Losing It
Last week David Ortiz began talking publicly and candidly about his recent hitting slump. (If that’s even the proper term for it. In baseball, a “recent slump” usually means you’re like 2 for your last 20 or something. But there really isn’t a baseball shorthand for “We’re a 1/4 the way through the season and since Opening Day I’ve been swinging the bat like Dick Van Dyke doing the ‘Old Bamboo’ in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’,” so “recent slump” will have to do.) And Papi said something interesting, something that was later reiterated by Curt Schilling. The alluded to Papi going through some “personal issues.”
Now let me make this clear. I love Papi with all the manlove I can muster. His ticket is permanently punched in Boston. As far as I’m concerned he should never have to pay for a meal or a parking ticket or have to obey a traffic law for as long as he lives. Hell, after what he’s done for this town and how he’s conducted himself on the field and off, it wouldn’t bother me if we simply granted him the right of Prima Noctae like Longshanks gave to the lords in “Braveheart” and we let him sleep with all our wives. It would be the least we can do for the man.
So obviously I hope whatever his “issues” are they get resolved and everyone walks away happy. But I have to confess that on some level, hearing him chalk up his woes at the plate to personal problems is a bit of a relief. Because as long as it’s not a serious illness in his family (God forbid), personal issues can always get resolved. Family conflicts get ironed out. Money problems get cleared up. Private demons get conquered. Then you can go back to the business of tearing the cover off the ball. Because there’s something I had been fearing his problems were. Something much, much worse. I was, and still am, afraid Papi is Losing It.
It happens. In every walk of life. To sluggers. To pitchers. To artists and musicians, comics and quarterbacks. To politicians and hot celebrity chicks alike. Eventually nearly everybody Loses It. Rare is the person who’s great at what they do that manages to walk away before they Lose It. And the better you were at your craft, the more spectacular the fall when you finally do Lose It.
It’s as impossible to explain what makes someone Lose It as it is to explain what made them so great in the first place. A hitter like Papi is (note that I refuse to talk about his greatness in the past tense) a combination of size, strength, intelligence, aptitude and determination all blended together into a perfect 5-alarm chili of awesomeness. Take one or more of those talents away and the recipe no longer works. The ancient Greeks referred to Muses, goddesses who imbued men with certain talents (which is where we get words such as music, amuse and museum). And the Muses were a fickle as a bipolar “My Super Sweet 16" chick with menstrual cramps. As quickly as they’d bestow greatness upon you, they’d take it away and leave you hitting .203 with 1 HR and 15 RBI in late May. So until Papi figures out a way to do what King Pieride of Macedon did and turn the Muses into magpies and jackdaws and he starts hitting again, I want to talk about the phenomenon of Losing It.
The thing that injects a nagging doubt into the heart of even the most devout Papi follower is how many guys that came before him at his age and his body type, Lost It. Mo Vaughn comes quickly to mind. Cecil Fielder. Jim Rice was a physical specimen but he lost it almost overnight, going from 3rd in the MVP voting in 1986 to out of work three years later. But with all of them, you can understand why. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in the world to do, and if you skills deteriorate even a little bit, you’ll find you’ve Lost It.
Some athletes you can count on Losing It, like NFL running backs who lose it like clockwork on their 30th birthdays. Others Lose It inexplicably overnight like Keith Foulke did. Others lose the competitive edge that drove them to be good in the first place, and the smart ones like Annika Sorenstam know that’s the time to hang it up before they embarrass themselves. Far more entertaining though are the ones who’ve Lost It but are far too stupid or egomaniacal to realize like Brett Favre or every boxer that’s ever lived not named Marvin Hagler. The point is, every athlete loses it, it’s just a matter of how and when.
Other fields of endeavor are harder to explain. How is it that musicians Lose It? Wouldn’t you just assume that if you can write songs, you can do it forever? But every songwriter Loses It eventually. Which is why no words in the English language will make tens of thousands of people grab a seat and sit on their hands faster than “This is a song off our new album...” I saw Springsteen last summer, and believe me no one there was clamoring to hear his songs about the Patriot Act. VH1's “Behind the Music” has made a cottage industry out of chronicling the careers of bands who broke up due to drug abuse, infighting or death. But they’ve never once profiled a band that went from 15.000 seat arenas to the Sea Note in Hull simply because they Lost It.
I just mentioned one surefire way to avoid Losing It: Death. While dying doesn’t do much to improve your living situation, it’s almost always a great career move. Take John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They were the most influential musicians of the 20th century. But today we mostly think of John as the brilliant but tragic figure and Paul as the guy who got snookered by the one-legged chick. If McCartney had been killed by a crazed gunman in 1980 we’d still be celebrating his genius instead of his wacky personal life or remembering how he wrote “Say Say Say” with Michael Jackson. And if Lennon had lived, we would’ve gotten 30 more years of excruciating odes to Yoko like “Woman.”
In Hollywood, dying young not only prevents you from Losing It, it can make your career. James Dean is a legend more due to the fact that he crashed his car than the three crappy movies he made. (And they were crappy. I defy you to Netflix one and sit through it. It can’t be done by any but the most determined Film Studies major.) If Dean and Marilyn Monroe were alive today, instead of being iconic figures and the personification of cool like they are, they’d be running around trying to keep Dennis Rodman from pissing in the limousine on “Celebrity Apprentice.”
In the entertainment industry, rare is the person who doesn’t Lose It. There aren’t many Clint Eastwoods who can pull a “Gran Torino” out of their ass decades after “Josie Wales.” And for women it’s damned near impossible. For actresses looks are practically everything. Sorry, that’s not my opinion, it’s fact. When you’ve lost your looks, you’ve Lost It, period. No one watches Angelina Jolie for her acting. They watch because they want to do her. Men and women both. It’s not her thespianism, it’s her lesbianism. And no one is going to want to see her in “Driving Miss Daisy 2" once she’s Lost It.
Some Losing Its are as predictable as the tide. Child actors Lose It in about 18 months. Look for Dakota Fanning and Miley Cyrus in an upcoming “I’m a 15 Year Old Washout, Get Me Out of Here!” Celebrity chicks get maybe two years near the top of the Maxim Hot 100 before they start with the intentional pantyless upskirt shots just to stay relevant. Presidents Lose It at the 6 year mark. The country gets sick of their voice and seeing the same SNL skits and Daily Show jokes about you and you’ve Lost It. The Constitution should be amended to allow for a special Year 6 Lost It election.
It’s never worse than when someone you care about Loses It. It’s agonizing. I remember watching my Sainted Mother in her 70s trying to negotiate her way out of my driveway one night after babysitting and driving into the bushes until I ran out and extricated her. It was heartbreaking. At least until she got home and called me and said “I’m so embarrassed! I was saying to myself ‘Jerry must think I’m cracking up!!!’” I didn’t actually. I was afraid she’d Lost it.
So like I said, if Big Papi has Lost It, God knows he wouldn’t be the first. It happens to everyone eventually. In his case, I’m just not ready to say he has. I’d rather be wrong standing behind Ortiz than bail on him now and end up being right. I hope when the time does come for him, it’s along time from now. And I like to think that when that time does come, I’m here to talk about it. Because neither I nor Barstool is ready to Lose It anytime soon.