I wanted to write about my anxiety and dread about the war and the trade and budget deficits and about how science has become a naughty word in America, but I can't get past my nostalgia for those 1,000+ yard season from Curtis Martin. Even in this most dismal of Jets seasons, the site of #28 giving it his all and playing for reasons none of us can imagine would elevate my mid-sunday malaise. But, alas, no more; from now on, only dread.
Few people seem to blog about the Jets. Can anyone really be surprised? One man, Fred Wilson, who writes the "A VC" blog on venture capital, not only roots for the Jets and b-l-o-g blog blog blogs about them, he even features a picture of him and his family at a game wearing Jets jerseys. Clearly, here is a financier for whom "green" signifies much more than money. And yet, his recent post extolling this weekend's win over Oakland fails to resonate with me. Sure, I loved seeing B.J. Askew run roughshod over the Raiders and John Abraham earn what I hope will be a multi-year deal this off-season. And I am not one of those fans "rooting" for a high draft pick. Ugggghhhh. No, when the pain is too much for Curtis Martin, then the dread is too much for me.
And still I wonder, where did this obsession come from and what did I do to deserve this misery? I blame my buddy Will, whose family was tight with the Hess family and who took me to Jets games way back in the day -- I remember freezing out at Shea watching Joe Namath in a Rams uniform. Ugggghhhhh, again. By the time I was a Jets fan, I don't think I even knew who the New York Giants were.
When I look my monday morning dread in the face and ask myself "how did it ever come to be thus?", I am reminded of an op-ed piece from the New York Times' sports section from 10 years ago, called "Sunday, the Rabbi Roots for the Jets." I found it through Google this morning. The rabbi's anguish resonated with me, indeed, and I feel compelled to quote him at length:
Assorted perquisites that are voluntarily extended to clergy by laypeople are an informal supplement to the formal rabbinical diploma of the rabbi. Twenty years ago a generous member of my congregation gifted me two tickets for single games of the New York Jets. "I can't use them and the rabbi comes before everyone else who might want them", he explained. That gracious act really made me feel that I had arrived as a rabbi! Additional confirmation of my status occurred when upon arrival at the stadium I discovered that the seats were on the fifty yard line. Eventually, single game tickets became a pair of season tickets for myself and my son...perenially on the fifty. "They are yours as long as I am alive", my benefactor assured me...
...As the years unfolded, though, I began to have the gnawing feeling that what I hoped would be my respite had become my punishment. Enduring cold, wind and rain only to witness teams that crashed in December and did not do much better before that, seemed a masochistic break from the wear and tear of my clerical work. My hopes were lifted each time there was a change of coach or the drafting of a star college player. Todd and Harper and Klecko and Mcneil were names almost as familiar to me as Rabbi Hillel and David Ben Gurion. Unfortunately, Jones (Lam) and Farrout and Nagle were equally well-known...
...Today, it is the image of the suffering of the Biblical Job that defines my mood as the new season begins. Why do I deserve to endure such anguish for twenty years..? I conclude with Job that my pathetic lot must all be part of the divine plan. But what heavenly wisdom governs a franchise which consistently drafts miserably, plans poorly, and plays dismally? Job's friends counseled him that God's beneficence would not necessarily be apparent in one lifetime. My recurrent nightmare is that in the season immediately following my death, the Jets arrive to the Superbowl. My wife wakes me as I groan, assuring me that it is only a bad dream. I explain that it is the reality, not the dream, that elicits my anguish.
Perhaps the fact that God is a Jets fan even explains the war, the trade and budget deficits and the dumbening of America. I only wish it made me feel better.
