Frank Thomas, 500 Home Runs and, Well, ...

Today, June 28, 2007, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas hit his 500th career home run in a game against the Minnesota Twins (somewhere, Hubert Horatio Humphrey is rolling in his grave and, no doubt, is making a speech about the occasion). There is absolutely no question about the manner in which Thomas achieved his milestone, even in the age of steroids, human "They Ain't Intellectual" growth hormones and diluted pitching as caused--largely--by too much expansion. Thomas will, in due time, earn first ballot admission to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. His personal career was also capped by being a member of the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox.
Last week, another former White Sox, Sammy Sosa, hit his 600th career home run against the Chicago Cubs, the team for whom he enjoyed the most individual success (OK, I won't put success in quotation marks as I usually do. Today at least, I won't quibble with its meaning as well as cultural and linguistic implications, ....). Unfortunately, "Slammin' Sammy" has been linked to useage of the same "enhancing" materials that Frank Thomas chose not to pursue. Linked, of course, not proved, and Sosa is innocent until proven guilty. Whether Sosa really forgot how to speak coherent English in his testimony before Congress or had an illiness that day, if I were a baseball writer with a Hall of Fame vote, I would not vote for his election the first year of eligibility, but would do so in the second year. I would do likewise for Mark "I Didn't Come to Talk about the Past" McGwire. Since, however, Raphael Palmiero did test positive after piously claiming never to have used steroids, I would not vote for his election unless some mitigating circumstances arose.
Whether Sosa forgot English or Palmiero forgot the difference between honesty and creative truth-telling, AT LEAST they had the intestinal fortitude to sit before Congress and the cameras. That is more than I can say for Barry Bonds. He is, as I write, within 6 home runs of tying Hank Aaron's all-time home run record and most of the major sports shows seem trying to navigate between a television event and the storm clouds currently downpouring their all-too-obvious rain on his allegedly ill-gotten parade. I do NOT doubt Bonds as one of the best players of the current era. I do NOT doubt, on the basis of his career prior to the (alleged) enlargment of his head, Bonds' election to Cooperstown. I do NOT doubt his unique offensive skills of speed and power. I DO have doubts--unproven, unsubstantiated and--ergo--Bonds is still innocent until proven guilty--about his post-35 years old, late 1990s power totals. Unless I see evidence that disproves my suspicions about his offensive totals from the late 1990s forward,--which just happened to be when steroid abuse came into public awareness and eventual scrutiny, even from the idiotic Commissioner's and Player's Union Offices--and I had a Hall of Fame vote, I would, as with Sosa and McGwire, not vote for Bonds in his first year of eligibility. Afterwards, I would hold my nose and vote to elect him on the basis of the earlier portions of his career. I do have the satisfaction however, that unless the San Francisco Giants get a lot better very quickly, that Bonds won't play on a World Championship team. He won't, in other words, have the same feeling as Mr. Aaron, Mr. Mays, The Big Hurt and the members of the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox. I rather enjoy that type of solace.

Retrospectively

In more or less four years, my alma mater will celebrate its centennial as a University. Originally begun as a Normal School to train public school teachers, The University of Memphis has grown into an institution that offers several doctoral degrees and has, I think, tried in recent years, to find a sense of itself beyond the shadow of the University of Tennessee. It's no sense in trying to out do the Vols. They will always receive more state funding and have a larger following. They've also been around since right near statehood in 1796. My sense is that the U of M tried to stand eye to eye with UT for decades and it simply didn't work. My own thoughts as a student--when I allowed myself to have them in between political crusades--was that we didn't need to try for the eye to eye. We could simply walk away from UT and let them have their space while we could create our own (mixed metaphors and all). I feel better about U of M now, especially since the early 1990s when some major new buildings were built, coupled presently with the burgeoning Student Center to replace the one I remember from my days on campus. We will always have land issues and never enough students to meet UT or now, it seems, MTSU in Murfreesboro. We have been able, however, to move in the direction of being a unique University by emphasizing what Memphis offers. Namely, the River, music, history and--for better or worse--issues involving race and religion (which are included in discussions about the first three). Let Knoxville be Knoxville and let MTSU stress its connections to Nashville up north and the Saturn plant down south. We Memphis folks will do the Delta as it were.
I went to U of M neither by intention nor legacy. I didn't spend my time doing nearly the number of enriching activities provided by a major campus. I talked too much about politics and didn't pay attention to what presented itself before me. Almost by coincidence, nevertheless, I benefitted from attending there as it became my place rather than that of anyone else I knew. I had mostly excellent professors, adequate library resources and--most of the time-- administrative help in getting my questions answered. I went to some football and basketball games, had a great time (except for the Louisville football game in 1982 when it rained all day long and we lost by something like 35-3), and even worked for a disabled student one semester as his assistant. Since 1999, I've belonged to the Alumni Association and just recently became a lifetime member. I wish I could do more and hope to be able to give some modest amounts of help to whatever celebrations the University has in store come 2012.
I graduated form the U of M in 1984. Unless I end up teaching at a nearby University, I doubt I'll ever attend classes there again. Retrospectively, in any case, I made a terrific decision to go there and it's a place with which I am proud to associate myself.

In Spite of Myself

Fairly recently, I experienced a situation that reminded me--positively--of the literary theory I tried to read two summers ago. Most people who have endured my tendencies to bloviate can attest to my suspicion of theory as it applies to literature and, more generally, theology and politics. Nevertheless, the situation I encountered connected some dots and led me to wonder if I might be missing a necessary tool for my overall approach to all matters literary.
I recently attended a sporting event with family members. It sounded like a pleasant time and, for me at least, a time to sentimentally reconnect with my childhood "glories" on the field of athletic effort. We arrived at the stadium and, after spending more than ten dollars for "food," I sat down to watch the game. Every half inning, the PA Announcer would start to blare some promotion or "Congratulations to ..." for finishing this or that stupendous such and such. If it wasn't the PA Announcer, a young MC of sorts would invite someone from the stands to walk on to the field to play a game "like they do on The Price is Right. and have a chance to win X amount of dollars." If it wasn't either of these folks, still more folks would rush onto the field paralleling the stands to booming displays of music and--on cue--throw t-shirts toward grasping, clawing (but not quite desperate) audience members. The game itself seemed an intermittent after thought surrounded by endless meanderings of "entertainment." I soon realized again that if I want to experience sports as something other than mind-numbing diversions from issues that warp our lives, I could do better sitting home and pay my overpriced cable television bill.
Such is where theory renewed itself in my mind. One of the writers our class read--and it's always fair to say with these folks, "tried to read"--argued that capitalism as a system gets to the point of preserving itself through the mental deadening of its "customers." In so doing, the customers are literally and figuratively duped into continuing participation in the process that is against their own personal, psychological, political, even "spiritual" interests. We buy "stuff" in ever-increasing amounts--say sporting tickets and concessions and t-shirts, caps and ad infinitum--to keep up appearances with our neighbors who then buy more stuff to return the favor to us. We watch Grey's Anatomy and wonder who is sleeping with whom rather than ask ourselves what kind of actual life we have or what we--as my Baptist Grandfather used to say--are doing "to help our fellow man" (he lived in the early 20th Century, so his language reflected that time and its assumptions. His point, however, stands as timeless). Our churches argue over money, committee chair slots or how many banners to hang in the narthex as an enticement for "new members" "since that's what our consultant said to do." We--sadly--write blogs rather than sitting down with pen and paper to experience the mysterious and singular joy of our own handwriting. We, in short, anesthetize ourselves and our societal "base" and "superstructures" reflect the noxious reality of how much gas we pump into our lungs.
In that sense, I realize that theory has a point to make and in so doing, it is much like the best of Judeo-Christian theology as it provides a critique of culture from an admittedly "inside" perspective. I remain not sure that either theory or theology provides an equal measure of solutions alongside its criticisms. Perhaps, however, that's not its job and at its best, theory and theology invite us to reexamine ourselves, our priorities and find culturally-applicable solutions for our present experiences. What provides renewal for Americans, in other words, may not do so for Ireland or Japan or--as it were--someone from Vulcan. Perhaps my sense of theory--as it always has been for theology--is that it invites us to find our own way and, in so doing, discover the fullness of life that can be ours. That's both frightening and invigorating.