The difference between Hegel’s World Historic Individuals and Hobbes’ vainglorious citizens is notoriety. There is a direct relationship between how well-known a person is and how large of an impact his or her actions have on others. In Crime and Punishment it was the difference between a utilitarian milestone and homicide, but Raskolnikov’s hindsight was not so skewed. Identifying World Historic Individuals in advance is a senseless venture: they’re defined by the impact their actions have on the majority, not the other way around.
Once an Individual is designated, though, his or her actions can be scrutinized justifiably. After all, the outcome of his or her actions affects a multitude of lives in one way or another, so it is only right that they're held accountable to a higher degree than the average person. The decisions of an Individual serve as a narrative of life for the rest of us.
Once Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell’s personalities failed to operate in unison, they both went down, opening the door for a third party. This new wave of drug trafficking was described by Slim Charles as, “The game’s the same, it just got harsher.”
Bodie was the last living descendent of the Barksdale ethos. He wasn’t money-oriented like Stringer Bell, nor was he ego-oriented like Marlo. He was winning-oriented. He loved money and hated nothing more than being one-upped by some bitch-ass corner, but none of that came above loyalty or the unspoken code of the street. Regardless of the situation, nothing was bigger than the game, not even his friendship with Wallace. His gang’s actions held importance far beyond his own reach, and he was held responsible to that fact.
Bodie’s death officially marked the end of the “old” game, and demonstrated the full takeover of the new age of crime, focused on money over loyalty, ends over means, not being held accountable to the masses.
While Bodie was still alive, hope still lingered for a revival of the old ways. Michael was the ultimate illustration of this hope. An incredibly skilled dealer and hit-man, he shared Bodie’s convictions against senseless killings and for playing the game the right way. Imagine a Michael and Bodie coalition, a retroactive renaissance teaching kids the “right” way to deal drugs and handle their business, if ever there was one. Drugs are never leaving Baltimore, but at least they could have remained with some sense of boundaries to the deeds.
Without that leader, though, Michael was left to follow in Omar’s footsteps, perpetuating the violence and fear that already riddled the streets of a broken city. All hope was lost, and everybody (especially Dukie) is worse for it.
Likewise, the Rays represent the last hope for America. Whether or not the Rays stay intact will be a narrative for the future of America’s priorities. If the Rays can manage to win continuously without recycling their players like the Marlins or shuffling prospects like the A’s, they will pave a path of righteousness on which a younger generation can follow.
Baseball is a great display of how money and happiness exist on separate planes. The Mariners have a payroll in the top ten in the league, yet they were essentially out of the playoff race before the all-star break. And there’s no real lesson to learn because we can’t expect to see Adrian Beltre or JJ Putz take a pay-cut next year to play for a contending team. And if baseball players won’t take a pay-cut for the sake of winning, how can we expect anyone else to?
There are two main arguments against steroids in baseball. The obvious is that it’s cheating and tarnishing the legacy of a sport built on tradition, but another problem is that it is a bad influence on kids. If professional athletes take steroids, we should expect kids to follow suit. The dangers of steroids are real, but in calling hearings on this matter, Congress has turned its cheek to another pressing concern.
We hold athletes to such a standard that it is hard to think of them as much less than World Historic Individuals. They are the beacon of human accomplishment because they are everything we want to be. They have changed the way we view ourselves and reprioritized our lives, though what makes them different from Nelson Mandela and MLK Jr. is that they’ve done so without any sort of campaigning, persuasion or radical ideals. Though, by demanding such ridiculous salaries and surrounding our lives on all media outlets, they have at least asked for as much attention.
Aligning Barry Bonds with Nelson Mandela sounds like slander, but the truth is each of us spends more time thinking about sports on any given day than we do about politics. Sports have essentially no impact on our daily lives, though we find it necessary to devote at least some portion of each day to it. What we’re really doing is focusing on the smaller picture of sports, which in many ways mimics the big picture of world politics. Sports is the microcosm from which we develop our perceptions of the world at large. Jackie Robinson’s pioneering spirit and smooth athleticism was MLK’s groundbreaking strides and fluid speeches. Evan Longoria’s attractiveness, humility and flawless defense is Barack Obama’s attractiveness, down-to-earth mannerisms and foreign policy.
The sports market is, resembling that of America’s, purely Capitalistic. Capitalism is great because it provides the opportunity for anyone to succeed, that is, become wealthy. A company’s job is to provide a product or service to the populace. How well a company is compensated depends on how useful this product or service is to its consumers. The surplus of worthless trinkets and equal-quality goods being sold at varying prices demonstrates the superiority complex of entrepreneurial minds. Capitalism creates an atmosphere of greed that transcends this producer/consumer relationship, though, to the point where a company’s main goal is no longer to serve, rather to reap.
And therein lies the problem: avarice has become a social epidemic. If you hold that an athlete using steroids substantially influences a child’s decision to do the same, then you must simultaneously hold that an athlete leaving a successful organization for a phatter check will assure youngsters to adhere to the same ideology. There are congressional hearings on steroids. There are movies explaining the devastating impact of roids in professional sports on high school kids. There are rallies demanding stricter testing. But where are the activists when it comes to this issue? Where is the rampant opposition holding picket signs and chanting obscenities at Roger Clemens? The truth is, there is no overbearing opposition because the players’ lifestyle choices have sucked in more than just the kids. That’s not to say that everyone has been lured in, rather that this problem has a broader grasp than steroids. Whereas all parents can see the ill effects of chemical enhancements, many are blinded by the bling.
In this way, the Rays are Bodie. If the Rays can lock up their top talents with their modest offerings, there’s still hope for an olde tyme revival in which capitalism is not synonymous with greed. However, if they go the way of the Marlins and are gunned down on the street corner by new spenders from Detroit, New York or Chicago, we’re all screwed. But if this Wire metaphor is to hold, at least we know that the Rays won’t go down without a fight. They’ll stay put, guns ablazin’, just all alone and ridiculously outnumbered.
1 comment:
dont worry, someone read this article, despite how obscenely long it was. :) you made some good points, buddy.
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