I came to be a Yankees fan in the mid 1980s when I was pretty young. Growing up in a DC suburb, I never felt that Baltimore could be my team, and Yankees were just an alternative to liking the Orioles. But the Yankees legend grew on me as I came to realize what kind of a team I’d chosen to follow. The Yankees were the team of the great baseball heroes of earlier eras – Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and always Babe Ruth. In some important way, the history of the Yankees is the history of baseball.

Steinbrenner took a team of legendary history and brought glory to it, bringing esteem and pride to New York. I’m sure my idea of wanting so badly to live in New York was fueled in part by its being the kind of awesome city that seemed to bring home World Series rings year after year (when I was in high school in the late 1990s).

There are good owners and bad owners in sports, but almost all are mediocre. Steinbrenner fucked up a lot, but eventually he figured things out and it was never difficult to be a Yankees fan after the strike ended in 1995. By that point I was pretty sick of baseball, but I was always proud to be a Yankees fan and a New Yorker.

George Steinbrenner is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Bicycles is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Alex playing pool is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

The Express is a biopic about a football star named Ernie Davis, who was totally unfamiliar to me before I watched the movie because he never played in the NFL and because he died nearly 30 years before I ever seriously watched a football game. I can’t say it’s a good movie, because it pretty much isn’t (it’s not bad either). What I can say is that the football scenes are choreographed well. In fact, they’re choreographed well enough that I almost got up and cheered multiple times. Also, several times I loudly exclaimed, “Damn!” in praise of some skilled jumping over linebackers.

If you like football, or like someone who likes football, this movie might be worth watching.

The Express is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

There are situations, however, when honking is very, very underused. For example: at an intersection near my parents’ home, there’s a right turn-only lane that, after the light, is continued by a left-merge lane. The idea is that one lane of traffic only will line up and go straight through the intersection. During rush hour, this situation is regularly abused by a small group of assholes who go straight in the right-only lane, cutting in front of the civilized people who played fair and followed the rules. Then they get into the left-merge lane and easily pass by 50 people waiting in line. The worst part is that the maneuver is only visible to very few drivers at the front of the line; almost everyone who’s been victimized is way too far back to see it. Whenever, from the back of the line, I used to see someone pull into the right-only lane and pull this sneaky trick, I would honk. But I’d not only honk, I’d do it loud and hard, and most importantly, I’d point a finger directly at the offender, so that all the other drivers could see who was getting chastised. I like to believe I helped to slow the decivilizing trend of traffic abuses in this way, and wished that other drivers had joined me in socially ostracizing the cheaters. Unfortunately, very few did.

Part of this, and part of the reason why a lot of people don’t honk when they should, is that honking is actually neutral. There are a lot of different causes for honking: honking to prevent a collision; honking to express general dissatisfaction that traffic isn’t moving; honking to express direct dissatisfaction with a particular driver’s behavior; honking to thank another driver for a favor; honking at friends in another car; and rhythmic honking.

What, you may ask, is rhythmic honking? It’s my name for this: honk, honk, honk-honk-honk, honk-honk-honk-honk, honk-honk. This practice is usually done immediately after a major sporting event, by men in their 20s or 30s who are too drunk or too stupid to be driving anyway, in a vain attempt to extend to the street the great feeling they experienced in the stadium while their team was winning. Rhythmic honking is so annoying, and the people who do it are so antisocial, that I think rhythmic honkers should all probably be castrated.

Anyway, back to the inherent neutrality of the honk. Honking isn’t always good or always bad. It’s almost always impossible to tell right away who honked at whom, and why. Moreover, a honk lasts less than a second, so a driver who’s just cut off 30 people and gotten honked at 30 times for it only has to drive another block to escape the unpleasant feeling of everyone else’s angry glares. That’s why, even though I think a car horn is a good evolutionary step away from actual violence and towards solving problems nonviolently, I think cars should have their horns removed and replaced with paint ball guns.

How would paint ball guns be better than horns? Mostly for two reasons:

1. A paint ball stain lasts far longer than the sound of a horn. So if you’ve been paint balled for being a bad driver, everyone is going to know it for at least as long as it takes for you to apply a new paint job.
2. A hit with a paint ball causes actual cosmetic damage to a car, which translates to money. This means that, if you want to keep a nice paint job on your mobile investment, you’d be wise not to treat other drivers poorly.

Obviously there are plenty of reasons why paint ball would be problematic, but I’m confident that they could be deployed safely and fairly, and that they’d be far more effective than horns.

Of course, all of the above should be applied only to societies that are basically civilized and not to a place where, perversely, drivers actually want to be honked at. What? Is there such a place? Yes, and I live in it. Here in Israel, the main aim of every person, at all times, is not to be made into a frayer. Because the only way to be sure that you’re not the frayer is to make sure that someone else is the frayer, it’s customary for average people to treat each other like trash and not to feel bad about it at all. This is why, as Ari, my first roommate in Jerusalem, explained to me, honking in Israel is never a good idea: bad drivers who elicit honks from other people are proud of it instead of ashamed. This is also why replacing horns with paint ball guns would be an even worse idea here. And … I have no solution for this problem.

On Honking is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Easy. Football is several orders of magnitude more complex and intricate than baseball. Not to insult baseball fans – I used to be one as a child, and I still care mildly that “my” team just missed the playoffs for the first time in about a decade and a half – but baseball is an all-around pretty simple sport (all the complexity is in the compilation and analysis of statistics, which is tangential to the sport itself).

At any given moment, there are approximately a dozen guys on a baseball diamond. Although they all need to maintain some level of alertness, no more than five of them can possibly be doing anything relevant to the game, while the rest only need to check in periodically and readjust themselves physically (by which I mean, realign their positions on the field). Compare with football: 22 men on the field and every single one of them matters. Sure, some guys matter less than others, but I think every football fan has seen games where one minor mistake – an offensive lineman’s missed block, a five yard penalty, a quarterback’s two second delay in finding his receiver downfield – cost the game.

Football has a hell of a lot more rules than baseball. I can reasonably explain baseball to an Israeli in less than an hour, and that includes getting into some strategy. How much football can I explain in an hour? How much football can I explain in entire 17-week season? Not enough to figure it all out. I don’t get to watch very many games, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a football game in my life where I could have explained the entire game – all the plays and all the refs’ calls – to a football-ignorant viewer.

Also, fewer games. If a baseball season is still 165 games long (it is, isn’t it?), that means every football game is more than ten times more significant than every baseball game. I don’t mean to suggest that baseball players don’t play hard during May, June, July and August, but just that a football player can expect to suit up fewer than 20 times over the course of a year, which means that a tremendous amount of mental conditioning is devoted to those occasions. More mental conditioning means more strategy at every level, down to the tiniest motions, which necessitates more analysis.

Finally, parity. In baseball, talent matters most. In football, talent is distributed relatively evenly and coaching therefore matters most. More weight on coaching means more strategy, which necessitates more analysis.

Intelligence: football vs. baseball is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

I also loved seeing some of my old favorite players. Michael Westbrook seemed to have a great night. I don’t know how many years that guy has been playing, but I just don’t remember him being quite so good. Maybe that’s because what I mainly remember is the Redskins stinking up the field and the Eagles looking good by comparison. Also, I always thought Donovan McNabb was a fine quarterback and a great one to watch, so even though his skill has meant misery twice a year, it will be sad to see him retire when he finally does.

And on the topic of quarterbacks – Jason Campbell is good. I know a lot of people have said this in a lot of different ways, but this is genuinely the first time I’ve ever seen him, let alone see him play (ie, I didn’t realize he was black). He has a terrific arm. He’s confident in the pocket. He’s mobile – at the end of the first half, he scrambled and ran, I think for a first down, without even doing one of those McNabb-style feet-first slides. I really hope he stays healthy. He could be the future of the Redskins franchise even as much, or more, than Joe Gibbs.

Of course, since the game I watched was a Monday Night extravaganza, I was treated to some assorted follies and hijinks. It seems that someone thought it would be a good idea for Tony Kornheiser to become one of the announcers. I like that he’s a Redskins fan, but it actually is not a good idea, because Kornheiser can’t decide whether to be Kornheiser or Dennis Miller. Unfortunately, neither is a reason not to mute the sound and just watch the game. I never thought I’d write this, but I actually kind of miss Madden. Just a little bit.

So naturally there were all sorts of inane comments. But what were they saying about “snot-knocker” games? What is that even supposed to mean? Is “snot-knocker” even an expression that anyone recognizes?

Moreover, what the hell is the deal with spending 10 minutes discussing Andy Reid’s children? I didn’t even know that Andy Reid had children – the thought truthfully never crossed my mind – and that topic is so far removed from relevance to the Eagles and Redskins game that I feel 10 hours stupider for listening to it. Ok, back to not knowing or caring…

But on the topic of the irrelevant, was that really Charles Barkley in the announcers’ booth? The same Charles Barkley that used to play – wait, what is that sport called? Oh yes, basketball! So what was he doing there, trying vainly to comment about football? Here is what he was doing: yapping on about how a quarterback can’t play under pressure, while even Kornheiser looks around as if to say, what the fuck is this guy talking about?

Indeed.

Damn I miss football. is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Here’s what I missed in Israel while I was away: I don’t really know, the country slid a little bid further down the precipice; Scott is moving out because he found an apartment, so the hunt is on for a roommate; my banker Yael called my American cell phone while I was there to ask me whether she should honor a check that I’d written (she is the best); summer has arrived and it’s humidstickymuggysweaty here.

Here’s what happened in America: Newark Airport Montgomery County Washington DC Baltimore Philadelphia New York New Haven aaaaaaand Charlottesville. Shopping eating shopppping eeeaaaaatttting. Family and friends. Shopping. Eating. Pizza chicken doner kebab burgers chocolate pasta corned beef cake candy mountain dew. Jeans shirts sweaters underwear socks. Graduation. Books books books!

My brother gave me a Washington Redskins belt buckle (and accompanying belt – you need a special kind of belt to wear a belt buckle, guys). It’s the first belt buckle I’ve ever owned. It’s rad and I’m proud of it. He’s going to India for a month and will return to work as an actual aerospace engineer. Far out.

This trip to America was very very rushed. Two weeks is still too long to leave my life behind here, but it’s nowhere near enough time to see the people and do the things I want to do in America, especially when 3-4 days are sunk into UVA graduation. Still, it was a nice trip, wonderful to catch up with friends and family, to check out my parents’ remodeled house, to congratulate my brother on his really impressive achievements (what he’s accomplished so far is notable, but he will do a lot more in time), to eat most of my favorite foods in the world, to reconnect with people from my distant past, to let myself get lost (“lost”) in New York, and much much more.

Americans are weird, with the cheery smiles all the time and the insane airport security (it is easier to enter Israel on an American passport than to enter America on an American passport) but no security at all anywhere else and the gigantic cars and the colorful money Costco and the lush greenness all around in springtime and odd national debates (where did this big immigration argument come from??).

And that’s that. Back to life, back to reality, until my next visit to Fantasyland USA.

America this, America that is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Why are we now going to the playoffs? We are going to the playoffs because of Joe Gibbs. Gibbs does not lose games in December. The Redskins won 4 December, 11 December, 18 December, 24 December and 1 January. Gibbs wins close games. The Redskins beat the Bears 9-7, beat the Cowboys 14-13, beat the Seahawks 20-17, beat the Eagles 17-10 and beat the Cardinals 17-13. Gibbs dominates the division. The Redskins swept the Cowboys, swept the Eagles and split with the Giants.

It’s been a tough, but inspiring, season. We went 3-0, then slid to 5-6, and finished at 10-6 by sweeping our last five. As much as means to me, however, that my team is playing in January, what really matters is that we played great enough football to be in playoff contention in late December, that every single game mattered to us and that we played like that was the case.

I have been wearing burgundy and gold on Sundays. Yesterday: yellow t-shirt, maroon polo shirt, white classic Redskins logo sweater. Next week, when the tribe heads to Tampa, I think I might just pull out the old Darrell Green jersey.

Two closing words: Saint Joe.

You may all call me Natan "Postseason" Gesher is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

• As the article quotes, “Baseball is what we want to be, football is what we are.” Having never seen Any Given Sunday, I’d never heard this before, but I think it paraphrases very well my belief that baseball is the ultimate individual sport and football is the ultimate team sport. Baseball is truly about individual talent, perseverance and statistics. A baseball game is so full of individual play that the plays requiring two or more members actually stand out, and “double plays” and “triple plays” are relatively rare (actually, a double play is often effected by one player, such as a second baseman, acting alone, and I could easily envision a shortstop pulling off a triple play singlehandedly). A football game, on the other hand, is so full of team play that the plays require, for me at least, every manner of camera angle, commentary, analysis and instant replays just to follow the action, because there’s so much going on at every moment. At least once during every game I watch, I need to stop action and watch a play from several different angles so I can figure out who did what.
• Also as Cobb argues in the article, “Football – because its strategy and discourse so often resemble warfare – tends to glorify militarism.” To me, the object of sport is to satisfy that urge in humans, the warfare urge, that is probably present in all of us, or at least most men. While baseball depends most of the time on what an individual player is capable of doing because of his inborn talent, acquired skills and unhealthy doses of … superstition … football is simply so strategic and so dependent on the coaches’ minds and plans, constantly changing and adapting, growing as strategists, quarterbacks analyzing tens or hundreds of options all the time with attackers swarming at them … let’s just say that football, in its abstractions, is far more real-world, while baseball, in it simplicity, is far more abstract.
• For the past decade there’s been a predictable pattern to every baseball season: it doesn’t matter how the Yankees do in April, but by July-August they will come together as a unit and slowly begin steamrolling their opponents. Without fail, they will still be playing in October. What explains their consistent post-season appearances? Money. Steinbrenner cares enough to invest in his team, so the team succeeds. But, “unlike many oligarchies, however, the NFL owners don’t hesitate to redistribute wealth amongst themselves. The architect of pro football as we now know it, commissioner Peter Rozelle, called the revenue-sharing scheme he designed ‘a perfect model for socialism.’” Revenue-sharing, free agency and the salary cap mean that from year to year and decade to decade, the football teams will have roughly equivalent physical talent and that, notably, the only important factor differentiating them is coaching. While I appreciate the MLB model – I like to cheer for a player and know that he played for the Yankees last year and will continue to wear pinstripes next year – the NFL model – even if it means a player will never start and end his career with the same team – sustains football.

American Football and America is a post from Lines Writing Lines.