Secure Immaturity

The Loss of Innocence

Growing up is hard to do y’all. I’m a Toys R Us kid. . .in a land where kids don’t even know what Toys R Us is anymore. It’s all online now on that computer thing with the pipes that pop up when the computer isn’t used for awhile. I should use one of those old screen-savers with text and just put ‘I’m getting old’. . .and in many ways I felt that sentiment today when the last of my childhood indulges died a slow, fiery death and I realized that the ‘miserable sad sack of misery’ that is my friend Adam was/is actually a true prophet and a man who has tasted the loss of sports innocence and has, for years, tried to prepare me for the inevitable break down.

I’ve grown up in a lot of ways, no doubt. I’ve got a kid now, my own car, a mortgage, my own small business, a full time job, blah blah blah. I’ve got the genetic grey hairs starting to grow at the young age of 28 (my dad was grey by mid-30s) and the more I don’t get my knee fixed from injuries so long ago the more I realize how much harder it is to walk and it’s only going to get worse. I’ve never been married (and thus divorced) but I’ve felt heart break and the joys and pains of relationships. I’ve had sex, done drugs, gambled, talked dirty, watched rated-R movies (even rated X ones), gotten in fights, drank alcohol, found religion, lost religion, and voted in two major elections. I’ve paid taxes and maxed out credit cards. I’ve done what every other adult, being someone over the legal age of 18, has done EXCEPT grow up when it comes to sports. I’m still a kid. . .thinking with the dream like ideals of a child who doesn’t know any better. A child who thinks the world runs around an actual code and though he sees his parents fighting from time to time, honestly thinks all people are truly good deep inside and everything will work out just like in the end of a great, innocent fictional world like television or young adult novels.

It’s funny that one world can move on around you while the other stays rooted in one place, daring you to tear down it’s protective walls and breach the rosy, pretty sheet placed over the rotting corpse of its reality. For years I’ve sensed the downfall and felt the pressure that my sports world is collapsing. . .but I found avenues to send that anger and never embraced the overall problem. I made excuses. Worst of all, I defended. Slowly, I shed the major sports as if they didn’t exist so that the purity of my child-like existence could go on and on. First, I lost football. The brutality of the sport and the negative aspects of masculinity that the mostly worthless core of players projected made me turn my head, though I still didn’t deny the ‘glory, pride, etc’. I just pretended the problem existed in isolated ways. . .and wasn’t a rampant problem that spread around the league (plus, a Kurt Warner would come along and give you faith). I unknowingly just stopped following my beloved Bucs and watching football with my dad because, well, it was a subconscious denial of facts that the NFL is not something I want to be a part of.

I’ve always flirted in and out of MLB and while I am enjoying a renaissance of sorts right now (the steroid era is over but big money spending isn’t), I expect it, at any point, to disappoint me even though, as my habit, I allowed the ‘history’ of the game to defend itself against the future of where it was/is heading. The NHL pretty much ended itself while even four or five years of obsessive soccer watching led me to turn away as the only concern was money, money, money, money. Even the pride of the country fell flat. But I denied it all and simply put my head in the sand.

But I can no longer be in denial. I have to embrace the fact that the world I live in is not a dream, or a wonderland, or even a Candy Land, but a cruel place where the people we dare to look up to betray us; where we put all the work in and get nothing in return. LeBron James, though I’ve never liked him or looked up to him, has now not become an isolated incident but the GLOBAL representation of a sport and league, my once beloved NBA, that has decided to take away my innocence and rape my will to protect it. I feel like once LeBron James decided to put his execution of an entire city on television and acted like a robot from a different world whose heart is made of twisted metal and steel, I realized that the final piece of my emotional maturity, or growing up, came to be. . .and it was humbling and not pretty.

This goes beyond territory (I’m a Magic fan and LeBron signed with the Heat) and it goes beyond fandom. When LeBron James, along with destructive cohorts Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, came from beneath the ground to smoke and music to present themselves to the crowd of ‘loving’ Miami fans (where exactly have you been the last four years?) I realized that not only do these three wear uniforms that say Heat on them but they now wear the uniform of shame and disappointment. I never thought that my home state would be the epic-center of my loss of innocence and the final straw that made me want to ALMOST abandon all that I have loved. If it wasn’t for the Orlando Magic and the truly great experiences I’ve had with them (I’ve met friends through them and, through good acquisitions, I’ve met the actually people in the organization and they have been class and defied the stereotypes I once denied were possible), I would literally walk out on the NBA right now. I would literally say goodbye to the sport that I’ve played and loved and watched and worshipped and, worst of all, DEFENDED for 28 years of my life. But even my Magic can’t save me from looking at every basketball athlete as public enemy #1 or guilty before proven innocent.

This whole fee agency debacle made me realize how futile loving sports is. The city of Cleveland, who I, frankly, HATED for the last two years (because of our rivalry with them and James), is now probably one my favorite cities because they, like me, are realizing the futility of hero worship for people who never really deserved it. They are now seeing that not even home grown loyalty is worth consideration anymore. The quest for manufactured championships and personal glory outweighs the blue collar passion of those who commit blood, sweat, and tears to watch someone put a fucking ball in a fucking net. I’ve literally, LITERALLY, failed to pay a bill to buy tickets to watch my heroes before. That is WRONG and that is SAD. Cleveland actually believed that bills were not worth paying or that vacations were worth sacrificing to see a bastard play who, even though he was once one of them, couldn’t give a crap about them. He represented how I view all sports stars. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. And James seemed to be the ultimate golden boy. As documented here, I’ve never liked him much but A LOT OF PEOPLE did because they believed the image and they were innocence. An entire city and most of the nation as found out that there are no heroes anymore. None. The only people sports stars care about are themselves.

Like I said, there are exceptions to every rule. But now is the time for all of us to unite and let the sports institution die. I don’t see any value in an NBA Championship anymore. I’ve wanted on so bad. . .more than almost anything. . .and I almost feel like crying right now because something inside me says ‘it’s still important’ but really. . .it isn’t. Who does a championship benefit? In some cases it doesn’t even benefit players on the roster. It benefits ego and desire that don’t involve me or anymore else. If my Magic win a championship, can I truly be happy. How innocent our the ‘heroes’ on that team. I used to never doubt. . .now I can’t help but look at ALL of them, even the ‘nice’ ones, and be suspect. That being said, I will release a list of suspect untouchables (those who I have complete faith in as athletes/people):

–Kurt Warner

–Grant Hill

–Manute Bol (deceased)

–Adonal Foyle

–Ummmm. . . . . .

I am feeling miserable right now. I can’t even look at Dwight Howard without suspecting something and I recently gave $300 dollars to his Haiti Fund. But is it because he cares or because he wants us to think he cares. Fuck you LeBron James. You have ruined the sport of basketball, the sport of baseball, the sport of football, the sport of soccer, the sports of America, and the sports of the world. Because of you I see you and people of your ilks true colors. I can’t look at any of you or your kind anymore without suspicion because you, my friend, betrayed those closest to you and if YOU can do that then who else can? You are the scum of the universe and you have taken something from me that I can never have back. . .the love of the game. No matter how many rings you win ‘King’, you will have done it because money allowed and because you walked over those who made you feel and act like ‘the chosen one’. The championships, from now on, are tainted. . .not just for the Heat but for the entire league. And it will never go back to what it was. . .and neither will my sports innocence.

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