It’s the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World Series. You’re down one with the bases loaded and a 3-2 count. This is it: the defining moment of your existence. You need to focus here. Stay in the present. Remember, you get paid either way, so don’t freak. There’s no need to think about what will happen if you fail. You don’t need to visualize the New York Post Photoshopping a donkey’s head onto your body for their late edition. That’s unnecessary. There’s also absolutely no reason you should be thinking about your wife leaving you. She’s always been your rock. Hasn’t she? There was that one “incident.” But that was years ago. Let it be. You also shouldn’t be visualizing having to face your father after all those years of never being good enough to win his approval. The coldhearted bastard. What the fuck more could he possibly want? You shouldn’t be thinking about that at all. It’s not healthy. Stop.
Nor should you be thinking about that one chick in the third row along the first base line with the tight V-neck sweater. God, she’s got a luscious rack. No! Focus! Stop looking! Man, they’re big. Like two well-formed ski moguls. Oh, how you’d just like to bury your nose in those yabahoes for just a second. Take in their scent. I bet they smell like cucumbers. I wonder if she’s local. If you blew the game, maybe she’d still offer you pity sex. After all, you do have an apartment with a killer view. That alone impresses most ladies. Or, if you hit a home run, you could give her a quick, playful glance as you start your trot. Oh my God, that would totally make her cream her panties. The sex could be mind-blowing.
Stop! You must again focus. This is everything you’ve ever wanted. C’mon, man! You’re an athlete! Emptying out that melon of yours shouldn’t be so hard! You know what it is? When your mind is normally empty, it’s not because you tried to do it. It was just naturally vacant. But now that you have to consciously bear down and concentrate, it completely refuses. Stupid brain. If only it functioned involuntarily, like the heart or lungs.
What you should do is just start thinking about completely random shit. Like, for instance, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. They’re just like Ho Hos, only they’re ninety-nine cents a box! Seriously, you can’t beat that. Oooh, Star Crunches! Remember those? God, they were fucking good. They were made of Rice Krispies, chocolate, and, like, crack. See, this is better. You’ve completely distracted your distractions. Now all you have to do is hit a 90-mile-per-hour fastball somewhere within a confined area where nine other people can’t get to it.
Okay, the pitcher’s winding up . . .
And here comes the pitch . . .
Curveball . . .
Oh, God . . .
Divorce, Mom, pain, Dad, tits, money, God, death, Dolly Madison Zingers . . .
CRACK!
FOUL BALL!
Phew! You’re not out.
But now the whole mental process starts anew.
Shit.
Clippable Motivational Slogan!
In clutch situations, it’s important to just relax and play your game. What’s “your game” mean? Fuck if I know. Leave me alone, you little rapscallion!
— CASEY STENGEL
Stats are for losers. Unless your stats are awesome.
Statistics are the lifeblood of sports. They provide everyone — fans, columnists, opponents, management — with a continuous way of determining your viability as a professional athlete. It’s like walking around with a performance evaluation stapled to your forehead. Isn’t that fun? Statistics can even become part of your identity. For example, former Bears running back Curtis Enis is known to many around the Chicago area as Curtis Enis, the Fat Fuck Who Averaged 0.8 Yards per Carry.
General managers and owners are relying ever more on statistics to evaluate player performance. In fact, some rely on them exclusively. They don’t even bother to watch the games, because games lie. Billy Beane once signed a catcher to a $1 million guaranteed contract because that catcher had a PARP rating of 1.786, even though Beane did not know what a PARP rating was, or that the catcher in question was a female softball player.
Stats like PARP (Performance After Resting Placidly) are part of a new generation of statistical study known as Sabermetrics. With a name like that, you might think some sort of tiger is involved, but it’s not. Sabermetrics were devised by a baseball fan named Bill James. James, in a frantic effort to remain a virgin, pored over historical records from Major League Baseball and devised an entirely new means of measuring athletic performance. For his efforts, James was bumped up from fan to the level of scholar, then finally to the level of historian. Many teams even asked him for his input on personnel matters. As a result, fans across other sports have rushed to devise new statistics of their own, which is why we now have stats like VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), DVOA ratings (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average), and VO3RPLGSALHFSG (Value Over 3rd Replacement Player in Late-Game Situations Against Left-Handers Factoring in Scrotal Girth).