LeBatard's column on Jason Taylor and playing with pain

[BobSacamano]

"Don't give a shirt about medical, doc. Give me some of that cortisone shirt. Please?"

Shark Lavay taught me everything I needed to know about the lengths these gladiators of the gridiron will travel to profit while entertaining.

 

[Boom_70]

I think this thread marks the first time I've heard LeBatard praised on this board.

I was thinking the same thing - I thought he was one of the Perpetually Ripped of SJ.

One of the few that made it back.

 

[Versatile]

I think this thread marks the first time I've heard LeBatard praised on this board.

I was thinking the same thing - I thought he was one of the Perpetually Ripped of SJ.

You can't deny his talent, and he still brings it sometimes. He is ripped for being a fanboi and an obnoxious TV and radio personality.

 

[Alma]

As with many LeBatard columns, I'm left impressed by the writing and detail and underwhelmed by the perspective and intellectual rigor. Mere sympathy isn't much of an opinion, especially when, by the end of the column Taylor says he'd do it all again and he frowns on people who look after their health. LeBatard more or less genuflects -- as he often does -- at the altar of Pro Athlete, accepting all of his motivations, actions and conclusions as a product of a vicious world.

A better column -- heck, feature story -- says to Taylor point blank: OK, well, what about painkiller addictions? What about suicide? When you say you'd it all again, can you appreciate the message that sends to high school and college football players who aren't as smart as you are, or doesn't have the wife you do? If the game's really going to evolve, don't players have to start acting a little more responsible, and a little less like robots who take every order the franchise gives them?

Every story doesn't have to solve the world's problems. This column was excellent at what it attempted to be. That's only not enough if no one is pursuing those issues you mention. That's not the case.

Additionally, I think a lot of football fans like reading something like this without being lectured.

I'm very confident the opening graph is a lecture. Maybe it's just a lecture you want to hear. Junior Seau's in the opening graf.

Beyond, who's talking about the world's problems? Taylor outlines all of his suffering, and at the end he says, essentially, "fork yeah, I'd do it again." It raises the question: If he doesn't care, why should we? Moreover, if he doesn't care, why do we need to know about it? And finally: Why doesn't he care?

I'm not necessarily arguing that myself, mind you. I'm suggesting if you use the phrase "no earthly idea" in the open, you take on some responsibility for at least plumbing the depths of "why?"

 

[Alma]

As with many LeBatard columns, I'm left impressed by the writing and detail and underwhelmed by the perspective and intellectual rigor. Mere sympathy isn't much of an opinion, especially when, by the end of the column Taylor says he'd do it all again and he frowns on people who look after their health. LeBatard more or less genuflects -- as he often does -- at the altar of Pro Athlete, accepting all of his motivations, actions and conclusions as a product of a vicious world.

A better column -- heck, feature story -- says to Taylor point blank: OK, well, what about painkiller addictions? What about suicide? When you say you'd it all again, can you appreciate the message that sends to high school and college football players who aren't as smart as you are, or doesn't have the wife you do? If the game's really going to evolve, don't players have to start acting a little more responsible, and a little less like robots who take every order the franchise gives them?

Every story doesn't have to solve the world's problems. This column was excellent at what it attempted to be. That's only not enough if no one is pursuing those issues you mention. That's not the case.

Additionally, I think a lot of football fans like reading something like this without being lectured.

Exactly. I much prefer a story that just puts it out there for me to decide and not come away feeling that writer is trying to skew my opinion.

I respect that Taylor said that even we all he had to go through he would do it all over again. In the SI story a few months back Earl Campbell said pretty much the same thing. I've also heard Harry Carson say that he bought all his grand-kids golf clubs so they would not play football.

I don't think it's the job of the player or writer to teach kids life's lessons. Would it have been a better message for Taylor to lie and say that he would not have played knowing what he knows now?

First, Boom, I fundamentally disagree on the "life lessons." That's kind of all of our jobs in all of life. In the effort to steer clear of being pegged as a moralist, too many journalists skew way in the other direction to become finger-wagging, unendurable relativists.

Not that it means writers and athletes need to prudes or activists. If LeBatard hadn't written that pathetic opening graph directed square at the reader -- the fan of the "monster" -- I wouldn't quibble with the rest of it as much. But so long as we're talking suicides and monsters -- about how, according to LeBatard, the game isn't changing despite the fact that is probably is, and for the better -- we might as well not lionize all the horseshirt Taylor went through by letting him have his cake and eat it too by the end.

We do that to the military all the time. They're treated like shirt, they're not paid very well, they embark on murky missions, they're committing suicide in record numbers...but here's the story of how one of the few well-adjusted dudes killed ten terrorists in Iraq. <i>fork yeah.</i>

Like I said, LeBatard has great talent. Always has. Outwrites a lot of people. But his intellectual dishonesty -- which to me is borne out of a need to be seen as insightful, which generally points to great insecurity -- consistently abounds. He told terrific half-truths about guys like Ricky Williams and Terrell Owens, two completely miserable forks that LeBatard attempted to elevate, respectively, into enlightened man and enduring survivor. I can either accuse of him being a dupe -- which he is not -- or as one simply choosing to frame these stories in a perspective that sets him apart from common sense. That's a generally popular thing to do these days, postmodern deconstructionism, and he's done well by it, considering his abundant success.

 

[Boom_70]

Insightful Alma. I did not really see the disconnect starting with Junior Seau and lionizing Taylor when I first read. I see it now and understand your well reasoned point.

 

[boundforboston]

Beyond, who's talking about the world's problems? Taylor outlines all of his suffering, and at the end he says, essentially, "fork yeah, I'd do it again." It raises the question: If he doesn't care, why should we?

It could be used to make us feel sorry for him but also to recognize the mentality that exists. Here's Taylor who went through a life of pain but he hasn't learned anything from it.

 

[fishwrapper]

Beyond, who's talking about the world's problems? Taylor outlines all of his suffering, and at the end he says, essentially, "fork yeah, I'd do it again." It raises the question: If he doesn't care, why should we?

It could be used to make us feel sorry for him but also to recognize the mentality that exists. Here's Taylor who went through a life of pain but he hasn't learned anything from it.

It's not that he hasn't learned from it. He's deemed it worth it.
The fame, acclaim and the compensation were worth it in Taylor's mind.
That may not the case for every NFL retiree, but it is here. But I also think LeBatard should check back in 10 years and see if Taylor has the same mindset.

 

[Boom_70]

Be an interesting question to ask writers if they had to do it all over again, would they go to journalism school.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I think this thread marks the first time I've heard LeBatard praised on this board.

I was thinking the same thing - I thought he was one of the Perpetually Ripped of SJ.

You can't deny his talent, and he still brings it sometimes. He is ripped for being a fanboi and an obnoxious TV and radio personality.

Most of the people praising him on this thread worked with him at the Herald.

 

[1HPGrad]

Yeah, I've worked with him and six other columnists who have won Top 10 in 250K-above. Pretty comfortable saying he's the best. I'm a big fan because I've seen him do his thing. He's a reporter at heart. A terrific interviewer and even better writer. People tell him things. He broke a lot of stories and handed those to his reporters or at very least assisted significantly in the process, then explained why it mattered, did or didn't make sense. He's the guy you want to read when anything significant happens in Miami and occasionally beyond. And yeah, he often writes above the noise. People get mad at that, call him an apologist. Those people normally are part of the noise. Dude sees things because he's usually as close to it as the players.

 

[YGBFKM]

Yeah, I've worked with him and six other columnists who have won Top 10 in 250K-above. Pretty comfortable saying he's the best. I'm a big fan because I've seen him do his thing. He's a reporter at heart. A terrific interviewer and even better writer. People tell him things. He broke a lot of stories and handed those to his reporters or at very least assisted significantly in the process, then explained why it mattered, did or didn't make sense. He's the guy you want to read when anything significant happens in Miami and occasionally beyond. And yeah, he often writes above the noise. People get mad at that, call him an apologist. Those people normally are part of the noise. Dude sees things because he's usually as close to it as the players.

Has he ever gotten shot up for an important deadline?