The Athlete Says Goodbye to His Body
by Robert Roper
APRIL 20, 2009 TAGS:
Good athletes are like gods -- transcendent, powerful, fascinating -- only not forever. The process of breakdown begins early in some cases. Mark Fidrych, the Detroit Tigers pitching star and beloved strange dude, who died last week, began falling apart almost at once. His stellar first pitching season was his only good one. The next year, his arm suddenly went dead in the middle of a game -- went dead and stayed dead. He was 22.
Tiger Woods, now back on the tour after serious knee surgery, is 33. He may have more years of extraordinary excellence in him, for which we devoted fans can be deeply thankful. But his days of swinging as hard as he can as often as he can are surely over.
Some god-like athletes, blessed with unbreakable bodies, go on for so long that they themselves yearn for the end. How else to explain Michael Jordan’s many “retirements”? Yes, he wanted the attention, the marginal boost to acclaim, that followed upon each retirement; the money, the records, the perks of celebrity piled up even faster with all the comebacks. But his first retirement came when he was still in his undamaged prime, in the same year when he lost his beloved father. (James Jordan was murdered in 1993, when Michael was 30.) Tiger Woods’ first experience of retirement also came in the year of his own beloved father’s death, 2006; the loss, long expected but, for all that, bitter and shocking, deadened him, took away his urge to perform, to make golf magic.
What about the so-so athlete, the ordinary one? The 10-handicap golfer? The junior-college fullback now battling a gut by playing in a Sunday softball league?
The tie-in between performance and breakdown is there from the start, usually. These days, as young athletes are pushed harder, coached more ardently, and rehabbed as they go, it becomes common to hear of child soccer players enduring ACL surgeries (especially girls, whose normal hip-knee alignment makes them more vulnerable to ligament tears). High school baseball pitchers routinely have their arms swaddled in ice after throwing a few hard innings, which is smart, but it encourages boys to think of themselves as men, with big, hardened arm-bones that can fling curveballs all day.
The former fullback worried about his gut has endured vertebral shocks, rude hits at the knee, and helmet-spearings in the back and the hips; the fun of sport for him has often been tied up with getting and giving punishment, and if he’s been lucky, he’s emerged from his glory days feeling less mortal than most men, tougher. But by his mid-30s, the cervical vertebrae are slightly arthritic; he gets headaches if he reads too much or watches a movie in the wrong sort of theater (one without those nice neck-supporting seats). Before he gets out of bed in the morning, he has to do a series of stretches for his lower back, and this whole problem about getting fat and having a belly comes from not being able to run anymore -- in his 20s, he could eat whatever he wanted and run it off, but now his hips and his knees hurt, and sometimes his back goes out after a run, no matter how much he stretches.
Sport, which all his life he has adored, now wears a different aspect. It used to be about breaking free, going beyond, achieving transcendence. Doing something marvelously well. Now it’s all tied up with fear, with Grim-Reaperhood. If I don’t get rid of this gut I’ll die like my father, of a coronary at 54. Don’t want that, thank you very much -- I’d miss my kids. Therefore, a program of long walks -- nature walks, like an old lady! A duffer’s softball league on Sunday afternoons. They put him in center field, because he can still crush the ball and because he looks, with his massive Mickey Mantle-ish forearms and big shoulders, like a real player.
But when a long fly ball suddenly arcs out his way, almost a homer but not quite, catchable, all you have to do is gallop after it, let go like a youngster, catch it over the shoulder like the Mick would, like Willie Mays, a new voice says No -- don’t be crazy. Play it off the wall, be safe. You could do it, you could probably make the move, and they’d love you for it, you’d be a hero again, but you’d be hurting for the next week and a half. You’d pull something if you didn’t break something. Hell, you’d miss next Sunday’s game.
Play it off the wall, there, that’s fine, that’s better. So the guy gets a double -- so what. Didn’t go for third, for a triple, because he’s afraid of your arm, little does he know. But no -- look at him there on second base, dusting himself off, his chest heaving. Didn’t go for third because he couldn’t, because he’s an old guy, just like you. Wave at him, go on. Look, he’s waving back. “Nice hit,” you say.
We are on the downside here, no doubt about it, But it’s still fun. The sun’s still shining, and you’re still in play. Probably get to bat next inning. Don’t swing for the fences, play it smart, come on, play within yourself. So that’s what that expression always meant -- “play within yourself,” play with what you’ve got, what the body can do. Who knows, you might even get a hit next time. Come on, we might still win this game.
Tiger Woods, now back on the tour after serious knee surgery, is 33. He may have more years of extraordinary excellence in him, for which we devoted fans can be deeply thankful. But his days of swinging as hard as he can as often as he can are surely over.Some god-like athletes, blessed with unbreakable bodies, go on for so long that they themselves yearn for the end. How else to explain Michael Jordan’s many “retirements”? Yes, he wanted the attention, the marginal boost to acclaim, that followed upon each retirement; the money, the records, the perks of celebrity piled up even faster with all the comebacks. But his first retirement came when he was still in his undamaged prime, in the same year when he lost his beloved father. (James Jordan was murdered in 1993, when Michael was 30.) Tiger Woods’ first experience of retirement also came in the year of his own beloved father’s death, 2006; the loss, long expected but, for all that, bitter and shocking, deadened him, took away his urge to perform, to make golf magic.
What about the so-so athlete, the ordinary one? The 10-handicap golfer? The junior-college fullback now battling a gut by playing in a Sunday softball league?
The tie-in between performance and breakdown is there from the start, usually. These days, as young athletes are pushed harder, coached more ardently, and rehabbed as they go, it becomes common to hear of child soccer players enduring ACL surgeries (especially girls, whose normal hip-knee alignment makes them more vulnerable to ligament tears). High school baseball pitchers routinely have their arms swaddled in ice after throwing a few hard innings, which is smart, but it encourages boys to think of themselves as men, with big, hardened arm-bones that can fling curveballs all day.
The former fullback worried about his gut has endured vertebral shocks, rude hits at the knee, and helmet-spearings in the back and the hips; the fun of sport for him has often been tied up with getting and giving punishment, and if he’s been lucky, he’s emerged from his glory days feeling less mortal than most men, tougher. But by his mid-30s, the cervical vertebrae are slightly arthritic; he gets headaches if he reads too much or watches a movie in the wrong sort of theater (one without those nice neck-supporting seats). Before he gets out of bed in the morning, he has to do a series of stretches for his lower back, and this whole problem about getting fat and having a belly comes from not being able to run anymore -- in his 20s, he could eat whatever he wanted and run it off, but now his hips and his knees hurt, and sometimes his back goes out after a run, no matter how much he stretches.
Sport, which all his life he has adored, now wears a different aspect. It used to be about breaking free, going beyond, achieving transcendence. Doing something marvelously well. Now it’s all tied up with fear, with Grim-Reaperhood. If I don’t get rid of this gut I’ll die like my father, of a coronary at 54. Don’t want that, thank you very much -- I’d miss my kids. Therefore, a program of long walks -- nature walks, like an old lady! A duffer’s softball league on Sunday afternoons. They put him in center field, because he can still crush the ball and because he looks, with his massive Mickey Mantle-ish forearms and big shoulders, like a real player. But when a long fly ball suddenly arcs out his way, almost a homer but not quite, catchable, all you have to do is gallop after it, let go like a youngster, catch it over the shoulder like the Mick would, like Willie Mays, a new voice says No -- don’t be crazy. Play it off the wall, be safe. You could do it, you could probably make the move, and they’d love you for it, you’d be a hero again, but you’d be hurting for the next week and a half. You’d pull something if you didn’t break something. Hell, you’d miss next Sunday’s game.
Play it off the wall, there, that’s fine, that’s better. So the guy gets a double -- so what. Didn’t go for third, for a triple, because he’s afraid of your arm, little does he know. But no -- look at him there on second base, dusting himself off, his chest heaving. Didn’t go for third because he couldn’t, because he’s an old guy, just like you. Wave at him, go on. Look, he’s waving back. “Nice hit,” you say.
We are on the downside here, no doubt about it, But it’s still fun. The sun’s still shining, and you’re still in play. Probably get to bat next inning. Don’t swing for the fences, play it smart, come on, play within yourself. So that’s what that expression always meant -- “play within yourself,” play with what you’ve got, what the body can do. Who knows, you might even get a hit next time. Come on, we might still win this game.
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