Me, I think we traded some of our immortality in this place for a little piece of it back on Earth. I think we gave a little bit of our souls to the game in exchange for its rewards. Which I think is unfair, since I had to spend most of my playing days in Baltimore. You ever been to Baltimore? Baltimore is an elephant’s asscrack.
Hang on a second. I’ve got to stretch my hammies. It’s the only thing that soothes the pain. Ooooh! Still feels like I’m shitting lightning bolts. Guhhhhhh.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, selling our souls. Okay, it wasn’t quite like that. I don’t think we made a deal with the devil. But I do think we pay a price up here for all the fun we had down there. Is that fair? Probably not. I was just doing what came naturally. I liked football and was good at it. So I played it, and damn if I didn’t play it better than any son of a bitch ever played it. I didn’t know that was gonna happen. Didn’t ask for it. It just happened that way.
So why can’t a man get some fucking Advil around here?
It’s not as if I haven’t paid a price for it already. When my playing days were over, I had pain. Agonizing, unrelenting pain. Sometimes the pain was so intense I couldn’t think of anything else. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t hold my grandkids. I couldn’t just sit and be. Seems like God got plenty even with me for all that I enjoyed. But apparently not. Because it still feels like someone took a Garden Weasel to my hip. I’m 98 percent gristle at this point.
Sometimes, when I’m playing cribbage up here with the boys, one of them will ask me if it was all worth it. Was it worth a lifetime of pain, in my life and now beyond, worth people hectoring me all the time, worth all the boring interviews with dipshit reporters, worth all the stupid bullshit that seems to get piled on top of sports year after year after year?
Well, let me tell you something. When I handed the ball off to Alan Ameche back in that ’58 title game and we beat the Giants, the feeling I got was . . . well, it wasn’t of this world, or even of heaven. I’m supposed to say getting married and having kids is the best feeling ever, but that’s a lie. This was far better. That day, we were better men than any other men. Fuck all men being equal. That’s for pussies. The purpose of sports is to prove which men are better than others. And, that day, we were better than everyone. And everyone in the stadium, and watching on TV, knew it. In that moment, I felt better than any man could ever feel at any time about anything on Earth. And forevermore, I can always go back in my mind and reenact that moment, step by step. I can refeel it. I can once again become the baddest motherfucker to ever walk the planet. And there are very few people in history that ever get to do that.
So was it all worth it?
You bet your sweet ass it was.
Ouch!
Did I just feel a twinge in my shoulder?
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
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