Don't Hate Mike Piazza, You Are Mike Piazza

Mike Piazza's autobiography is called Long Shot, and reviewer Rob Neyer thinks it's a long shot that anyone will really like the book. Neyer does admit that the book "semi-obsessed" him for a week. He claims to be unsure of the reason, despite the well-written nature of the piece, but suspects that it has something to do with the book being "a case study in narcissism."

Neyer writes of Piazza's book, before saying that he "can't really recommend [it] to readers":

He really wants you to think he was a great hitter. Piazza hit 427 home runs in his career, and he mentions something like a hundred of them. He's got the record for the most home runs by a catcher. And right after the section where he talks about breaking the old record, he launches into an extended discourse about what a great player he was. Like he's trying to convince us, yes ... but also as if maybe he's trying to convince himself. 

He really wants us to think...that beautiful women -- Playboy models mostly, and Baywatch actresses -- find him incredibly appealing. I wish the otherwise-estimable index listed mentions of "Playmate", "Baywatch", and "actress". But there are a lot of them in there. And when relating how he met his future wife Alicia, he simply describes her as "a Baywatch actress, and a former playmate, to boot."

I know why Neyer finds Mike Piazza's "case study in narcissism" uncomfortable and impossible to recommend: Rob Neyer is a narcissist! Now, I don't say that because I know Rob Neyer, or because I've found Neyer's work to be narcissistic. In fact, far from it. For any baseball fans out there, Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else is a fascinating (and non-narcissistic) read. I know that Rob Neyer is a narcissist because I am a narcissist. And so are you.

The estimable Paul Zahl once scoffed in a seminary class at the idea that there should be such a thing as "Narcissistic Personality Disorder." His claim was that, if such a thing did exist, every human being should be immediately diagnosed with it. If I discovered that Playmates and Baywatch actresses found me attractive, I'd rent ad space on the side of Mt. Everest to announce it to the world. If I'd hit 427 home runs in a successful major league career, I might write an autobiography for each one of them. Of course, these things haven't happened to me. But that doesn't stop me from desperately wanting you to think that I'm a good writer, a deep thinker, funny, and, you know...maybe at least a little attractive? No? Not even a little? Okay, let's move on.

We find the narcissism of others uncomfortable because we fear that it might shine a light on our own, like Ed Norton in Fight Club, who worries that Helena Bonham Carter's support-group fakery will out him as a faker, too. Underneath (but not too far underneath!) it all, we have a caustic narcissist who champs at the bit of social convention. We know it's not okay to appear narcissistic, so we keep the little guy chained up. 

Better, though, to call a thing what it is. We desperately search for the affirmation of others (whether for our athletic prowess, physical attractiveness (still nothing?), or devastating wit) due to our (usually appropriate) fear that our weakness, ugliness, and banality are obvious to all. In other words, we are sinners looking for someone -- anyone! -- to tell us that we're not. We're looking for someone to save us without our having to die. As billionaire and amateur theologian Dan Gilbert once noted, it doesn't work that way. For resurrection to occur, there must first be a death. We must admit to our faults, allow Jesus to put the narcissist inside us beside him on the cross, and be raised to a new life of peace.

You know, maybe it's in that new life that a Playmate will find me attractive.

Even Jim Valvano Died

Jim Valvano (most likely known to non-sports fans as the namesake of the Jimmy V Foundation, a cancer research supporter which has given away hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the disease) was the subject of the latest ESPN 30-for-30 documentary, "Survive and Advance," which premiered on Sunday night. The doc is about the unlikely path-to-a-championship of the 1983 North Carolina State Wolfpack, coached by Valvano, which included nine consecutive must-win games, many of which came down to the final seconds. The team's run (the final basket in the championship game was recognized by Sports Illustrated and ESPN as the "greatest moment in the history of college basketball) was fascinating, but also typical, in a Disney film sort of way. It played out in exactly the way Michael Eisner might have recommended. What's interesting to me is how the documentary treats Valvano's illness and eventual death.

Naturally, Valvano's diagnosis, foundation-founding, and death are a major part of this story. Jonathan Hock, the director, has said that one of the things that interested him most about this story was that it was a wonderful tale of triumph after triumph being told about the life of "a doomed man."

Interviewee after interviewee (Valvano's players, wife, and friends, which include such luminaries as Mike Krzyzewski, Dick Vitale and Sonny Vaccaro) told of how, when Valvano was diagnosed with cancer, they thought -- no, they assumed -- that he'd "beat it." This is the language we use with cancer: the language of victory. I saw a post on Facebook recently in which a young boy wanted 100,000 "likes" because he'd "beaten" cancer. Valvano's friends all spoke of being shocked as he became sicker, and ultimately astonished at his death. They'd thought he would win.

Even Jim Valvano died. The consummate winner didn't win. The Facebook boy might have beaten cancer, but he hasn't beaten death. No one has, or ever will. Well, except this one guy.

As humans, our most desperate wish is to win. We try to win everything, up to and including the ultimate contest: us against our own deaths. The profundity of the cross is that it looks death in the face and confronts it directly. The cross is the end of the human contest. We lose. Even Jim Valvano lost. No one "survives and advances."

God, in Christ, brings victory out of defeat. God, in Christ, brings life out of death. We all die, but in Christ, we have the hope -- no, the promise -- of new and eternal life.

Can You Boo a Player to Greatness?

The Toronto Raptors' Andrea Bargnani, the number 1 overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, is having a terrible season. So terrible, in fact, that he's being loudly booed by his home fans. Check out this quote from Zach Lowe of Grantland.com: "Bargnani has been obscenely horrible on both ends since his return from injury, to the point that [head coach] Dwane Casey is sneaking him into home games after timeouts so that fans don't have a chance to boo the Italian big man at the scorer's table." Bargnani's case is certainly not unique; under-performing players are often booed at home. What's most interesting, though, is a question: does the strategy work?

In theory, home fans boo their own players to shame them into working harder. Some, of course, might be expressing simple hatred, but I think that most fans would prefer that their players actually play well. So let's take a quick look at Bargnani's stats: He's shooting 47% from the field on the road (which is pretty bad for a man of Bargnani's size, though he is a perimeter player)...and an absolutely horrific 30% at home. Thirty percent! Obscenely horrible indeed.

St. Paul said that "the law was brought in so that the trespass might increase" (Romans 5:20). There can be no clearer evidence than Andrea Bargnani. He's playing terribly. Subjected to the law, the chorus of boos that tells him he's not good enough, Bargnani is significantly worse. The law comes in; the trespass increases. The more Bargnani is reminded of how terrible he is, the more terrible he becomes. The same is true of every one of us.

Christians have an outlet that Bargnani lacks: when we hit bottom, we have a savior there to pick up the pieces. A Christ who substitutes his perfection for our failure. The more shots Bargnani misses, the more likely he is to be out of a job. The more we fail, the more likely we are to call out for that savior.

So what are we left with? Does the strategy work? Well, yes and no. The application of the law doesn't work, at all. Those who are oppressed perform significantly worse than they do otherwise. The law, remember, was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But for the Christian? The law works, absolutely. Paul again: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Romans 3:20).

We think that the law will coax life out of sickness, or a made jumper out of Andrea Bargnani. It doesn't work, but it will kill. The law's true work is to destroy, to remind us of our failure. Thank God we have a savior, the Christ who brings life out of death. I wonder what would happen if Raptors fans cheered Andrea Bargnani when he came into the game, as our God cheers us who are covered by Christ's righteousness. It'd be something to see.

Choosing Your Own Adventure Ain't What it Used to Be

In his AV Club "Memory Wipe" article on "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, Jason Heller makes an interesting observation about the human response to choice:

As hooked as I was when I was 8, I didn’t stick with CYOA for long. By the time I was 10, I was getting into videogames and Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe CYOA helped prepare me for those pastimes, in which the choices were usually far more subtle and complex, even in those early days of gaming. The funny thing is, the older I get, the less enamored I am of choice. It’s no longer a novelty or a rite of passage to pick what I want to eat or watch or read or buy or vote for. Often it’s a chore—or, at worst, a source of mild anxiety. What once seemed like agency is now just another thing to worry about. The thought of going on some daring escapade across the globe doesn’t make my pulse pound. It makes my head hurt.

Choice, as such, is often held to be the Holy Grail of human possibility. It's the be-all and end-all, in a "Give me liberty or give me death" sort of way. If we perceive ourselves to "have choices," we feel free and alive. If we perceive ourselves to be without choice, we feel trapped and dead. Heller's best line, at least to my ear, is when he says that, "what once seemed like agency is now just another thing to worry about." Why should this be? Shouldn't "agency" (the ability to choose our adventure) be the everyone's most precious desire?

What Heller's claim belies is a startling fact: we don't use our agency very well! Luther is said to have responded to someone's claim that their will was free by quipping something along the lines of, "Sure, you're free to make any bad decision you like." That's the reason that agency turns into a headache as we age. As our agency is used for more important things (the transition, say, from deciding what kind of juice to drink to deciding what job to take) we realize all the more how bound we are to mess up.

This, ultimately, is why a reduced view of human agency (free will) is good news. It posits a God that intervenes in our affairs, not waiting for us to make good decisions (e.g. choosing to follow and serve him), but making good and saving decisions on our behalf. In the drama of real life, God is the actor, we are the audience. Christ is the savior, we are the saved. Our agency works itself out in action that is bound in one way or another: the attempt to please someone, to achieve something, to get somewhere. More often than not, we don't make it. God’s agency cuts through our bondage, carrying us over the wreckage of our bound decision-making by his un-bound, free love in Christ. Choosing our own adventure seems like the way life ought to be, but it leads inevitably (as anyone who has read those books knows) to cataclysm, fear, and despair. It is only God's finished adventure in Christ that leads to relief, rest, and restoration.