Blogging Golomb

 Soon, three Yankee legends will ride off into the sunset. It’s looking increasingly likely that playoff baseball in the Bronx will follow suit. 

Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera all made their Major League debuts in 1995. Save for Pettitte’s three-year detour in Houston, all three have been with the New York Yankees ever since.

And for better or – as seems more likely – for worse, it will continue to be that way for at least one more year.

Last week, the Yankees re-signed Rivera to a one-year contract, ensuring he will remain in pinstripes for an amazing 19^th season.

Over those nearly two decades, Rivera has progressed from starting pitcher to set-up man, and from closer to inarguably the greatest of of all-time.

He has also aged, considerably. Today, Mariano Rivera is 43 years old, and recovering from a torn ACL injury. An ACL tear is an uncommon enough injury for any pitcher, let alone one in his fifth decade of life.

For Rivera, the path to recovery runs through uncharted territory.

48 hours prior to re-upping one aging legend, the Yankees decided to bring back another key contributor to championships past. On November 30^th, Andy Pettitte signed on for what is almost certainly one last hurrah.

After temporarily retiring for the 2011 season, Pettitte pitched well in an injury-and-age shortened 2012, tossing up a 2.87 ERA in just 12 starts.

Yet, over the last 36 months, Andy Pettitte has pitched in just 37 games. By the time Yankees were bounced from the postseason by the Detroit Tigers, his biological clock had struck forty.

A few thousand miles south, Derek Jeter continues his march back from an ankle injury suffered in a playoff game against those same Tigers.

By all accounts, the Captain will be ready for Opening Day.

If all of those accounts can be believed, the Yankees will have a 39 year-old leading off and playing shortstop next season.

For any Major League club – let alone for one with World Series aspirations – this would be unprecedented.

Yet, most of us would have it no other way. Jeter is OUR guy, the Yankee legend who, for members of my generation, seems as much of a role model as he does a childhood friend.

To me, and certainly to many much older than I, the Yankees are something foreign without number two manning the hole between second and third.

Without Andy Pettitte starting every fifth day, and without Mariano Rivera emerging from the bullpen to energize the ballpark and euthanize the other team, the New York Yankees are but an assemblage of ordinary faces with extra-ordinary contracts.

In the 19 years since our guys arrived on the scene – after just as long of a stint at the bottom of the standings – the Yankees have reemerged as the city and the league’s preeminent franchise. Together, Rivera, Jeter and Pettitte have won five World Series, countless individual accolades, and the eternal affection of every Yankee fan, many of whom were not interested or even alive when they made their Major League debuts.

Without our guys, this team is not ours. We’ve rooted along for too long to fathom anything else.

And now, as all three stand on the precipice of The End, and as all three have as much on their shoulders as at any other point in their Hall-of-Fame worthy careers, the Evil Empire might be in for a reality check.

Considering the injuries to Rivera and Jeter, and to 37-year old Alex Rodruguez – as well as the fact that, if the season started tomorrow, noted immortals Chris Dickerson and Frankie Cervelli would be playing rightfield and catcher, respectively – it’s hard to see how the Yankees make it through the 2013 season unscathed.

There are simply too many question marks, and not enough talent ready to step up and answer any sudden, belated assertions of father time.

But, let’s be optimistic and say the Yankees do survive 2013. Let’s say Jeter comes back and picks up where he left off a season ago. Let’s say Rivera is who he has always been, and that Rodriguez regains his stroke after a second hip surgery, and that Mark Teixeira finally shows us he’s actually a top-tier offensive first baseman. Let’s suppose Curtis Granderson remembers how to hit anything but homeruns, and that CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda all give the Yankees the pitching contributions they can’t do without.

Even then, the end will still be nigh. In 2014, Jeter will be 40, and – assuming he exercises his player option – in the last year of his contract, as well as almost certainly the last of his career. It’s hard to envision a scenario in which either Rivera or Pettitte stick around for one last final season, or in which Rodriguez and Teixeira don’t continue their regressions towards a frustrating mean.

Who can the Yankees rely on two years from now? Who can they even guarantee will still be on the roster?

Not Phil Hughes, who despite winning 16 games a season ago, is – at best – a number three in a competitive rotation.

Not Brett Gardner, who missed almost all of 2012 due to injury, and not the aforementioned Granderson, whose contract is up at the end of 2013.

Not even Robinson Cano, whose agreement also expires a year from now, and who will likely command the type of deal that the Yankees have already fallen victim to too many times. (See: Rodriguez, Alex; Giambi, Jason; Burnett, AJ, et al.)

Even in the most optimistic scenario, the Yankees are on the verge of starting over. And any reasonable evaluation of their farm system yields little hope of patching holes with internal resources.

Of course, the Yankees could end up doing what they do best – throwing money at whatever problems end up popping up.

In any event, it’s time to start getting concerned about the future.

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. It causes us to look upon the past with a fondness not warranted, and it causes us to make decisions in the name of history and emotion, rather than reason, the present or the future.

That’s what the Yankees have been doing for far too long, leaning on legends they currently have without much regard for who’s coming next.

If only they had gazed further into their storied history, and remembered the Yankees teams of Mantle, Ford and Berra – all of whom stuck around into their late thirties, and all of whom left a talent-stripped roster in their wake once their baseball careers finally died merciful deaths.

In 1965, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle were all holding on to their careers for dear life. By ’67, only Ford and Mantle remained in the big leagues; and by the end of 1968, all three had rode off into their respective sunsets. The Yankees wouldn’t win a division title or make a World Series appearance at any point over the next seven seasons.

By the end of 2013, all three of our guys could be gone, and all at the same time. Soon, three cornerstones of a dynasty will disintegrate, and leave an alarmingly bare foundation behind. The Yankees and their fans have had 19 years to prepare for this moment. And somehow, we all seem to have been caught by surprise.

Jesse Golomb is the Editor-in-Chief of TheFanManifesto. Follow him on twitter, or drop him a line here.  

(NOTE: This post was originally published on Friday, November 9)

This past Tuesday, I excitably raised my beer above my head in celebration of victory. As I watched my team standing on the winner’s podium, I cheered and applauded. And as I surveyed a long season of “leaving it all out on the field” finally at its merciful end, I felt simultaneously inspired and perturbed.

Somehow, this particular win had me more enthusiastic than any in many a moon. The happy, vicarious experience of watching eleven – perhaps even as many as twenty-five – men emerge victorious had faded, now being duplicated (perhaps even topped) by the efforts of an Army of One, or an Army of All, depending on your view of the American electoral process. For someone who grew up clinging to every hit, strikeout, touchdown and interception, it was an experience at once familiar and foreign, comforting and distressing. It was – to put it in stark, perhaps even devastating, terms – mature.

In short, I felt old.

Two days before Barack Obama stood in the front of the nation, proclaiming himself once again Our President-elect, I watched my Giants lose in wretched fashion to the Pittsburgh Steelers. And as Ben Roethlisberger took a merciful knee, rendering all hope of a positive outcome false, I made a quick, efficient decision: to move on with my life.

No doubt, important things were left undone. I was hungry, for example, so I walked downstairs, went for a walk, and picked up some Thai food. I then retreated to my dorm room, set up a plate and some napkins on my desk, and devoured my curry-flavored dish. And Good Lord! – disappointing football outcome be damned – was it delicious. The spice was excellent, the naan fried to perfection, the peppers crunchy, the chicken well-prepared. Once I was done savoring every bite, I wiped my face, logged online, and checked the latest projections on Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight blog, before finally winding down with a book in bed.

I’m not yet twenty years old. Since I was five, I’ve derived much of life’s pleasure from the athletic achievements of superhumans I’ve never met, and likely never will. I’ve jumped up and down, and I’ve cried, and I’ve screamed, and I’ve moaned, and I’ve written, and I’ve been silent, just because a few men did or didn’t do something I could never and will never do even on my brightest, most spry day. I’ve experienced incomparable elation in Super Bowl victory, and three shameful, hiding days away from school in playoff defeat. I’ve won and I’ve lost with my teams. I’ve lived and I’ve died with their successes and failures.

So, as I stood in front of my television at one-thirty in the morning, beer in my hand, listening to MY President explain why he was the right choice, and why the right things will happen moving forward, I couldn’t help but feel…different. And the same. Sure, I had hoped for this outcome for quite a while, and I was delighted to see my prayers manifested in reality. But the elation was nevertheless distant, like a feeling felt long ago. Which was strange and unsettling, because it hasn’t been all that long since one of my teams did what I had hoped and prayed they would. Just three years ago, the Yankees won the World Series. Just last February, the Giants won the Super Bowl. And just now, the experience of watching the victories of my youth was being replicated, one word at a time. My vision and my hopes were coming to life, through the mouth of a  man I will never meet, and whose rhetorical talents I will not match even on my brightest, most articulate day.

We tend to use sports as a microcosm for life, as a prism through which to view the world around us. The quarterback is a field “general,” the conquering of insurmountable athletic odds as a reason for hope and inspiration. Finally, as I watched President Obama speak, I understood why my father looked so devastated (more devastated, mind you, than after any of the hundreds of sporting events I had watched with him) as he watched the Florida Supreme Court finally declare George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 Presidential Election.

Back then, I had asked him “What’s the big deal?” I cannot recall if he had a good answer to this question. All I know is if someone asked me the same question after last Sunday’s Giants game, I would have responded, without hesitation, that the deal was not very big at all.

But if someone approached me as President Obama stood in front of the winner’s podium, and asked me why I was so excited over a victory that aligned with my first vote, I would not hesitate. 

I’m not always proud of my country, I’d say. But I am right now.

I know now what it feels like to be a patriot.

And guess what? Being a patriot doesn’t feel all that different from being a fan.

Dear Hustler Staff, Vanderbilt students and their administrative overlords:

There’s another side to this alcohol and Greek Life debate.

All around Vanderbilt’s campus, students rant over lunch with friends, and behind the closed doors of their dorm rooms. They go on and on, expressing dissatisfaction with new University policies regulating alcohol consumption and Greek Life, worried the policies are suffocating a social scene that helps to make us not Duke, and not the Harvard of the South.

And yet, we are not heard. Why would we be? After all, five more freshmen found themselves in the emergency room this year than last. So the real concern – as the Hustler posited two Mondays ago – must be whether or not Vanderbilt students “have a drinking problem,” or if we are all “just pre-gaming the hospital.”

Over the last year, the administration has alchemized BYOB wristbands, benevolent University police officers and – incredibly – beer pong into precious commodities. Never mind that for many, the most pressing question has become whether hospital waiting rooms will soon become more reliably entertaining than Vanderbilt fraternity parties; our student media – and the administration they are tasked with covering – feels the need to explore the possibility that we’re all really just a bunch of immature drunkards incapable of carrying ourselves responsibly.

Sure, Vanderbilt’s traditionally top-notch social scene, facilitated largely by alcohol consumption and almost entirely through Greek Life, is this school’s true strength and cash cow, as well as what differentiates it from the Ivies many of us turned down.

But because, as the Hustler reported, an innocent little freshman at a big, scary fraternity party accidently chugged a Natty Light mixed with dip spit, got sick and passed out on alumni lawn – yes, this actually happened, and yes, I laughed too – drinking must be evil, and fraternities even more so.

Because that same freshman wasn’t politely asked to please stop puking on our chapter room floor, and was instead “physically thrown out of the party,” (gasp!) the brothers and sisters of Greek Life must be the villains here – rather than the victims we actually are.

There aren’t many outside of Kirkland, let alone on Kensington, who are asking the questions the Hustler posed. There are even fewer who believe that the administration is anything but misguided in their continued assault on alcohol consumption and Greek Life. Vanderbilt never misses an opportunity to tout itself as a top educator of young minds, or its newest bunch of saps as the best, brightest – and you better believe it! – most beautiful group of students in school history. But, if we’re all so prodigious, why is our frustration neglected? Why is the unpopular argument treated as the righteous one? Why is the one thing – other than a degree – that interests more than 40 percent of us (as well as the one thing that motivates freshmen to slog through months of rush and pledging) marginalized?

Why does Vanderbilt seem so eager to abandon half of what makes it whole, as well as a significant part of what made it the school we all chose over so many others?

As far as we’re concerned – and maybe this makes us naïve – any institution asking its members to fork over $60,000 annually (and quite a few more shekels in Greek Life dues) should give a damn what the willful saps think of what they’re paying for.

And right now, we’re unhappy. We wonder why Vanderbilt seems intent on moving the party to the pregame. Our frustration mounts when we hear university administrators say things like, “The pre-gaming issue must be and will be addressed.” Pretty soon, we think, there might not be any party at all.

We find ourselves perplexed why, all of a sudden, these same administrators (as well as a stable of rookie Vanderbilt police officers) seem like they’re out to get us.

We can’t understand why the status quo from a few years back – 17^th in the nation academically, first in Greek Life – required tinkering, or how a student body once almost uniformly content became anything but.

We’re also increasingly under the impression that this University is much more concerned with the bottom line than the undergraduate experience. And we believe that a lot of what makes Vanderbilt great is being pushed aside, only so the school can remain not sued, and off the front page of the New York Times.

Ultimately, we wonder if our opinion really does count. We’re already here, after all. The most recent tuition payments have already been made, and – no matter how much dissatisfaction swells – the next ones will be too. So, it doesn’t much matter if we’re upset. It doesn’t much matter if an administrative tsunami of reform and regulation has receded with much of what we know and love about our school in tow, or if it will eventually return to wreak even more destruction.

Because, in the end, there will always be countless others eager to buy what Vanderbilt is selling, a never-ending line of saps happy to help the university creep up the rankings and rake in the dough.

Still, we continue to worry that, even as our school improves on paper, it threatens to become something much less in reality. 

I lived in New York for nearly twenty years. Time and again, we were told a massive shitstorm of a hurricane or tornado would hit. It never did, despite – given that inclement weather give me a day off from school – my rain dancing efforts to the contrary.

When I first heard about Hurricane Sandy, my thoughts drifted to these many false alarms over the years, when a power outage was the worst possible outcome. I thought of nights willing the lights to go back on: that way, my computer or TV would fire back to life, my cellphone would begin to charge, and I would be provided with a respite from what, at the time, seemed like a stint of boredom that would never cease.

Now, living two thousand miles away, surveying images of humans thrown on a stretcher, victims of the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, I find myself with a greater appreciation of eternity. 

As I flip through dozens of photographs depicting the widespread obliteration of my city – taxis flipped over, waves crashing over hot dog stands, citizens shimmying along the few dry surfaces (relatively speaking) that remain – I can’t but wonder if Sandy wasted time as she journeyed up the Eastern seaboard by watching The Day After Tomorrow. Her actions in flooding entire city blocks and stripping facades off apartment buildings seem stripped straight from the script of that – at the time, but presently to a lesser extent, laughably unrealistic – piece of cinema.  

As much as we’d like, this is no big-budget fantasy film: this time, as Sandy wreaks havoc, the costs are real – human lives scattered amongst thousands of gallons of water, fallen trees, and innumerable shreds of debris.

Eventually, all will be well. Power will return to the Empire City, its citizens and its neighbors. So will normalcy. Yet, as a part of the country generally immune to this sort of weather is now at the mercy of it, I can’t help but ask the eternal question, reframed:

How can anyone viewing image after image of entire city blocks underwater dispute the reality of climate change?

How can people still hold fast to notions of “disputable science” and a “lack of a consensus?”

It boggles the mind.

Still, perhaps there’s a way we can help.

Next time you come across such a misanthrope, show them a few photos of today’s aftermath. They say pictures are worth a thousand words – and since some of these subjects might not have the attention span (or reading ability) to digest that many in one sitting — let the visuals do the talking. Show them pictures of the FDR Drive submerged under several feet of water, of trees protruding into one side of a child’s bedroom and out another, of cars crushed, flipped upside down, and piled on top of each other. Show them the world’s greatest city – the financial foundation for our nation and the globe – ripped apart by a god (or if you don’t believe in such a thing, a climate system) that will no longer tolerate our offensive lack of giving a shit.

The evidence you put up for cross-examination might be circumstantial, the sample small, and our power of prevention marginal, but the consequences are no less real.

There is no greater threat to society, democracy or the environment than tolerated ignorance. By educating those who know no better, perhaps we might drown this ignorance in a flood of contempt and enlightenment, and foster (yes) an environment in which those who deny are considered those who enable, lambasted as malcontents not worthy of the earth they are so proud to offer up to the false gods of “freedom” and “a natural course.”

As a wise man once said, if we continue to take these people seriously, and follow their logic to its natural conclusion, we might as well decide not to extinguish a raging fire.  

Indeed, those who deny the affects of our actions on our climate – instead chalking it up to “God’s Will” – may not be directly responsible for this storm and the inevitable future ones to follow, along with the death and destruction nature has wrought and will continue to. Nevertheless, it would difficult to argue they haven’t lent a helping hand.

So squash this bug. Then, maybe one day, mother nature will decide not to drive her heel down and return the favor. 

I suppose I sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I’m neither devout nor skeptical. I wasn’t converted particularly early or particularly late. I’m convinced of its utility in that it gives comfort to many, but I’m not yet convinced to the same extent of its necessity.

I am, of course, referring to the Church of Twitter.

Nearly two years ago, I launched my first sports blog, SoapBoxSportsByte. Despite its inaccessibly long domain name – one that absolutely no one, including my own mother, could remember – the blog served as the impetus for the creation of my Twitter profile.

At the time, Twitter was much more of a craze than a phenomenon. I figured that my profile – shortened to @SoapBxSprtsByte so that absolutely nobody could remember it – would help me promote my new blog and garner a little extra traffic.

As I soon realized, Twitter is so much more than a promotional tool. Rather, I’d venture to say (and given its proliferation on the sidebars and bottomlines of seemingly every current television program, I don’t think I’d be alone), that it is the most revolutionary tool for sending and receiving information since the invention of e-mail. At any given moment, one can log-on to Twitter and be met with thousands of musings, jokes and “did-you-knows?” on the topics that interest them. Granted, the musings might be from Joe the Plummer, the Did-You-Knows? on the intricacies of American defecation habits, and the jokings quite  tasteless; but, information is, at the end of the day, still information. You could make a strong argument that this overload of information, most of it marginal and all of it quick and fast and ethically loose, has caused us to neglect things more “important,” and has led to a further polarization and fragmentation of media. While I’d likely subscribe to this train of thought, it is mostly useless; Considering net impact and providing cost/benefit analysis isn’t valuable when the subject you’re discussing is going absolutely nowhere any time soon. Twitter’s here to stay – at least until someone creates a superior outlet for all the bullshit our friends used to get pissed at us for posting on facebook.

            Yet, as my blog evolved into the slightly less cumbersomely-titled TheFanManifesto, and as my twitter feed took on the new site’s namesake, and as I found myself furiously tweeting during and between sporting events, I think it is worth discussing how Twitter has impacted the way we watch sports.

            For sports fans, Twitter has become the third commentator in the announcing booth. (Or, perhaps, if irritating traditional play-by-play has your TV permenantly on “mute,” the only one.) A fanatic can log-on during the game to see how his fellow diehards are faring, or to trade opinions. A casual fan can hit the site and find explanations for rules he or she doesn’t understand. Fans of any stripe can follow beat reporters and other journalists, and in return receive information on in-game injury updates and statistical quirks that have yet to (and surprisingly often, don’t) make it over the television airwaves.

            Just one example of how Twitter has enhanced how fans watch their favorite teams: a few years ago, Fox hired the NFL’s former head of officiating, Mike Pereira, to chime into the broadcast and provide his expert opinion on controversial plays. It was a rare innovative move for a sports broadcasting industry that hasn’t changed all that much since the inception of instant replay. 

            In 2012, Pereira is already obsolete. Not sure what you just saw? Need an interpretation of a complex rule? Want to know if the play is going to be overturned? There’s no need to wait for Fox to play it back six times in hyper-super-slo-mo. Simply log-on to twitter, and read the opinions of a nation full of Mike Pereira’s – including @MikePereira himself.

            Yet, as are eyes remain glued to our Twitter smartphone apps, and as our fingers type furiously, eternally unable to keep up with Twitter’s pedal-to-the-medal pace, I’d also argue that Twitter has detracted – and not insignificantly – from the enjoyment of our favorite pastimes.

On SoapBoxSportsByte, I ran a regular “running-blog” feature. The premise was simple and derivative: Whenever I found myself at a sporting event, or sitting down in front of my TV to watch a particularly important game, I’d tweet in real time. Jesse Golomb’s thoughts, opinions, and corny jokes sent out to a group of a few hundred followers would then be repackaged after the game into a column for the blog.

But, as I continued to do these “running-blogs,” I found that I would spend more time looking at computer screen, googling statistics, and checking my mentions, replies and retweets then I would actually watching the action on the field. There were times I would be at a Yankee game, miss a play or pitch – and then actually, pathetically, check my timeline to see what everyone was so excited about.

Rather than living in and enjoying reality, I was doing everything I could to keep up with a group of people I had never met, in a forum formed on a foundation of one’s and zeroes.

And while most fans don’t tweet dozens of times during games, or write foolish “running-blogs,” there’s no doubt that a large percentage of sports nation finds themselves incessantly twittering about, unable to keep their eyes on the action they often pay large amounts in ticket, merchandise and cable fees to feel a part of.  It represents yet another part of the gradual shift in the identity of the sports fan: from casual spectator, to wannabe journalist, running blog or not.

All this is unfortunate, because as I said, Twitter isn’t going anywhere, and spending too much time on its pitfalls while ignoring its peaks is nothing if not futile. Yet, let this serve as a call to action, one more part of our manifesto as sports fans: pick your head up and watch. There’s a game on you used to care a lot more about.

On the field and off it, in the short-term and long, the Yankees’ handling of A-Rod has been nothing short of wrong.

It’s not clear where this goes from here.

The Yankees could end up taking a cue from heartbreak past. They could surge back from 3-0 to advance to perhaps the most unlikely World Series in franchise history, quieting questions and putting off answers until another day.

Much more likely, they will go loudly into the night. (UPDATE: In case you went into frustration-induced hibernation after Game 3, they already have.) The Alex Rodriguez trade rumors, of which I am extremely skeptical, will continue to swirl.

In fact, the storm has already begun. As I write this, the Yankees are already down 6-0 in an elimination game. By the time you somehow waded through a sea of A-Rod columns to find this one, the 2012 Yankees – and Rodriguez’s career in pinstripes – could be over.

But regardless of how these Yankees are remembered (and right now, the odds on “fondly” aren’t looking too hot.), one thing must be said:

The Yankees’ handling of Alex Rodriguez during the postseason – and this is putting it kindly – has been straight up wrong.

On the field and off it, in the short-term and the long, the Yankees have diminished their chances of winning.

By treating one of history’s greatest sluggers as a mere nuisance unworthy of the stripes which he has so dutifully earned, they’ve hurt their chances against the Detroit Tigers of 2012, the Tampa Bay Rays of 2013, and all of baseball’s elite moving forward.

I get it. I’ve watched the games too. A-Rod looks finished, roasted. His bat speed is laughable, his confidence non-existent, his once majestic swing reduced to a pathetic flail.

The man who was supposed to end up blasting more homeruns than anyone else now looks incapable of ever hitting a single one again.

Still, looks can be deceiving: There’s no doubt A-Rod’s skill set has diminished, his 18 homeruns in 2012 being just one indicator of batting prowess passed. But it’s worth remembering that he hit .315 in July – albeit without much power – before fracturing his wrist and then returning for the stretch run, stripped of his once-legendary ability to hit a baseball.

Is Alex still hurt? Is this set of 25 or so at-bats merely an embarrassingly bad small sample?

I don’t know.

And guess what? Neither do the Yankees.

Which makes it all the more perplexing why they’ve treated this situation like one settled, seemingly already having launched a smear campaign of their $114 million third basemen (‘Confirmed by team sources,’ by the way. Are they even trying to disguise this stuff anymore?), just minutes after they announced their decision to bench him for the third time in five crucial contests.

“I’ve played this game for a long time,” Rodriguez told reporters before Wednesday’s rainout. “Bottom line is: anytime I’m in any lineup, I think that lineup is better. It has a better chance to win.”

Bottom line: A-Rod’s right. Especially when his absence requires the presence of the even more punchless Eric Chavez, who is 0-15 during these playoffs.

When you have one of the game’s greatest, you give him a chance to figure it out.

In baseball, 23 at-bats is not much of a chance.

(Just ask Robinson Cano, who recently vanquished a dubious streak of his own: hitless in 29 postseason ABs.)

But even worse than giving up on one of the game’s greatest, and likely doing it too hastily – the Yankees have banished A-Rod when they needed him most.

“I feel I can bring that type of impact and I’m also at any point ready to break through,” A-Rod said, flanked by reporters. “I thought my at-bats in some of those game got a little bit better. The last two, I hit two rockets. Anytime I’m in the box the game can change, and everyone knows that.”

Teetering on the verge of capsizing, without their captain to steady the ship, the Yankees should have listened to Alex, and given him a chance to right all that has gone wrong.

They needed him to find his stroke. They needed it yesterday – when, instead of playing baseball, he was answering questions from reporters and providing half-shaken, half-confident responses like the ones above.

Yet, even if the Yankees are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that their third baseman is fried – and it remains to be seen how they could be – and that any A-Rod plate appearance is destined to end in a trip back to the dugout, and that the best course of action is to trade him, and trade him tomorrow – then it boggles the mind why it made sense to torpedo a sinking ship, plummeting Rodriguez’s trade value to depths previously unseen.

Hey Cashman, it’s Jeff Loria. We’re interested in Alex.

But we know you want no part of him. You’ve made that exceedingly clear. You want him gone, ASAP.

So here’s what we’ll do: We’ll give you Mark Buerhle. And you’ll give us Alex Rodriguez.

And you’ll pay ninety-five of the hundred-and-fourteen million dollars remaining on Alex’ contract.

And, if Brian Cashman is serious about trading Rodriguez, as most seem to believe, he will have no choice but to say yes.

Because when you’ve made your disdain for a player this clear, that’s about the best offer you’re going to get.

Because when you’ve backed yourself into a corner like the Yankees have, the best offer you get might just be the one you can’t refuse.

Jesse Golomb is (unfortunately) a Yankee fan.

He’s also the Editor-in-Chief of TheFanManifesto. Follow him on twitter, or drop him a line via email. 

The New York Jets have now lost two games in a row, dropping their record below .500. Their once-prolific running game has finally become everything but. Their once staunch defense has lost its Captain, leaving the ship marooned offshore.

And now, as the Jets face the prospect of pre-game coin tosses becoming an exercise in dreams deferred, it’s time for something to be done.

As the Politician’s Syllogism dictates, Timothy Richard Tebow is something – and because of this incontrovertible fact, the Jets have no choice but to give in to the inevitable descent of Tebowmania, and to let the NFL’s prodigal son return to the gridiron as a starting quarterback.

Indeed, this one was as predictable as a morning sunrise, or a tube of hair gel left beneath Mike Francesa’s bathroom mirror; Jets fans were bound to get restless as soon as a few wobbly Mark Sanchez passes landed astray, or as soon as a few games went against Gang Green’s far-too-lofty expectations.

Soon enough, He was bound to rise.

…as was the chief profiteer, perpetuator and spokesperson of Tebow Brand Snake Oil.

In case you somehow haven’t had the pleasure (I envy you, imaginary person), meet Skip Bayless, ESPN’s resident screaming head/pot-stirrer and card-carrying member – nay, leader – of the Cult of Tebow.

Ever since the discussion on Tebow’s NFL worthiness began in advance of the 2010 draft, Bayless has taken every opportunity to preach the gospel of the Gators, Broncos and now-Jets quarterback, stopping just short of declaring him the messiah, harping for attention and personal brand promotion in a way only pole dancers and Paris Hilton were previously thought capable of.

All that is presumably why Bayless has remained (by his standards, at least) relatively mum on his favorite subject in recent months, waiting for the fire to first stoke before popping out the kerosene.

The embers started to burn Monday morning, and Skip seized the opportunity: With the Jets set to go up against the undefeated Houston Texans that evening — a game that would, not surprisingly, end up seeing Mark Sanchez’s job security go the way of replacement referees — Bayless took to ESPN.com, recalling his “Year of Living Tebow.”

More than once, he referred to himself as the “Lone Objective Tebow Defender” (Yes, really.), in a 3,000+ word column that doubled as his first since 2006 — surely, a coincidence — and a journalistic embarrassment of the highest order.

Maybe he was rusty.

Or maybe he’s the modern day equivalent of a snake oil salesman.

Either way, the intertwined fates of Tebow and Bayless represent an epic, perhaps even unprecedented case of “journalist” becoming one with subject. And as the former deemed it necessary to “set the record straight” on his relationship with and perspective of the latter, it only seems right that someone should do something to set the record straight on Bayless’ purported record-straightening.

I am someone.

This is something.

Like Tebow, I probably won’t accomplish anything significant here.

Still, let’s break it down.

Hello, I’m the “Tebow nut.”

Hi, Skip.

And yes. Yes, you are. Also, putting “it” in “quotes” changes absolutely “nothing.”

For 30 years I wrote for newspapers and magazines, wrote books on the Dallas Cowboys’ dynasties of the ’70s and ’90s, wrote about Michael Jordan in Chicago and Barry Bonds in the Bay Area, even wrote columns for ESPN.com from 2004 to 2006. And now, inconceivably, I’m best known as the “psycho” Tim Tebow supporter.

Damn, dude. That’s some resume you got there!

If only you hadn’t made this face. And this one. And this one. Maybe, then, we would all remember your shitty books and shitty columns instead of your shitty, disingenuous perspective on a shitty quarterback.

Stephen A. Smith, my debate partner on ESPN’s “First Take,” has told interviewers I’m “crazy” when it comes to the quarterback whose name Stephen A. basically has changed to Tim Can’tThrow.

I mean…I’m not one to agree with Screaming A. all that often…but have you actually watched Tim Tebow play football? He really can’t throw all that well.

If you read enough of my Twitter responses — caution: 100 or more have been known to cause brain damage in lab rats — you might even imagine me worshiping nightly at a Tebow shrine in my bedroom, gazing zombie-eyed upon a wall of Tebow pictures, lighting 15 candles for No. 15, then Tebowing as I ask God to please make Rex Ryan bench Mark Sanchez and start Timothy Richard Tebow at quarterback.

All of which is about 15 ways of WRONG.

Wait, what? One — albeit poorly written, way too long — sentence ago, you said that a rat reading your tweets might develop dementia, and that a human following @RealSkipBayless would likely envision you as a rat reading your own tweets. 

Now, you’re trying to say that the public should see something other than the Tebow-worshipping picture you’ve painted for the last three years?

That would be pretty crazy.

The astonishingly missed point:

I’VE BEEN EXTREMELY OBJECTIVE ABOUT TIM TEBOW.

Oh. I see. That’s exactly what you’re doing.

Moving on. 

The God’s truth: I never much cared for Tebow when he played at Florida. I met him at last year’s Super Bowl, and interviewed him, only because he requested the session. I do not stay in touch with him. I’ve criticized him on air several times for the several shirtless pictures for which he has posed, criticized his post-loss comments about how football isn’t nearly as important as his missionary work and criticized him for spending too much time on self-promotion after signing with two of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood — Creative Artists Agency and William Morris.

Is this supposed to pass for objectivity and journalistic prudence?

Never once in the above paragraph do you mention anything about how Tim Tebow plays football. Which of course is what would pass for objective analysis of someone who plays football for a living.

What’s that, Skip? You criticized him for talking about the importance of spreading the word of the the Lord? For allowing himself to be portrayed in something other than a T-shirt? For being too worried about how his disciples portrayed him?

You might as well be criticizing —

…I’m going to stop myself right there. This one is too easy.

And that’s my problem: I’m one of the very few commentators who have been objective about Tebow’s ability to win football games. I merely dared to say Tebow could be a successful starting quarterback in the National Football League — not a Pro Bowler, mind you, just a guy who could win games his way. Which prompted relentless attacks from anti-Tebow analysts and journalists. Which prompted me to defend my position. I wasn’t “loving” Tebow as much as I was defending him. The more I was ridiculed, the harder I fought back — always in the spirit of “give this kid a break.”

I’d argue it was more in the spirit of “this kid is clearly controversial, so I’m going to devote two hours of national facetime every single day to making him as controversial as possible, so that, down the road, when the strawman I created starts to fall, I can position myself as the singular, righteous defender of an unfairly castigated subject, and thereby make my opponents out to look either like haters or dicks.”

But, ya know: tomato, tom-ahto.

Live television is the hottest medium. My passion for sports debate runs hot enough without a camera transporting it into your living room with 10 times more impact. Before I knew it, I was the wild-eyed president of the Tim Tebow Fanatic Club.

Yes, I’m sure after you yelled about Tim Tebow on your national “talk” show for five months straight, you must have been positively SHOCKED when you started to be perceived as a raving Johnny-Loud-Note.

So how did I suddenly go from rolling my eyes at Tebow to defending him?

Through his first three seasons at Florida, I was skeptical of the winning-for-God-and-Gators hype generated by the collegiate myth-making machine. Then on Monday night, Jan. 8, 2009, it happened: I got Tebowed.

My life changed.

Understand, though I’m a proud Vanderbilt graduate,

Thanks for reminding me that we share an alma mater. 

I was born into a family in Oklahoma City that bled crimson for our OU Sooners. That Monday night they played Tebow’s Gators for the national championship. I was so confident I did something I rarely do: I shrugged off any potential jinx and picked OU on that morning’s “First Take.” Starting with my quarterback, Heisman winner Sam Bradford, my team had four players who eventually would go in the first 21 picks in the NFL draft.

That night I experienced what I eventually would call “a competitive force of nature.” It was 7-7 at halftime when (I later discovered via YouTube) Tebow gave his team a speech that was scary great: A shy-smiling boy next door suddenly transformed into the Hulk. A psycho-eyed Tebow screamed at his teammates that they WERE GOING TO GO BACK OUT THERE AND DO THIS AND DO THAT. And that’s exactly what they did. I sat numbly watching Tim Tebow take over the fourth quarter — take over the game, the crowd, the very psyches of my Sooners. Florida 24, me 14. Tebow: 231 yards passing, 109 rushing, 12-of-17 on third downs.

That night I said to myself I would never again bet against this guy.

First off: This speech was better, and the Mustangs still lost the Championship game.

Second, I’m not sure it would be particularly rational to use one good halftime speech and one half of one college football game as the reason why you’d never, ever bet on an athlete — especially once he begins to compete against far superior competition.

Alas, that’s not even what’s happened over the last three years: There’s a pretty distinct difference between not betting against someone and doubling down on them. Every. Single. Time.  Nobody’s put this much stock in one man since Fred Wilpon started letting Bernie Madoff handle his money.

I was sold. I said on air I’d take Tebow at the bottom of the first round. “Ha-ha-has” echoed. Denver coach Josh McDaniels took him 25th overall.

When it comes to the draft, I’m not sure Josh McDaniels is the right man to stake your reputation on. 

Unfortunately, McDaniels didn’t last long enough the next season to witness his against-the-world pick start the final three games after the Broncos fell to 3-10.

Tebow played pretty well at Oakland, but nobody seemed to notice.

Doesn’t it suck when people don’t notice things that didn’t actually happen? 

Against Houston, his fourth-quarter touchdown pass and 6-yard TD run brought the Broncos from 23-10 down to a rather miraculous 24-23 home win — Tebow: 308 yards passing! — yet I could get no more than shrugs from my show producers. Tebow played OK against the Chargers; yawns all around.

I’m not sure if a two-touchdown comeback would qualify as “rather miraculous.” There’s a few of those every month in the NFL.

And, wait a second! That’s not fair! I didn’t yawn! When a mediocre quarterback played mediocrely against a mediocre team in a meaningless game, I merely didn’t give a shit.  

But as John Elway and John Fox took over, a training-camp report indicated Tebow had been demoted to fourth string. Now THAT our producers wanted us to address on air. NOW would I admit I was wrong about Tebow? NO! I couldn’t forget what he did to my Sooners. I believed.

(USE CAPITAL LETTERS AGAIN I FUCKING DARE YOU.)

(Insert long passage here about how John Elway and John Fox were conspiring to start Tebow only in order to run him out of town in favor of Andrew Luck.)

And, as you know all too well, miracles ensued of Biblical proportion.

Well, I know a bunch of things happened but I’m not really sure any of them were “biblical.” 

Tebow didn’t just pull off a couple of fourth-quarter/overtime comebacks. He pulled off six of ‘em.

Eli Manning had seven. What is he, chopped liver?

(Insert another long passage about overcoming odds and Elway/Fox conspiracies here.)

And with reports swirling that defenders resented Tebow getting all the credit for the turnaround (this Tebow defender got the blame for that) and game-day reports that the coaching staff was prepared to bench Tebow on any given series against Pittsburgh’s No.-1 ranked defense, you know what happened: 316 yards passing happened. An 80-yard catch-and-run overtime TD happened. And a nuclear war of sports debate kept happening on “First Take.”

Skip Bayless starts nuclear wars. 

What did shock me was that, the more Tebow won, the harder a gauntlet of ESPN opponents came at me, sometimes two or three at a time dismissing Tebow’s 8-5 run as a nice little fluke. Twice during Tebow’s starts I was pressed on air to predict Denver’s final record. My cumulative prediction was 7-4, which prompted on-air guffaws. Tebow’s regular-season record wound up 7-4. Yet no one would give me an inch of credit for the greatest prediction of my career. I was dismissed as lucky or crazy or both.

When predicting a team’s record over 11 games, there are only 12 possibilities. A few of them (11-0; 0-11; 1-10; 10-1) are exceedingly unlikely. If this is best prediction of your career, I sincerely apologize.

Day after day they lined up to bash Tebow by bashing his mouthpiece — me.

Mouth·piece, noun: a person, newspaper, etc., that conveys the opinions or sentiments of others; spokesperson.

Stephen A. Smith, Rob Parker, Jemele Hill, Cris Carter, Merril Hoge, Mark Schlereth, Eric Mangini,Kordell Stewart, Jon Ritchie — hour upon hour they ripped and ridiculed me. I’m proud and stubborn to a fault, insanely competitive, a fighter by nature. I fought back with both verbal fists.

Our golden rule of barbershop debate — no punches pulled, none thrown — was sometimes pushed to its limit.

What does this even mean? What does a fight in which no punches are pulled and none are thrown look like? Do you just stand around staring the other guy in the face until he decides this is stupid and walks away? Does a neutral party decide who looks better sitting in a chair? Where can I see one of these “barbershop debates” and learn their golden rules? Do they sell them on pay-per-view? What do they cost?

Or do they just run on ESPN2 when half the country is at work and the other half is asleep?

Yet in the heat of those on-air battles, I began to see deep inside my opponents. I hit subliminal hot buttons that were making Tim Tebow the biggest lightning rod in sports, more loved and hated than even LeBron James was at that point.

You just admitted to doing the exact thing you said weren’t doing.

(And wasn’t it curious that LeBron, then infamous for his fourth-quarter failures, reached out to Tebow on Twitter, befriended him, even visited Tebow and stayed at his house in Denver, perhaps hoping some of Tebow’s late-game intangibles would rub off.)

Or maybe he was just bored when he was taking a shit, and tweeted.

So much about Tim Tebow moves people toward extreme love or extreme dislike or disgust. It’s rarely what he says, just the mold-shattering, emotion-mixing way he wins and the Christianity he wears on both sleeves. He can be so impossibly bad/great. He can be so insufferably innocent.

He’s the best role model in sports! No, he’s too Christian!

My on-air opponents had all dug in before Tebow’s draft and said he can’t play quarterback in the NFL. They were all being proven wrong, yet they were the very vocal majority. And most of them despised Tebow for something deeper than football. Debate raged.

Wait. I actually agree with all this. WHAT’S HAPPENING!?!?

My opponents kept pounding me with “he just can’t throw.” I counter-punched with, “He threw for 191 yards in the fourth quarter and overtime against the Bears’ defense!”

Ok, better now.

Small sample sizes should definitely override longterm consensus.

My opponents condemned Tebow for two poor late-season games, at Buffalo and against Kansas City. I swung back with, “You critique him like he’s a perennial Pro Bowler. Those were just his 13th and 14th NFL starts.”

No: we critique him like an NFL quarterback — an NFL quarterback who had 60 yards passing in a game his team needed to win. Had the Raiders not lost to the Chargers a few minutes later, that poor performance would have cost his team a playoff spot.

They: He’s all intangibles without enough tangibles. Me: Steve Young says he has natural throwing talent that could make him good, even great.

One analyst says Tebow can throw. Therefore, Tebow can throw. I call this Bayless’s Syllogism.

My opponents said they resented Tebow because he was given an opportunity no black quarterback with his skill set would’ve been given. Former Steelers QB Kordell Stewart told me this on air. So did Rob Parker, who owns a barbershop in Detroit. Yet, I argued, Josh McDaniels didn’t pick Tebow to win popularity contests, just games. I said Tebow got demoted to fourth string and his career might have ended if he hadn’t pulled off that first fourth-quarter miracle in his first start at Miami. I said Tebow had to overcome all the same knocks I heard through the ’70s and ’80s about black quarterbacks: low football IQ, unfixable mechanics, more runner than passer. “Kordell,” I said, “I thought you’d be SYMPATHETIC to Tebow’s plight. He’s a YOU.”

At least be subtle in your race-baiting.

Also, I can’t get mad at the capital letters here because Skip is quoting someone.

Of course, that someone is himself.

My opponents began to make jokes about Tebow’s Christianity, which outraged me on air. I’m a Christian, though (maybe to a fault) not as in-your-face as Tebow. I prefer actions to words.

Not a fault. It’s one of the few things you don’t have to apologize for.

My opponents accused me of loving Tebow merely because I share his faith. From my heart, that is not the case.

Right: The case is that you like attention, controversy and money.

I’m no religious zealot. I’ve been an on-air, in-print fan of many players who were far more Saturday night than Sunday school. But I do find it offensive that some media members ridicule Christianity in ways they would never take public shots at of other faiths.

Because a Muslim player would never be lampooned for bowing to Allah in the endzone.

I took offense to all the mock-Tebowing. Yet Tebow, seeing the bigger picture, embraced the fact that so many nonbelievers were at least pretending to pray.

So understanding. What a saint!

During our 20-minute on-camera interview, I probably went overboard to show I would ask Tebow tough questions. It ended with Tebow mopping his brow and saying, “Man, that was intense.” I told Tebow I didn’t like it when he said after the playoff loss at New England that the most important thing that happened was getting to visit with sick kids before that game in Foxboro. I told him his teammates probably didn’t love hearing that after Tebow played poorly and the Broncos got blown out 45-10. I told him to maximize the platform the NFL can provide him, then go full-tilt into his missionary work when his football career ends.

If Tim Tebow is saving the world, who saves Tim Tebow?

Skip Bayless. That’s who.

Again, I felt I was one of the few trying to remain objective about Tebow.

Four seconds ago you said you “went overboard to show I would ask Tebow tough questions.” You were therefore aware of just how compromised your credibility had become by that time.

It doesn’t matter if you were “trying” to remain objective; that ship sailed long ago.

Do you even listen to yourself? In this six year hiatus from writing, did you forget how to read your own words? 

Yet I stood out like a sore thumb pointing upward Monday after Monday for Tebow. What indelibly stained me as The Tebow Nut was the genius of DJ Steve Porter, who created a catchy mashup featuring my most passionate Tebow defense: “He’s a gamer, he’s a baller …” That “All He Does Is Win” video won a Webby Award.

Possibly the one positive contribution to society you had any part in.

We took our show to Denver for the Friday before the New England game at Mile High in early December. The night before, when I checked into the hotel, the woman at the front desk looked up and said, “Oh my God, you’re the ‘All He Does Is Win’ guy,” and ran into the back to get her fellow employees. The Tebow Nut had arrived.

Did she end up coming back? Maybe she was just running away before you started yelling ALL HE DOES IS WIN! ALL HE DOES IS WIN! until she took 20 percent off your continental breakfast.

At this point in the season a year ago, Tebow at home was thrown into a hopeless situation in the second half for a reeling team against a favored opponent, the Chargers.

Now, eerily, the reeling New York Jets are at home on “Monday Night Football” against the heavily favored Houston Texans.

What is eerie about this? That the Jets are underdogs against a much better team? Doesn’t this happen every other week?

Mark Sanchez will start but now the Jets are prime candidates to get Tebowed. What this young man was born to do is take an undermanned team that’s losing hope and make it believe it has a chance. He ignites. He inspires. He turns Hulk in huddles and after converting game-saving third downs.

Tebow can turn Shonn Greene into McGahee, Stephen Hill into DeMaryius Thomas, an offensive line still featuring three Pro Bowlers from last year into proud road graders paving the way for the NFL’s No. 1 rushing attack. Tebow can help rescue a defense stranded on Revis Island without Darrelle Revis and turn it back into a bunch of tough, experienced, well-coached playmakers.

Indeed, any semblance of competence from the quarterback position would go along way towards helping the Jets offense. But I’m not sure it will make the Jets defenders something they aren’t — namely: tough, experienced or well-coached.

But Rex Ryan and Tony Sparano must have the desperate guts to let Tebow do what he does best.

So far they’ve embarrassed themselves and embarrassed Tebow by using him as a decoy, a punt protector, a blocking back, a slot receiver and the initiator of a Wildcat offense featuring backs or receivers flying in from the flanks for handoffs. Tebow is none of that. Tebow, ever yes-sir/no-sir to a fault, even agreed to gain 10 or 15 “fullback” pounds that could hinder him when he gets his chance to actually play quarterback.

Allow me to say the painful words one last time: I agree.

Starting Tebow will take guts on behalf of the Jets coaching staff. It will be a move that reeks of desperation. And after Rex Ryan and Co. were somehow unable to foresee that their oft-mediocre quarterback would eventually play poorly enough to warrant reevaluation, it’s a decision that could quite possibly cost more than a few people their jobs.

Tebow’s mere intangible presence has turned a starter with shaky intangibles, Mark Sanchez, into a brain-locked basket case.

Mark Sanchez has always been a brain-locked basket case. The only difference this year is you are watching him play instead of Kyle Orton.

If Tebow history does repeat itself and Sanchez does turn into Kyle Orton

Told you!

(Also, Mark Sanchez wishes he was Kyle Orton.)

and Rex finally does give up and give in to Tebow and No. 15 does get his first start next Sunday against Indianapolis, I’ll predict Tebow goes 7-4 the rest of the way and the Jets squeeze into the playoffs.

Please, God. Make Skip Bayless wrong.

Take it from the Lone Objective Tebow Defender: Never bet against him.

*curses under breath*

*logs onto bovada.lv*

*puts money on the Patriots to win the AFC East*

Can’t wait for six years from now, when Skip’s next ESPN.com column hits the web.

By then, maybe Skip’s big bet will have finally come back to bite him.

Maybe then, Skip Bayless will finally sing a different tune. 

Jesse Golomb is the Editor-in-Chief of TheFanManifesto.com. He spent far too much time writing this column.

Follow him on twitter, or drop him a line via e-mail. 

These days, we don’t agree on much.

In our rising time of partisanship and fanaticism, of opinions analyzed and shifting on an hourly – nay, minute-by-minute – basis, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a large group of people to agree on anything at all.

…that is, except for how fucking horrible those NFL Replacement Referees were.

I say ‘were,’ because finally, mercifully – thank the lord – the union men have come home and sent those awful scabs packing, rescuing our true National Pastime from the one thing (gambling fraud) that might have knocked it off its money-churning pedestal.

And guess what? We did it. Sports fans came together and got our guys back, saving football forever – or at least until the next labor deal expires.

But our efforts weren’t fulfilled easily, and for a long time, it looked like they would be in vain.

No matter how many journalists whined (ESPN.com ran 29 stories on replacement refs from their first game on September 6^th to their last on September 23^rd), or no matter how many fans tweeted their disgust (surely, hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of 140-word complaints were sent out over the same time frame), the corporate behemoth would end up getting what it wanted, like it always does. How could we ever expect Goodell’s goliath to fall at the hands of a few million pissed off fans and a few dozen pension-seeking employees?

In reality, we didn’t: We were told time and time again that it didn’t matter how upset everyone was. As Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young reminded us, “The demand for football is inelastic.” He wasn’t really using the term correctly, but his point stood: all of us were still watching football, even if we weren’t particularly happy about it. This is the world today: driven entirely by profit motive, inelastic until dollars dictate otherwise. The refs could keep calling phantom pass interference until Skip Bayless’ head exploded, and it wouldn’t mean much at all until Skip actually turned off his TV set on Sunday afternoons.

But then, something funny happened. David won. The refs held on to their 401(k)s. The fans appetite for blood was satiated.

And it only happened because of one of the flukiest, freakiest moments in the history of American football.

With just eight seconds remaining in the last Monday Night Football game the replacement officials would ever participate in, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson dropped back from the 24 yard-line. He held the ball, held it some more, and finally let it fly – first, as replays clearly showed, into the hands of Green Bay defensive back M.D. Jennings and then – once he had shoved Packers corner Sam Shields out of the way and wrestled Jennings to the ground, into the hands of Seattle receiver Golden Tate.

It was a play that by all accounts, should have ended in an interception and a victory for the Packers.

Instead, the Seahawks went home happy.

And the internet freaking exploded.

Forget 29 columns in three weeks: from the end of the game until the time a new deal was codified three days later, ESPN.com ran 39 separate pieces on just how horrible the replacements were, and just how overdue the NFL was in reinstating its regular officials.

Grantland columnist Bill Simmons – widely considered the most popular sports journalist of his generation, and a noted presence in social media – commented that he hadn’t seen such a sustained reaction on twitter since Osama bin Laden was killed.

Mitt Romney and President Obama, as well as VP candidate Paul Ryan, were all interviewed about the event the next day. They all expressed their disgust over the NFL’s actions and their unrelenting desire to get “our refs back.”

(Never mind that Roger Goodell was using the exact same kind of union-busting tactics Ryan had used with teachers in Wisconsin – but that’s a conversation on hypocrisy for another day.)

And three days later, we did. The NFL gave in to the noise — and the now very real actual possibility of fans switching off their TV sets.

This sort of chaos is just about the only thing that can create change nowadays, or convince those in power to listen to those who keep them there.

It doesn’t take a village anymore: It takes a calamitous moment that threatens to shake the core of an institution, and it takes tens of millions of people tuning in to witness it at the same time.

The outrage machine whirls eternally, but rarely in unison. For once, from late on a Monday night through the end of the week, it did. As a result, against all odds, we got what we wanted.

It’s funny that it happened this way, because one wouldn’t think sports would provide the common ground for Americans to finally come together. Our national pastimes are inherently competitive, and our fandom innately provincial: As fans, we stake claims to a certain team or teams, generally on certain federally-subsidized parcels of land within driving distance of our living room couch. For no other reason than just because, we also tend to hate everything that exists outside of these little bubbles. Our crosstown rivals are Satan, our divisional foes his spawn. 

At some point in the twentieth century, a few very rich white men concluded that Philadelphia and New York were sufficiently close in geography to avoid particularly awful interstate bus trips and thus, that the two cities’ football teams were suitable opponents twice a year. As a result, decades after these white knights rose from their round conference room table, this Giants fan despises everything the Eagles of Philadelphia stand for.

Maybe, in the end, sports is the only medium capable of providing the sort of earth shaking calamity mentioned above. Where else do you have millions of people paying attention – and passionately arguing about – the same event?

This is what I realized when, even if it was for just a few days, Philadelphia and New York could come together and agree: these scabs sucked. They needed to go.

It was a rare instance of brotherly love I could share with my friend from the other side of the Jersey Turnpike – and one I’d forget about instantly once a questionable pass interference call caused my Giants to fall to his Eagles the following Sunday.

Real refs: glad to have you back!

Hello.

My name is Jesse Golomb, and I’ve been here for a little while.

Not so long, mind you — I wouldn’t ever call myself an expert in this field. I wouldn’t even go as far as to call myself a veteran of it. But I’ve been doing this running a website thing for almost two years now, and I feel like, along the way, I’ve gotten a decently good grasp on how to hit the ‘publish’ button and send someone else’s carefully cultivated words out into cyberspace.

I joke, but as with any good jest, there’s some truth involved.

When I started TheFanManifesto — the self-proclaimed “website for the educated sports fan…” a claim which, I would be the first to admit, is more than a tad pompous — last May, my goal was to find a forum in which all my pent-up energy could be released. I’ve been a diehard sports fan and an aspiring writer since the age of five. Certainly, after a decade and a half listening to the mainstream sports media spew a whole lot of wrong and a lot less right, the time had come to release all that repressed frustration right onto the virtual page, a few times a week, for all of the world — or at least the few friends and family members who gave a shit — to see.

Of course, along the way, the hope was that I’d also write, a lot. And — I wouldn’t be a writer if this wasn’t the case — that a hefty dose of positive feedback and instant gratification would satiate my ever-hungry ego.

And at first, I did write. (A lot — Last summer, I published 3-5 800-2000 word columns a week.) And from the outset, the reaction was flattering: traffic continuously increased. Emails flooded in from people wanting to know more. Friends asked if they could contribute, and others talked about it as I passed them on the way to class or at a party on the weekend. I started a site tie-in twitter feed that quickly exploded to around 1,000 followers (a figure that has, more than anything, gone a long way towards assuaging the doubts of any who wonder: “why the hell do you spend so much time on this thing? Is anyone even paying attention?).

So, yeah things were going peachy. Probably too peachy, actually, and definitely too peachy too quickly, because as with any business experiencing quick success (even if this one wasn’t making much monetary headway), the urge came to expand.

So expand I did: with college looming, and the threat of my free-time dissolving into hours of paper-writing and natty-light-pounding, I did what any good writer/bullshitter (because god knows, those two attributes go hand-in-hand) would do: I convinced other people to do the work for me.

Since I began college last August, more than 60 writers/bloggers/authors have done work under TheFanManifesto masthead. Not a single one of them was named Jesse Golomb, and I have only ever met one of them in person. I haven’t seen that person since I was sixteen.

But with expansion has come contraction. There is no question that my workload from last summer was unsustainable. 6,000 words would have never found a place in a week packed with classes, parties, papers, classes, tests and — most of all — happiness. Finding a team of writers to publish daily content would not only take some weight off my shoulders but also serve to push up my viewership and further TheFanManifesto brand as well as my personal one.

(Say what you want, but “Editor-in-Chief” looks and sounds a lot better than “blogger.” I run my website for the love of the game, to fulfill a stated creed of “anti-sensational sports opinion for all” — but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do it with at least one plotting eye cast towards the future.)

But, of course, there was penance to be paid for my hubris. On TheFanManifesto plantation, I was The Master. As dozens worked for free under my command, the temptation came to slack off.

And now, as my writing output has slowed to the point of stopping, and as what I’ve built has started to erode not as slowly, the time has come for me to once again grab the reins. I may not have time for 6,000 words a week. But I should have time for a thousand. And if there’s any hope for the site for the educated sports fan to become exactly that, then it’s time to pay for my sins.

Starting this separate personal blog, for this class, will help me to do just that. Other than finding time, one of the biggest challenges in providing content was finding inspiration. As a high schooler, there were really only three things on my mind: a) how puberty and teenage awkwardness was — ahem — manifesting itself; b) all the girls this manifestation was causing me to strike out with; and c), sports.

As I’ve gone few years older and few years more mature, these concerns have been replaced with more serious, adult stuff (At least this is what I like to tell myself). In any event, sports now takes up a considerably smaller part of my mental pie chart.

But now, with a little rigidity, a little inspiration, a little time set aside every week for the purpose of reinvigorating my passion for sports and for writing, the hope is that that slice will once again expand. I’ve loved these two things — sports and writing — for far too long to let them get pushed out by a few extra papers, a few more parties and a few less hours of sleep.

It’s time to emancipate. The burden on my unpaid, sometimes untalented writers has become too great, as has my reliance on a system that perpetuates mediocrity and enables laziness. It’s time to break the chains: the thickest of which now reside on my wrists. The time has come to hit the ‘publish’ button on something I wrote, and then have a whole lot of people compliment me afterwards.

Let freedom ring.

Progress won’t be made until we discuss something besides it

You asked for it, Vanderbilt fans.

You wanted a real, competitive football team, with real, competitive expectations. You wanted a bowl game, a swarming defense, and a recruiting class that could rival those of the SEC big boys.

You wanted a university committed to academics and athletics, and by extension, an actual department to oversee the latter.

You wanted a little hope that the future might be better than the past.

And guess what? You got it. All of it.

So, now that that your wishes have been fulfilled, it’s time to be disappointed – maybe even upset – at the prospect of opportunity lost. High expectations and historical successes appear to be falling by the wayside, to be replaced with yet another frustrating, sub-.500 season of Commodore football.

Now, allow me to step aside for a second, and give you a chance to meditate on missed opportunities against South Carolina and Northwestern, or on embarrassment in Athens.

Upset yet? Good.

Let’s send all that pent-up negative energy in a positive direction.

Let’s start talking about how to right the ship.

Yes, thank The Commodore Himself – surely smiling down from The Big Mansion in the sky as he watches Jordan Rodgers struggle to convert on third-and-long – that our football team isn’t quite as horrendous as usual.

But now that we’ve put that aside, let’s s discuss the actual product on the field, because we’ve reached a point where being better than the past should no longer be satisfactory, where not being bad – as Vanderbilt football has been for most of its existence – should simply not be good enough.

We can start by asking questions that will help this program reach its potential:

Is the offense running as efficiently as possible? Are the right plays being called? Are the right players on the field at the right times?

Are our student-athletes being put in the best possible position for success?

I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not sure of the answer to any of these questions. But, what I am sure of is that these same questions are asked by football fans of every stripe – amateur or professional – on a weekly basis.

And I am also sure that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Vanderbilt Football will not have taken a definitive step forward until the present becomes of more interest than the past, or until the possibility of progress to come becomes of more import than progress already made. 

When the student body begins to bicker over defensive schemes and third down draws, in much the same way they do about the Titans, and the Giants, and even the Volunteers – that’s when we’ll know: a New Era is finally upon us.

Until then, we’re stuck watching the same old movie, with the all the familiar genre tropes: hope replaced with anguish; expectations continually dashed; and most of all, no matter the circumstance, the can’t-shake-it feeling that a loss is looming.

Until then, we will continue to be satisfied with moral victories and close calls. Until then, we will continue be content dwelling just above the SEC cellar, having recently vacated our long-held spot within it.

I’m not sure there is another program in the country – Alabama probably withstanding – that is so consumed by its history, or that waxes more about happenings outside the lines rather than the action between them.

From here on out, the past needs to stay exactly where it is: Because the fact of the matter is, that with considerable talent on both sides of the ball and more on the way, the chance for a bright future is finally here.

Let’s seize it.

There is no doubt that, over the last year, James Franklin has taken a program stuck in college football’s Bronze Age and turned it into something more worthy of the SEC gold standard than ever before. In the process, Franklin has proved himself to be a great recruiter, maybe a better motivator, and perhaps even – as many a magazine or newspaper profile would have you believe – an exceptional human being.  

But it remains to be seen whether or not Franklin’s coaching prowess extends to the gridiron itself.

Shocker: football isn’t exactly a moral game, and Bobby Knight and Bear Bryant weren’t exactly impeccable human beings. In this respect, James Franklin could be Jesus incarnate or the devil’s spawn and it wouldn’t matter – he has a football team to coach. So it’s about time to start evaluating whether he and his players are doing the jobs they’ve been tasked to do, and doing them successfully.

Am I saying that Franklin is, in actuality, doing a bad job, or that any of his starters should be riding the pine?

Of course not. I’ve barely thought about it yet, mostly because the discourse surrounding Vanderbilt football has kept me content with the status quo.

No longer. It’s time to swing for the fences or – to use a more apt analogy – throw it deep.

It’s time to start talking.

This is just one of many conversations to have, one of many questions that, if answered, can help to keep our football program running in the right direction.

Right now? We just seem to be running in place.