Why Not to Trade Big Ben: A Study in Belief

Yes, once again, I am avoiding having to answer multiple emails with a blog. Isn't that what these were originally intended for anyway?

Secondly, a little redesign here for year of the tiger, plus some archive clean up. And just general clean up. And while I'm on the topic, blogger is discontinuing its ftp stuff, so this blog may go dead for a little while next month if I don't have time to set up a url redirect or move it somewhere else or something. And I am hella busy, so that may be likely.

Ok, Big Ben. Question of the day. And let me tell you, in my quest to be more reflective than reactive, I really, really thought about this for a couple of days. And when it came down to it, my opinion on whether to suspend or trade or just fire Ben had nothing to do which the degree to which he violated the code of conduct and embarrassed my city. It had nothing to with whether it will put my team at a competitive disadvantage or not. It had nothing to do contract amounts or the potential of the "stairway to seven" Super Bowl. It just had to do with me and the way that I need the world to be.

Because there is one thing about me that I know. Ok, that's not true. I know many things about me. Mostly, I know about my faults because we all know that I get off a little on the self-destruction and that's easier if you like yourself just not quite enough (right now, no doubt, my therapist is reading this and seeing dollar signs). But the other thing that I know is that, at base, I have to be a believer that the world can be better, even when clinging to that belief is pretty pathetic and unrealistic. I cannot function without holding on to that belief. I come undone, as the book says.

Remember when "Where the Wild Things Are" was about to be released? And almost everybody I knew went on and on about how they wished it had never been made and it was just another childhood book that was about to be raped and destroyed? And I said that I would believe that it was going to be beautiful until the moment that I had no reason to believe that any more? And then it was beautiful and sad and lovely and exactly perfect? That's how I need the world to be. Not always, but enough times that sometimes when I hold onto my belief that something can be beautiful, it really is. And then that makes it easier to keep believing all of the times that the world lets you down or shows you all of its ugly sides.

(And by the way, "Where the Wild Things Are" is downloaded onto my phone right now. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, when something starts to make me want to give up, and I need something beautiful, there are four things on my phone that I turn to: A few minutes of "Where the Wild Things Are", a picture of O that Jen sent me on my birthday in which he's holding a sign that says "Happy Birthday, Go Caps Go" an email BK sent me a couple of months ago and a song by the Avett brothers. And some days those are the only things that keep me from quitting on choosing happiness over pessimism. So don't mock the iPhone. It keeps the things that remind me of the way things could be close and accessible).

What's the point about Ben in all of this? Right. You knew I'd get there eventually, I hope. I really, at the beginning of all of this, hoped that the Steelers would find a way to trade him. He doesn't represent what that team is supposed to be about (or sports, for that matter). He doesn't represent my city. He doesn't represent my friends, or my family, or anybody I know who considers part of their self-definition to be their black and gold wear. I have that team's logo tattooed on my body because they represent so much about what I think (hope) describes me. And that is not Ben treating women like meat and making stupid decisions and acting like a spoilt kid instead of a grown man who represents an entire city's identity. I wanted him gone. I wanted my city's pride restored.

But, in my effort to be more reflective than reactive, I thought about it. I actually attempted to feel what it would feel like to have him traded. And here's what I realized: If we get rid of him, so many things that were important to me will be taken away too. Those two Super Bowl wins that happened? Those were special to me (to most Pittsburghers). All of the memories of the first one, at that party in LA, and the crazy trip home after, and Ryan and the body paint girls, and getting the tattoo afterwards? Gone, because that's not a Super Bowl we'd want any more. It's a Super Bowl not won by a team that represented us, but by a douche bag who let us down.

That second Super Bowl? This one. The one with those pictures I just linked to of me and my family and all of that happiness that infected a city that I was lucky enough to be in for the game? Gone. Replaced as "one of those Super Bowls we won with that douche bag." And whenever any of us looked back on memories of not only those games but any experience we had with that team during Ben's reign, it wouldn't be a beautiful memory any more. Everything would be tarnished. And in the worst way, because so many of his actions represent so much of what is wrong (or allowed to be wrong) with professional sports and athletes. And I think, in some ways, it's worse *because* of the team he's on. And not just because that's my team, but because that's a team that's held up in the league as being a team about character, and personal responsibility, and expectations. And somehow, that makes it worse.

I do not want to have been a believer in something for the last six years that was entirely false and ugly underneath. I want to be a believer in something that is a work in progress, and something that eventually I can say was a triumph. I need us to keep Ben on the team, because that's the only way that he can redeem all of this. I need for him to, somehow, finally, wake up and become the hometown boy with the good intentions and the admirable qualities that we always thought he was (when, clearly, to some degree, he wasn't). I need, in five years, to say, "Those memories of those Super Bowls and all of those other games where he was a leader and a warrior? Those memories were real, and the fact that he turned into such a good man is proof that sometimes if you believe, things will end up good."

I know. It's one of the most annoying parts of my character, because it's so unrealistic and we can't all live in Jocelyn-land. But "Where the Wild Things Are" was beautiful, and everybody told me not to believe that it could be. Maybe, in the end, this story can be redeeming and beautiful too. Or at least end in a way that doesn't rip apart all of those other beautiful and happy moments that that team contributed to. So I'm going to be a believer until the moment there's no sense in being a believer any more. And hopefully at the end of that, I'll be glad that that that's the choice that I made.

" 'Be better' is kind of a weak sauce," a very smart (and kinda sexy) Pittsburgh lawyer once said to me in response to something I was down about. But I kind of think that in the end, it's the only available option. So that's what I'm going with.