Author Buzz Bissinger

nytimes

It has become somewhat of a pastime in the world of the interwebs to shake sticks at Buzz Bissinger; it seems an efficient way to both curry favor with the deadspin crowd and to defend the honor of mothers’ basements everywhere. 

Many of these attacks have bits of truth, several are truly funny. The Office writer Micheal Shur’s attack on Bissinger’s essential Costas Now thesis remains one of my favorite passages ever written, regardless of medium.  I’ll repeat the money quote here:

Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash “blogs” is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, “This book sucks. Fuck you, Tolstoy — your medium is worthless!”

But, unfortunately, many of these critiques have been overplayed and overdone.  Bissinger is a fine writer. He just went fanatical on a topic that he wasn’t appropriately versed in and was attacked, attacked, and then piled on because of it.  When he dropped back to pass he left his blind side exposed and was rightly sacked - what followed after that sacking was overkill.

So it is with a bit of regret that I must address Buzz’s most recent New York Times op-ed, “Where Losing is Everything” on Philadelphia fandom. 

Bissinger makes some fair points - Philly fans do seem to be passionate about even failure, or at least willing to accept failure as a part of their identity “we haven’t won in 25 years, beat that!” - but his article comes off as smug and insulting, and regrettably out of touch with much of what makes Philly fans great.  Bissinger’s article reads like a sort of old school rough and tumble coach, trying to force the power-I offense in the age of A-11 innovation.

The main thesis of Bissinger’s op-ed is that Philadelphia fans are defeated and revel in that defeat.

His lede reads

If you happen to be from Philadelphia, as I am, last week’s series between the Phillies and the New York Mets was the perfect three-act play for the city of perpetual sports futility - delight followed by deflation followed by convulsive death with the double by Carlos Delgado.

He believes that Philadelphia fans get shallowly sucked into the excitement of a potential success to the point where we cannot embrace the success without at the same time consciously focusing on how fleeting that success seems to be.  He suggest that, for the Philadelphia sports fan that initial hope is inherently tempered by the pre-realized understanding that failure is inevitable.  We can’t enjoy victory because we expect it to be taken away.

Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images

The most obvious problem with this assessment is its unfortunate timing.  Bissinger hinges his argument on the back-and-forth between the Phillies and Mets, and seems to come to the conclusion that Philadelphians believe that failure in this debate is inevitable - that the team can or will not triumph over an insurmountable foe.  While his main point about the relationship between Philadelphia and failure has some truth, the example upon which  he hangs his article couldn’t be more wrong.  After last season’s comeback Phillies fans expect to beat the Mets, and the Mets fan expects failure.  Anyone with their finger even mildly on the pulse of Philadelphia gets this, but here Bissinger is like an aging starter who refuses to get away from his fastball even as middle infielders begin to catch up with it.  He makes an epic, abstracted argument and tries to force the real details of the moment into his larger, constructed framework. When the details (read: facts) don’t run with his assumed current he does not just ignore them, but actually seems to actively assume that they do.

Yes, when the Phillies dropped two out of three to the Mets it was deflating for their fans, but that certainly did not mean that they had given up on the division or the team.  By August 2^nd, the day that Bissinger’s op-ed came out, the Phillies had retaken first place and held it by two games. Phillies fans were thrilled, but not surprised. 

It is not just the Phillies either.  Last season the Sixers out-performed nearly every expert’s predictions, then added a perennial all-star at their weakest position.  The mood surrounding their team -given these real facts - is less doomed and more hopeful.  The Flyers also shattered expectations, taking their fans along for the ride, and while half the Eagles’ fans do rightly expect doom day in and day out the other half seems to honestly believe that this is the year.

It is true that part of Bissinger’s argument is right.  He does accurately assess bearing disappointment as having become a Philadelphian badge of honor.  But even here he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding as to why. 

Philly may take a sort of sense of pride in the pain we have gone through, but that is the kinship born out of boot camp, not some sort of self-inflicted schadenfreude that embraces the losing itself.  We’re proud that we’ve made it through so much.  The attitude is not defeated but fiercely optimistic - we have been through the tunnel, and while it has been long and dark the light at the end will be sweeter and brighter.  Sure, we’ll point out that the Phils are the losingest franchise, but it isn’t a point of honor unto itself - what we’re saying is that no matter how bad it got, we’re still here, together, still rooting. There is no part of us that wants to trade a star for spare parts, but you’re going to have to work harder than trading away Barkley, or losing a Super Bowl, or [add your favorite historic collapse] to make us leave.

washington post

He rightly points out that all-too-often Philly fans’ booing is warranted - we boo because we know what we’re looking at - but misses when he suggests that inevitable doom is greeted with any sort of glee.  Bissinger tells the story of the 1993 World Series:  When the Phillies lost, WIP would have people on hold 15 minutes before the show started. When they won, it was 15 minutes after. 

From that, Buzz assumes that Philly fans swarmed the phones and radios in a twisted glee, ready to attack and dissect the teams’ failures. 

That analysis is, of course, wrong.  When moments call for celebration, Philly fans are simply more apt to celebrate. We don’t care at all how our teams won (until next year, when it may become relevant) we only care that our teams did win.  That doesn’t call for endless analysis: losses may beg discussion, but wins call for toasts.

Read any game recaps - and I’m included here - and the story of games is never what the other team did, only what the Home Team did not do.  Couldn’t get a guy home from third with one out? We can’t hit.  The other team can’t get a guy home in the same situation? Our reliever came in and did a great job.  I challenge anyone to find the words “the Eagles/Phillies/Sixers/Flyers were forced into a mistake” in the hometown discourse.  No, we assume that our teams control their own destiny.  That just shows a fanbase which is smart enough to understand losing, but also one that loves winning.

In all, the piece seems to more an attack on intelligent, loyal fandom than a discussion of Philadelphia.  Yes, Philly fans do seem anticipatorily ready to bear losing.  One early touchdown and the Linc’s collective shoulders will tighten, like a child’s when a drunken father arrives home with his belt.  But that reaction isn’t one that wants to be hit or beaten, it is one that is prepared to be.  Is that the most positive reaction? Of course not, but we don’t come back for the hits, we come back because we believe that next time our teams will smile back at us, will finally love us back - we have the survivor’s guts and hope.

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Bissinger says that to Philly fans, losing is everything.  That’s wrong.  Philly fans love the whole of the game; they know it involves wins and losses, success and defeat.  To us, losing isn’t everything - and neither is winning.  The fan experience in Philadelphia is about the Game, something bigger than wins and losses.

Phildelphia isn’t a town that has given up on sports; it is a painfully hopeful town.

A true fan could see that. But as Bissinger’s final tidbit may reveal, he seems to have gotten further and further away from the man who supports his team and the game with his heart and towards one who only enjoys the idea of fandom with his mind.  As Bissinger intellectually analyzes fans he has forgotten the how to emotionally react as one.  His writing shows it.

His last note reads:

Note on last week’s Throwback: In response to my column on escalating salaries in baseball in contrast to cutbacks at General Motors, a number of those commenting said I was simply adding to the problem by paying for tickets to the recent All-Star game at Yankee Stadium. Just for the record, my son and I were given the tickets by a friend.

To me, that comes off as hopelessly arrogant.  Bissinger was able to attend baseball’s All-Star game, held at historic Yankee Stadium for the last time - something that would make any baseball fan’s heart swell. He uses that high moment for a weighty attack on the game itself.  Bissinger makes it sound like he was doing a favor to the friend who offered him and his son tickets.  I would venture to guess that his friend felt otherwise.

The All-Star game was a time for celebration, not for analysis.  A Philadelphia fan would probably have known that.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under fans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.