Every now and again, we need to watch the Army-Navy game, because every now and again, we need to be reminded why we can’t shake sports, even when sports tries to shake us.
Army-Navy isn’t the only vessel for this, just the most reliable one. Every December they line up against each other, eager and determined to beat the hell out of each other — Navy winning this year’s game 31-7. They spend all year exhaustively exhorting each other — “Go Army! Beat Navy” (and vice versa) — knowing they will be remembered in officers clubs forever if they make a key block or score a decisive touchdown.
Someone wins, someone loses.
Then they stand respectfully for each other’s alma maters, they cry and laugh and hug and walk off the field brothers. True brothers.
An old West Point defensive back named Jim Cantelupe once told me, “It gets me every year. I see that and I’m back on the field and the adrenaline is flowing and I weep like a baby. Every single time.”
Sure it’s corny. But it’s also awesome. And sometimes we need reminders of how awesome sports really is. Sometimes you have weeks when a Janoris Jenkins opens his mouth and doesn’t shut it until he’s on the waiver wire. Sometimes there’s a week when both of our horrible football teams lose blightful games in prime time, no longer our dirty little secret but available to the rest of the nation to enjoy, too.
Sometimes you read about a pitcher with two complete games to his credit winning a $324 million contract, and though it’s never a bad thing to see a man reach the very top of his profession, it’s hard to see that number and not wonder when the $12 beer becomes a $15 beer, when the $8 fried Oreos start to go for $10.
It’s easy to get bogged down in this stuff, it really is. I’ve had a fortunate year. I’ve been able to be around a bunch of aging athletes who understand that the good in sports can last a lifetime. Back in April, I was talking to Clyde Frazier about the coming golden anniversary of the ’70 Knicks, and his smile grew wide and he said, “It’s amazing when you think about a bunch of guys who have loved each other as long as we have.”
I was around the ’69 Mets a few times, too. One night in September, watching Ron Swoboda and Art Shamsky and Ed Kranepool hold a room filled with a couple hundred Mets fans in the palm of their hands, I remarked to Swoboda that the love affair between the team and its fans seems as strong as it’s ever been.
“Stronger,” he said. “And think about that. Think about what a baseball team did for a city. And what the city did for us. Not a day in my life goes by when I’m not reminded about that team, that season, that summer. And who wouldn’t want to be remembered for the best thing they ever did? Who wouldn’t want that feeling to last forever?”
Just last weekend, I was privileged to spend some time at my alma mater, St. Bonaventure, which this basketball season is celebrating the 50th anniversary of a trip to the Final Four. All but two of the members of that team gathered to reminisce. Bob Lanier, the most accomplished of that group, received a standing ovation walking onto the court that bears his name, an ovation that probably lasted just five minutes but felt like it lasted an hour.
Later, his roommate and point guard, Bill Kalbaugh, said, “This was 50 years ago. But I swear, it feels like 10.”
Ultimately, that’s the pull. That’s the lure. Sports tries to make us forget these things, it really does. Every day it seems like there are more and more reasons to keep sports at arms length, when we are dared to stay away.
When it feels like Janoris Jenkins is sneering directly at you, and me, at us.
So yes, we need Army-Navy, even if you don’t have a dog in the hunt. We need the color and the pageantry. We need the corps of cadets on one side, and the Midshipmen on the other, “Anchors Aweigh” blaring from one band and “On Brave Old Army Team” from the other. We need all of that at least once a year as a reminded why we keep coming back.
Why we keep running back.
Vac’s Whacks
So we know Yoenis Cespedes wasn’t on a horse when he hurt himself, and we also know, whatever he was doing, he didn’t believe it was worth fighting for millions of dollars in the grievance process. Whatever did happen, my friends, that has to be one hell of a story.
You know who’s worth rooting for? Mike Miller is worth rooting for.
Will the mayor of East Rutherford, Eli Manning, still be as beloved around 4:05 Sunday afternoon if he leads a game-winning drive against the Dolphins and throws a dent into the sugar-plum vision of Chase Young in blue?
Proud cousin update: Plainedge High’s Dan Villari ran for four TDs in the Long Island championship a few weeks ago, threw for two more (good guys won, 56-20) and won the Thorp Award this week as the best football player in Nassau County. I’m more convinced than ever I must have been adopted.
Whack Back at Vac
Robert Stiskin: The correct punishment for Janoris Jenkins would have been to keep him. We Giants fans have to suffer; so should he!
Vac: Ol’ Jackwagon — er, Jackrabbit — sure would’ve liked that resolution, I bet.
Jerry Jacobs: Jim Dolan’s ultimate revenge against Knicks fans? Selling the team to the Wilpons.
Vac: Honestly, I’m not sure Stephen King could come up with a more terrifying plot point than that …
@normgross393939: Sam Darnold will eventually become a very good QB. At this time I am disappointed in his slow growth.
@MikeVacc: I think that sums up where No. 14 is as succinctly as the language allows.
Dan Perez: Who is going to play Michael Corleone to Jim Dolan’s Moe Greene? What big-time hedge fund manager is going to tell Dolan, “Hey your casino doesn’t make money, make me an offer, I’ll be back with my lawyers in the morning?”
Vac: Can the line start on the right?