddle. Where the Guidouche spends his whole life in the club, the Roidouche holes up in the gym—though he usually confines himself to the bench press exclusively. His “guns” are of paramount importance, as the Roidouche can often be found gazing admiringly at them, kissing them, or in one terribly disturbing YouTube clip I won’t inflict on you, making out with them. Full tongue.

L.A. Douche: Has been on at least one reality show. This is not surprising, as he has been trying to Date a Cougar or Get a Celebrity Out of Here for most of his adult life. The L.A Douche splits his time between drinking by a pool and drinking by a beach. He retains the unique ability to monetize his doucheness, thereby making himself the most dangerous of all douches. Fortunately, he will generally waste his money on a grotto.

What makes a man aspire to douchedom? I pondered this as the douche sat down at the table next to us, in an open chair at the same table as a few attractive girls. Much of it is women, no doubt. The douche is like a mildly retarded peacock, running around with his tailfeathers out all the damn time. Eventually, they’ll just get covered in shit.

Which is appropriate, because he wasn’t exactly covering himself in glory. Though he acted overly familiar with the girls, they seemed to be having none of it. You know the expression a women gets when she’s simply not interested?* Eyes down and elsewhere, mouth in a thin line of disapproval that would seem appropriate on the face of some tyrannical nun. That’s what the douche created in the middle of a rollicking bar: a fucking convent.

*There’s a story, somewhat apocryphal, about the casting process for “The Graduate”. Apparently, Robert Redford auditioned for the lead role. His performance was good, but not quite what the producers were looking for. They took him aside and told him to act more wounded and less confident.

“You know how sometimes you’ll be hitting on a woman and she’ll reject you?” they asked.

Redford gave them a blank look, and without a hint of guile, said “Huh?”

The pattern repeated itself many times over the course of the evening—a cold approach, a sense of familiarity, a sudden but striking cooling of anything resembling ardor, disengagement, etc. Finally, the douche heard his name called by Don, the DJ karaoke at Sully’s. It was time for him to sing.

I’m ashamed to say that I can’t remember exactly what he decided on, but I’m going to pretend it was something from the douche catalogue that epitomizes douchiness. He sang Nickelback.

Nickelback is an aggressively awful band that makes aggressively awful songs, but a singer that has something of a clue can at least make their 4:00 ditties go by with very little aggravation. The douche was not one of those singers.

As I watched him hem and haw his way through the song, it dawned on me the essential problem with douches. Break them down into their component parts and you find a lot of qualities that aren’t necessarily bad. They’re confident, for sure, and somewhat social. They’re always down for a drink. Most of them keep in reasonably good shape. It’s also not a bad thing to dress a little ostentatiously.

What, then, is the problem? Why do they take so much from the table?

Substance. The douche, in one way or another, makes a promise with his outlandishness, and his overconfidence, and his willingness to engage. He says to you, I promise that I am an interesting person, the life of the party, a go-getter. I’m someone that can make things better for everyone in this bar.

He always breaks it. He can’t help it. There’s nothing backing him up.

On stage, the douche took advantage of a quiet moment in the song to raise his arms up

.

“I need some ladies up here now. Where are all the ladies at tonight?”

No one answered. Douche.

No Surprises

We can't keep anything secret anymore.

Cambria and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica recently, and Wikipedia has been a huge problem. I'm an inveterate completionist when it comes to understanding and interpreting what I've just watched, so I'm in the habit of, at the end of an episode, searching out recaps online. This works best for movies--they're self-contained and have no plot details beyond what I've already seen.

But BATTLESTAR. The plot is overlaid and intricate--you have to pay attention lest you miss something important, so recaps help fill some of the gaps. For the first few episodes, Wikipedia was a big help, cataloguing (in its obsessive way) all the important details of each episode. That is, until it COMPLETELY TOOLS ON YOU.

Take this sample recap, exaggerated slightly for dramatic effect:

"This episode, the second season's finale, establishes the relationship between Character X and Character Y, which is important later on in the SERIES FINALE, when they both KILLL ONE ANOTHER, and also EVERYONE ELSE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIES. Would you like to know what ELSE HAPPENS in every episode you haven't seen yet?"

There will also be a picture of Character Y with one less eye or arm or whatever than you last saw him with. You get tooled on both visually and textually.

This is a bit of a change from previous years. My thirst for knowing all that happened was denied in the pre-Internet TV-watching age. It was tough to follow up on an episode you missed, and if the series changed its airtime, you might lose your place entirely. For the longest time, I didn't know when new seasons of Quantum Leap started, so I was stuck watching the occasional disconnected re-run. Did Dr. Sam Beckett ever make it home?* The hell if I knew.

*SPOILER ALERT (Highlight this to reveal all): Nope

If you're even remotely connected to pop culture, avoiding spoilers becomes a child's game of "La la la, I can't hear you!" Friends of mine who had caught up on the series early on posted gushing Facebook updates immediately following Battlestar's finale, so I had to avoid the news feed for a few days. I couldn't read interviews with the cast, lest they reveal an important plot point. The Onion posted a story entitled "Obama Distant, Depressed Following Battlestar Finale"*. Tuesday Morning Quarterback, a lengthy column by Gregg Easterbrook ostensibly about football, posted a lengthy dissertation on the show's end right in the middle of a draft column. All media seemed driven to drive every detail of the show's dramatic final season into my brain before I'd even decided to watch the show.

*DEPRESSED? WHY? WHAT HAPPENED? AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!

I've had to institute a strict regimen of avoidance--every time I even see the words Battlestar Galactica in a story, I stop reading by "-tica". It's an exercise in discipline that is somewhat straining. Who knew watching a show would be so much damned work?

That's not to say one can avoid spoilers completely. The list of movies that I've seen is much, much smaller than the list of movies I know the endings to. Look, there are some movies that I'm just not all that interested in wasting two hours watching. I just want to know how they end. The same goes for television shows--I'll probably never watch Twin Peaks or Six Feet Under, 'cause I don't have the time and all, but they're interesting enough and important enough that I feel the need to possess the knowledge.

I just don't get the experience. That's what I'm trying to preserve here, as Cambria and I finish out the last season of what's proven to be an exceptional TV series. It's the difference between reading about a meteor shower and seeing a space rock, flaming and doomed as it comes to pieces in the atmosphere.

Everybody Goes Home Happy

I can’t say that I’ve ever found Andrew W.K. to be a genius. He certainly cracked open his own niche with his debut album, I Get Wet, which featured several blistering tracks devoted to some variation on the theme of partying (“It’s Time to Party, Party Hard, Party Till You Puke). The songs were the very essence of straightforward: joyous celebrations of the ethic of having a good time, and nothing else. You want a message, as W.C. Fields used to say? Try Western Union.*

*How many expressions like this will soon become meaningless to us, what with the passage of time and technology? Remember ‘you sound like a broken record’? Such a rich phrase, evoking something both auditory and visual, rendered nearly useless in a fifteen-year span. I’m all for the evolution of our discourse, but I feel that we are made poorer in our progress.

That being said, I think he’s hit upon something in his latest venture—that being a club called Santos Party House, located in Manhattan. Much like other clubs in the city, the place features dancing, drinking, and music (it is legally classified as a cabaret, meaning the dancing can continue until 4 AM), with one markedly different catch:

Anyone can get in.

"Along with his partners—the downtown artist Spencer Sweeney, the architect Ron Castellano, and nightlife veteran Larry Golden—Andrew began conceiving of Santos three years ago, long before the economy nose-dived. But their vision has proven to be almost presciently in line with recession-era New York. While Santos is a big, commercial, high-profile dance club, it has a decidedly democratic, unpretentious vibe. There are expensive drinks and a line out front, but the club isn’t defined by $900 bottles of Cristal and a bitchy door policy. Unlike Marquee and the countless other clubs that have metastasized in West Chelsea, Santos positions itself as a self-consciously friendly place, letting in anyone and everyone who believes that forgoing inhibitions is a more noble pursuit than flaunting wealth."

This is a beautiful thing and should be rightly celebrated. I’m not much of a club person, but I’d go to this club. So many clubs embody their name far too rigidly—you are restricted to dress codes, you can’t get in if you’re the wrong size or income level, you are at the mercy of a rigid quota system. You are made to feel lucky at having gotten in to the damn place at all. You’re part of the club. Aren’t you special?

At W.K.’s place, the emphasis is where it should be—on having a good time. Aside from the occasional solitudes that are good for one’s mental health, isn’t an experienced shared amongst us all one that is also enhanced?

Exclusivity has its places. You don’t want your pilots or presidents to be held to no standard at all. The idea of a club, or a clique, or a list is corrosive, however, as it creates divisions and enforces the idea that some are above the rest, not in talent or appeal or skill, but in worth. It’s where we get a rigidly defined idea of the “it” crowd or the cool kids, with the rest of us striving for acceptance or recognition that, once attainted (I hesitate to use the word “earned” for reasons that will soon become clear) is almost immediately obsolete.

What’s the point of a system like this? I can’t see what it accomplishes except to imbue a certain lucky few with a sense of belonging at the expense of the misery of the many. The operative word here is lucky, because who are you except the product of blind chance? You were born in this or that location, with this or that family, and this or that economic situation, with a billion other factors that you had no control over whatsoever—all of this combined to create YOU. Certainly, you had some input in the process that brought you up to whatever point you’ve currently reached, but that’s a product of luck as well. Have you ever considered that drive and motivation and talent are also products of these factors?

You shouldn’t be put on a hill merely because you hit a couple genetic trampolines on your way through life. You’re not so damned special.

So, good on you, Andrew W.K. We all have something to offer, and if everybody goes home happy, all of us benefit.

Right As Rickey

Twenty-eight members of the BBWAA did not vote for Rickey Henderson in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

Cosmically, this is irrelevant. Rickey (one of the few players afforded the singular honor of needing only his first name for identification) breezed into the Hall with 94.5% of the vote, one of the highest totals ever. Only 75% is required for induction, so some months hence, on a sunny day in the small town of Cooperstown, Rickey will make a heavily-anticipated* speech and take his place amongst baseball’s immortals. It’s no skin off his back.

*Rickey is what is commonly referred to as a “character”. He has a habit of referring to himself in the third person, and although this may be exaggerated, it’s become a defining part of his image. Before games, Rickey would stand in front of a full-length mirror, completely naked, and shout “Rickey’s the best! Rickey’s the best!” over and over again. He framed the first million-dollar check he ever received, without cashing it. Late in his career, searching for a team that would give him another shot, Rickey called up Padres GM Kevin Towers and left this message: “This is Rickey, calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play ball”.

Where it matters intellectually is as such: Rickey Henderson is, conservatively, one of the top 25 players in baseball history. He is so far above the standard of the Hall of Fame that it’s almost silly; you would do better to create a separate wing for players of Rickey’s caliber than to vote against him. To wit: Rickey has stolen 1406 bases in his career. The second-highest guy has 938. He’s first in runs scored, first in unintentional walks, won and excelled in two World Series, won an MVP award, broke a million and one smaller records, and (I’m convinced of this, and it may warrant a separate post), turned otherwise-unremarkable sluggers into mini-superstars. Rickey went beyond Great—he was Exceptional and Unique.

Twenty-eight writers looked at that sterling resume, scratched their heads, and thought “Naaaah—just don’t see it”

And that’s a problem.

Sure, it’s not a problem on the level of War or Famine or even Fall Out Boy, but it’s still a problem. So let’s look at the ballots.

According to several online sources, at least two writers did not submit any names on their ballots. This is due to a policy of not voting for any players who played during the so-called “Steroid Era”, roughly the mid-90s to mid-00s. So those guys probably thought Rickey was good enough to merit induction, but were making a political statement about baseball in general (Rickey is considered to be above steroid suspicion, as he never blew up like a balloon or developed severe backne).

One writer, Corky Simpson of the Green Valley News & Sun, simply left Rickey off his ballot without explanation. He explained his “no” votes on several choices, as well as his “yes” votes (for such a luminary as Matt Williams, for instance), but relegated Rickey to a “And Here Are Some Players Who May Yet Be Elected” list. Later, Simpson explained on the Columbia Journalism Review that:

“No one in the history of baseball has ever gotten into the Hall of Fame on a unanimous vote,” he notes. “I mean, we’re talking about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson—nobody. And if anyone out there thinks that Rickey Henderson can carry one of those guys’ shoes, he’s crazy.”

That’s twenty-five ballots left unaccounted for. I have a feeling most of them fall into the Corky Simpson line of thinking, which is where the problem’s crux lies.

The first Baseball Hall of Fame class was named in 1936—Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson, and Walter Johnson. None were elected unanimously—Cobb came closest, with 98.2 percent of the vote. According to Simpson and, ostensibly, most of the naysayers on Rickey, this is a sign that no player should ever be elected unanimously. After all, if the Baseball Writers of 1936 didn’t believe that Babe Ruth—the greatest player of all time, a name synonymous with “baseball”—wasn’t worthy of unanimous induction, then no one should be given said honor. Therefore, a set of “guardians” will simply leave players off their ballot if they are up for their first year of eligibility. There’s no thought process to it—they just don’t check the box next to said player’s name.

The problem is that this doesn’t jive with history. Baseball-Reference.com (probably the greatest pure website ever invented by man) has statistics going back to—wait for it—1871. Players in this day and age are eligible five years after they’ve retired, and can stay on the ballot a maximum of 15 years—hence, you never have any player who retired more than twenty years ago on the ballot.

Voters in the first election were working off a SIXTY-FIVE YEAR backlog of players. A special veteran’s committee was set up to vote exclusively for pre-1900 players, but the rules were unclear, and several players appeared on both ballots. Twenty-three players appeared on the 2009 ballot. There was no such list of eligible players on the 1936 ballot, but FORTY-SEVEN received at least one vote apiece.

Do you see the issue here? A voter might have felt that the stars of yesteryear were being forgotten, and tilted his ballot away from the obvious stars in order to give the Edd Roushes of the world a better chance. The more options you give people, the better chance they’ll lack unanimity on the obvious choice.

These writers are holding up a standard which doesn’t exist.

So, you might say, why not simply educate them on their mistake? Perhaps a little enlightenment will shock them into some sense.

I have a feeling that’s not what would happen. The writer—as well as the pundit, or the politician, or some combination of the breed—isn’t interested in being right. He’s interested in being weighty. Rickey Henderson is not a Hall of Famer because of his statistics, or his accomplishments, or his sheer brilliance on the field of play.

Rickey Henderson is a Hall of Famer because I say so.

And I don’t say so.

And that’s the problem.

The Off Year

Bessie Braddock: Sir, you are drunk.

Churchill: And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober.

When I was three, I broke my right leg. Not in a cool way either. For reasons which I can't recall, I had a toy garbage truck among my various playthings. I have no earthly conception as to what I did with it--threw out my spare Legos, I suppose. Anyways, while running around in my grandparents' house, I got my right foot stuck in the back of said truck. My foot stayed put, but the rest of my body kept going forward, and I received a very early lesson in torque and the laws of physics when my right leg snapped. Spiral break. Not very good.

I'm relying on secondhand memories here--there's no real trauma resulting from this accident. I got a half-body cast and was doped up on morphine half the time, so I can't give you the true specifics. I had a talking Teddy Ruxpin doll at the time, and the morphine convinced me he was real. There's that.

I guess the only thing you could say was that, from then on in, I walked a little slower, a little more cautiously. My leg was wrapped in a cast, and when it came off, it took from me a sense of abandon. I was constantly prepared for a fall.

Over the past year, I've made a conscious and largely successful effort to improve my mind. I don't mean this in the sense of actually making myself smarter, but I've been trying to do more with what I've got. It's worked! I think it's worked. Friends of mine have commented on how much I've "improved". It's my own mini-redemption story, right? There's nothing America loves more than something that used to be tarnished. My confidence and sense of clarity--the idea that I have some kind of purpose--have never been higher.

It's not enough.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of physicality. We have bodies, and I think this is very strange to us. More than once, while staring into a mirror after washing my face or brushing my teeth, I've been struck by a sense of dissociation. The basic act of moving my hand, or the sensation of heat or cold becomes alien. Athleticism is a way to reconcile this--we can conquer the world around us through speed, strength, and endurance. We can become masters of our surroundings by making them surmountable.

Or, at least, some of us can. For my entire life, I've grown up with the belief there is such a thing as a "born" athlete, someone who effortlessly glides through life's pickup basketball games and backyard football contests due to an inherent advantage. Whether it's great size, fleetfootedness, or merely an advanced coherence of movement, it's not something that I think could ever be taught, or learned. It's merely inherent. You are, or you aren't.

But I know that I can remake my mind--strengthen the connection between concepts, beliefs, and expressions to form a greater whole. Why not my body?

I still believe that some athletes are simply born that way. You can tell by the way they move--I met Rangers' center fielder Josh Hamilton once, and he practically bounced down the hall, moving with a certain economy on the balls of his feet. It's something you have to accept if you want to do what I want to do.

I want to make myself into an athlete.

We've already gone over why the grand path of my life hasn't been leading in this direction. But this path is mutable. Perhaps for the majority of us, our surroundings dictate our future. You could have two kids with an equal amount of natural athletic talent, but one of them has an expansive backyard, a lot of free time, and dozens of other kids in the neighborhood with which to play team sports. The other broke his leg when he was three and spent the rest of his life watching his step. Which one would you pick first for a team?

I think this realization is an advantage. I may be far behind, but all I need to do is commit--to treat the base and the summit as one. I could be in for a fall, it's true, or a disappointment, but defiance at the precipice is a virtue. Can you make yourself something you're not? I plan on finding out now. In the morning, I'll be sober.

The Myth of Nomar

I have been so terribly irritable over the past weeks, and I think it's Al Reyes' fault.

There are other factors at work. While the wide framework of my life is solid, I've been beset by a series of petty failures--the worst kind, to be honest. Ideally, in the event of a life-altering reversal of fortune, you have some kind of support system--friends and family rally around you if you're fired, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Fail at something stupid, though, and you will receive no pity.

The core of it is this: I haven't been able to write for the past month. This happens sometimes, and though the reasons vary, it always comes down to procrastination. I spent hours today avoiding the whole writing process--having to actually translate the clear threads of my imagination into something muddled and lacking.

To that end, I tried (and failed) to do the following things:

• Get the new version of AIM to work on my computer.
  
• Get through even a quarter of Samurai Shodown II (one of those classic fighting games that requires one to have methamphetamine reflexes to even dream of defeating the computer. So far, the pattern seems to be as such: start match, spend twenty seconds having every attack blocked with a dismissive effortlessness by the computer, lose match, consider throwing controller, and, ultimately, sink back into chair with a certain amount of despair and embarrassment.)
• Respond to e-mails sent by loved ones.
• Go to the gym.

God, I suck. The only thing I'm good at, in times like these, is writing. It's the cure-all. But up until fifteen minutes ago, I couldn't do it. It's somewhat liberating to be actually doing this, and someday I may write about the process, as it applies to me.

That, kids, is why the basic idea of Al Reyes has put me in a dark mood.

**********
At twenty-three years of age, Nomar Garciaparra hit .306 with 30 home runs for the Boston Red Sox.

At twenty-four, Nomar hit .323 with 35 home runs.

At twenty-five, Nomar hit .357 with 27 home runs.

I've always liked baseball, but I didn't really love it until Anthony Nomar Garciaparra (his famous middle name, which defined him to the world, became one of those words, which leapt above their original meanings and came to stand for so much more) became the starting shortstop for the Red Sox. Here he was, in the full flower of youth, so audaciously talented that, to a 13-year-old with glasses and acne, he didn't quite seem real. Nomar, along with the hated Derek Jeter and the distant Alex Rodriguez, heralded a new age of shortstoppery in baseball.

Shortstops had been, for a long period of time, smaller and scrappier, defense-first types, broken only by outliers like Cal Ripken Jr. Nomar was a sinewy howitzer, both on the field and at-bat. Two images stand out to me, when thinking of Nomar: his uncanny ability to rove into the hole between second and third base, spear a sharp grounder, then (all in one motion), turning, jumping, and firing the ball to first; and his power-laden swing, which (preceded by a series of ritualistic toe taps and glove adjustments that became iconic) seemed to produce naught but frightening line drives, at every angle. He was otherwordly. There was no effort to his ability.

We will never know his true talent level, because of Al Reyes. Near the end of his age twenty-five season, Reyes hit Nomar in the left wrist with a fastball.

Life is rarely cinematic. There was no hushed silence, no frozen movie frame--Nomar was hit, but he seemed fine., and he had an entire offseason to rest it up. In his age twenty-six season, Nomar hit .372, which to this day doesn't seem like an actual number. He wasn't even in his prime yet.

In his age twenty-seven season, the wrist began to act up. He missed a hundred and forty-two games.

In his age twenty-eight and twenty-nine seasons, he hit a combined .305. He could still mash. But it seemed to us, at the time, that Nomar was struggling, at least a bit. He was always aggressive, but his walks fell, as pitchers felt they could challenge him more often. More and more of those line drives turned into weak popups. He was falling off a mountain in slow motion.

In his age thirty season, Nomar Garciaparra played in only thirty-eight games for Boston, before being traded to the Cubs. The Red Sox won the World Series that year. Al Reyes' fastball had finally found its mark.

I've reached a point in my life where some things I once found essential are falling by the wayside. I can't remember my sixth-grade history teacher's name, or the names of the next-door neighbors at our old house. They're lost in the haze. I wonder if Nomar remembers what it felt like to truly turn on a pitch, the way only an elite hitter can. For the past two years, he's been far below adequate. Once the toast of Boston, a future Hall of Famer, news of Nomar's potential retirement due to "constant physical ailments" is buried deep in an article about something else entirely.

Don't pity him. Nomar is a millionaire several times over, married to a beautiful and talented woman--his life has been better, on balance, than billions and billions of others.

But the man used to be able to do something, and he no longer can. That alone is a kind of death.