There are a great variety of definitions to the word friendship, but the one I think of most often is this; “that a true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success.” So, at the risk of barreling potentially headlong into the “guilt by association” minefield that is the many facets of friendship, I will hesitate only momentarily to refer to one of my own lifelong friends… I mean, we did meet in 2nd grade at the age of 7, grew up playing Little League, went to the same high school and college together, were best men at each other’s weddings and now by an absolute coincidence happen to share the same office daily here at work. Therefore, I am speaking from a certain level of experience when I say that, he is without a doubt, the single most pessimistic individual I have personally ever met. He, of course, would simply say that he is a realist… which I, of course, would simply say is… bull$#!&! Much like the Seinfeld co-creator Larry David himself, if there is a way to see the negative, hopeless, or depressing side of any situation, then he is relentlessly on it immediately… faster than Eeyore the depressed donkey could bring down Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit and Tigger in the Hundred Acre Wood,
he emits a steady stream of caustic complaints and self-defeating comments, without regard to his surroundings or those of us that have to occupy them. Periodically, I’m fond of reminding him… somewhat sarcastically… that had I known he would still be jaw-jacking in my ear 46 years later, perhaps I would not have let him sit down next to me in the lunchroom that day in elementary school… Lo, those many years ago… but I did and here we are, sooooo… yeah, it’s like that. Therefore, if the old saying holds true, in this case regarding friendship, that opposites really do attract, then I must be one of the most annoyingly positive and upbeat people
most others will likely encounter in their everyday lives. He curiously asked me once, not long ago, “what is it about your personality that allows you to tolerate me?” That is some viciously assertive insight from a dude that
once duct-taped a firecracker to the back of a toad and fired it off without a seconds thought… eh, it was 1981 – these things happened – if PETA wants to call me, I’ve told him repeatedly, that I WILL testify against him.
Where was I again? Oh yeah… positivity. My view on this subject was solidified on the baseball field, or more correctly in the dugout, during a mid-season game in 2014 when the toxicity level on the bench had reached the nuclear meltdown stage of negativity. One individual, we’ll call him a “teammate” at this point, was halfway through his usual act of going 0-4, striking out 4 times, while simultaneously giving other hitters mountains of unsolicited advice about all the things they were doing wrong at the plate. The entire bench had been experiencing a near aneurysm on a weekly basis, up one side and down the other with this guy, running the gauntlet from the usual, “I didn’t ask for your opinion” to the explosive, “SHUT the @#$% up!” … but nothing seemed to faze him or slow him down.
Finally, with multiple teammates at an emotional breaking point and Ean, Luke and several others, seriously contemplating the Class 1 & Class 2 penalties for felony assault in the parking lot… “No, seriously your honor, he had it coming, I admit the tire iron was unjustified, but the baseball bats were simply convenient” … I weighted my options and chose the road less traveled. While my teammates played Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who would be responsible for holding him down while the others got to take free shots with padlocks wrapped in bath towels like the barracks scene in Full Metal Jacket, I simply said to my catchers… “I think when he comes back in here, I’m just going to aggressively agree with whatever he says… maybe he’ll just punch himself out, like Foreman did against Ali, if we refuse to argue with him”. The dugout fell silent, faces awash with complete dismay, cleats slowly erasing the dirt drawings of their planned flanking maneuvers on the ground in front of them. We patiently waited for… let’s call him “Smoker” … to slowly trudge back from another failed excursion to home plate, looking like Bamm-Bamm on the Flintstones, dragging his club behind him muttering incoherently to himself.
“If he hangs that weak-ass curveball one more time to me, I’m going to put it up against the fence” he said, with the misplaced confidence of someone who might connect with the baseball occasionally. I paused, looking up and down the bench at the expectant faces beside me and then with all the energy I could muster blurted out, “Yeah you are!” with the kind of over-the-top enthusiasm that bordered on the pedantically unhinged. Everyone froze, wide-eyed and silent… waiting to see if and how he might take this bait.
“I can… I’ll do it, next time… I will…” he said in rapid-fire succession, placing his bat in the rack as if it was being punished with another time-out for its many failures and then once again resuming his analysis, “I just need to keep my hands in, that’s the important thing,” as though he was trying to convince himself that his words might somehow be true and land a knockout blow to any doubters.
“I know it! You don’t have to convince me…” I crossed my arms and countered-punched, leaning backwards into the aggressiveness of my “encouragement”, trying my best to keep a straight face as my teammates’ grins slowly widened with enjoyment.
“He’s not that good of a pitcher… I just shouldn’t drop my elbow like that,” he said in a short and quick combination, repeating one of the most tired and overused phrases pushed by would-be hitting coaches everywhere.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” I emphatically agreed, absorbing the punishment of his many body blows, glancing down at the floor as my teammates realized what my “rope-a-dope” strategy was accomplishing, with their hands covering their faces.
“It’s… it’s just… windy out there… and there are these big holes in the batter’s box,” he said flaying about wildly, grasping for anything… the winds of unearned confidence slowing blowing away from him.
“Yeah, there are!” I gushed, sensing the tables turning… “is that all you got George?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing that I haven’t done it already,” he said meekly, punching the last of his strength out and his energy quickly fading… jab… jab, jab.
“Yeah, it is… imagine how we feel having to watch you.” I pressed my advantage, Ali’s pointed words loudly ringing in my ears… “Now’s not the time to get tired George.”
“I’m a… a good hitter,” he said almost to himself, with the kind of monumental lack of insight characteristic of the cosmically self-delusional.
“Of course, you are! Among the best I’ve ever seen!” I trumpeted again, now with ever increasing and almost copious levels of forced enthusiasm.
“Maybe next time … maybe I’ll just concentrate on making contact next time,” he said quietly sitting down at the end of the bench, fulfilling Lombardi’s classic line, “fatigue makes cowards of us all.”
“Yeah … yeah, you will!” I said slowly standing up triumphantly, picking up my bat and heading out of the dugout victorious… Nighty-nighty, George.
My teammates quickly picked up on the skill, turning the tables on one another while stifling giggles and wide-ass grins. “That will never fit in there,” … “That’s what she said!” … “Yeah, she did!” It went on and on, easing tensions and rebuilding team camaraderie. A few innings later we were back in the field on defense. I was playing third base, when the batter squared to bunt, then changed his mind and pulled the bat back. From the dugout Tony yelled, “Tom, watch the bunt!” and without thinking I simply replied, “I got it.” From behind me in left field was “Smoker” who yelled, “Yeah, you do!” Mike Mack playing shortstop almost pissed himself, he was laughing so hard. Between pitches he whispered to me, “He doesn’t understand what it means, but he hears everyone else doing it and he just wants to be part of the group.” Yeah, he does!
It has been just over 10 years since that exchange and the power we found in aggressive agreement has persistently prevailed season after season. The toxicity that polluted our team’s bench was gone overnight, as teammates learned to deflect the negativity and redirect the team’s sense of humor and general enjoyment of the game. Every time “Smoker” began another one of his tirades, his teammates would lean in like an exaggerated version of an E.F. Hutton commercial, remember… “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen” … to see who would land the first comment and win back the serenity of a quiet bench. Without planning or seemingly even much effort, the young players on that team had turned my passing thought into an artform… they grow up so fast, don’t they? Yeah, they do!
And while this is an old story reworked into a new article, I still feel the need to end it in my now customary style… with a nod to that line that has become a timeless classic among my friends, that even though he has now read one…yes, a single one of these articles and his response to it was, “We laughed, we cried… it became part of us,”… god, even in surrender, Ponty is still a dick!