Jump on the Badwagon!

Hello. Today we will not be talking about baseball, though we will appear to be doing just that. We will actually be talking about the human condition, in all its dignity and indignity and frailty. We will be talking about the nobility of failure — the ecstasy of defeat.

However you feel about sports, whether you are a proponent or opponent of the physically competitive arts — I am here to urge you to spend a few months of your lives as an ardent, vocal fan of one baseball team striving nobly this year to achieve immortality.

But first, we must briefly examine the dualistic, pseudo-Manichean nature of triumph and loss. It’s not black and white, my friends. It’s more like matter and energy, which seem diametrically opposed, but are made of the same same glorious substance.

In 1991, my friend Tony Kornheiser had written a series of columns for The Washington Post about the Washington Redskins, who were in the process of having their best season ever. Tony urged readers to write in to declare that they have joined the Redskins “Bandwagon,” promising that the most interesting letters would get a seat on the bus The Post would charter for a trip to the Super Bowl in Minneapolis, if the Skins made it that far. They did, and The Post did, and the team won.

Move forward exactly ten years. In October of 2001 I ran a weekly series of articles in The Washington Post headlined “The Badwagon.” Each column was a summary of the season then being held by The Washington Redskins, a team that had since become so effective in losing that it would eventually lose its own name. I began the columns after the team had started the season 0-3, and for many weeks afterward, as they continued to get whipped like heavy cream. Creamed, they were, week after week.

I argued that they had a shot at being the biggest losers in the history of football, and that there was glory in that — the only glory still possible for them.. I implored everyone to root for them to end the season 0-16, which no team had done before, and invited readers to send in their letters in support of this. If the Skins made it to 0-15, the winners would ride on a bus with me to their last game, to cheer for defeat.

Alas, we never made it to the finish line — after magnificently losing their first five games, the Skins closed out the season with a semi-respectable record. But I did get some wonderful emails that I published from bus-passenger wannabes, including several “how bad are the Redskins?” entries from a man named Wayne Smith. He wrote, for example:

1. The team will have to redesign its helmets to resemble paper bags.

2. Nike will hire Redskins players to do commercials swearing they wear Adidas.

—

The bold, grand idea behind this has always lingered in my mind. Shouldn’t unprecedented defeat be celebrated just lustily as is unprecedented success? Living to watch both connects you with historical milestones, the sorts of things you carry with you, the things that give you stories to tell, historical things you have lived through and remember and maybe even dramatically embellish, which, as a witness to history, is your birthright.

These things don’t have to be good. They just have to be monumental.

Have you ever seen this 1950’s clip of the old TV show, I’ve Got a Secret,” in which the featured guest was a man who, as a child, had been at Ford’s Theater and saw the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? He was the last living witness.

Consider this for a minute. That man, then 95, had bravely shuffled, unsteadily, onto the TV set wearing a huge black eye from a fall he’d taken the day before. He’d made the decision not to cancel, he said, because he “wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Later, he said that this moment on TV had been the pinnacle of his life. Two months after that, he would die.

Do you think that man, Sam Seymour, would have ever reached that life pinnacle had he been the last living witness of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Abraham Lincoln?

I trust you see my point.

We are defined by who we are — our achievements, our personalities, our charity and such — but we are also defined partly by the accumulation of grand things we have seen and experienced in our lifetimes — for good or ill, no matter — the things we tell our grandkids. Things we lived through.

All of which brings us to the 2024 Miami Marlins.

The Miami Marlins are making a serious run at being the crappiest team ever in The Modern Era. The Modern Era is generally defined as baseball games played from 1901 to the present. This, in short, would be no small accomplishment. It would be historic.

(Please don’t quibble about the “modern era” proviso. Yes, there were worse teams before that, but MLB statisticians generally specify “modern-era” for a good reason. The game before that was absurdly different. The teams had hokey names like The Boston Beaneaters, The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, and the Cleveland Spiders. Uniforms fit like pajamas. Gloves looked like they were made of modeling clay. Players had crummy, gappy teeth. In 1900, the last year of the prehistoric era, the guy with the most home runs had … all of 12 of them, whereas the top four hitters in baseball all batted over .360. In 1884, two pitchers each won more than 50 games. For those unfamiliar with baseball stats, those numbers are ridiculous compared to today’s game; they represent an entirely different ethos. It would be like trying to compare land-speed accomplishments of 1920s Bedouins on camels with today’s Formula 1. Both worthy records, but not commensurate.)

Anyway, going into Sunday’s games, the Marlins had a record of 10-31, which, extrapolating statistically, would work out to a final record of 39-123.

The worst team in the modern era, the team with the lowest winning percentage, was the comically inept 1962 New York Mets, an expansion-year team whose manager, the redoubtable Casey Stengel, once looked around his clubhouse and famously lamented. “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

The ‘62 Mets, the worst team ever in modern baseball, finished the season … 40-120. A better season record, by win percentage, than the season The Marlins were approaching on Sunday.

You see where I am going here. We are on the brink of something historic. The Marlins are within striking distance of the all time-baseball shithouse. We have to help them get there. They need our encouragement to keep sucking. They need to feel they’re playing for history, playing for something bigger than themselves, something more noble than merely being terrible. They need The Badwagon.

I could go into technical detail about precisely why they are so bad this year — or, alternatively, why my team, the Yankees, are so good this year — but I won’t because I promised you this would be mostly about philosophy, not sports.

For inspiration, I sought philosophical help. I called Dave Barry, that very smart guy who lives in Miami, and asked him if he had any intellectual wisdom to impart regarding his team’s current situation; being the good friend that he is, he instantly fired back an analysis:

“In the past two decades, the Florida Marlins have performed exactly as well, as measured in World Series wins, as the New York Yankees.”

Okay, fine, whatever. Baseball breeds absurd loyalty and competitive one-upsmanship. All part of the magic of it.

Listen: The season record I quoted above was from early Sunday. As it happens, The Marlins actually won on Sunday in a tense, extra-inning contest. They’d been ahead 6-3, heroically blew the lead, but somehow failed to lose. The point is, we cannot take their suckitude for granted, people. We need to encourage it by establishing a fanbase that wants the very best for their adopted team: Greatness. We must be vigilant in our demand for unparalleled, unequaled failure.

So, send in your comedic Insights about just how bad the Marlins are. Send them to The Mob (The Marlins Orange Button) right here. Who knows — I’m working on it — there might be a free trip for you to their final game of the year, if the whole enchilada is at stake in that game. It’ll be on September 29th, in Toronto.

(The MOB is also the button for Questions and Observations. Send in questions and observations, too. All subjects, including The Weekend’s call for anecdotes about your comeuppances, or your nominees for the world’s most perfect joke. )

—

And now it is time for today’s Gene Pool Gene Polls.

Poll One:

The second Gene Poll veers away 180 degrees. There are two categories, one for men and one for women. Please only vote in the appropriate one. As is now my custom (because you cannot see the current answer distribution in the poll you do not answer) I will tell you the numbers as they change, as the Pool continues in real time.

Poll 2:

Speaking of real time, we are entering it now. Most of the questions and observations received so far involve the quest of identifying the perfect joke, or memories of times you got an embarrassing comeuppance for an act of hubris. Please send your Questions and/or Observations on these or other subjects, to this orange button.

And if you are reading this in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see new back-and-forths.

—

Q: As for brevity and jokes and perfection, one could put forth a large portion of Steven Wright’s work or Steve Martin’s work. 

“It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.” — Steven Wright

 “Some people have a way with words, other people…umm… ahhh… not have way.” — Steve Martin.

Martin was savaged by critics early in his standup career because he didn’t understand that humor is setup and punchline. He offered a comical concept and then left it to the audience to find the humor. Those critics missed the point. I also like Rita Rudner’s observation “Neurotics build castles in the air. Psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.”

A: All three are worthy. My favorite New Yorker cartoon:  An earnest-looking man is sitting on a chair facing another man, who is at an office desk, and looks unhappy.  Says the man in the chair:  “Do you not be happy with my work as translator of the books by you?”

—

Q: Here is a sad comeuppance: 

When Buddy Holly found out Waylon Jennings had given his seat on the three passenger private charter plane to The Big Bopper, Buddy busted Jennings’ balls , accused him of being too chicken to fly and hoped the heater in the rickety school bus ( the alternate transportation to their next concert)  froze up again.

A: This does check out. Supposedly, after Buddy mentioned the heater, Waylon laughed and said he hopes the plane crashes.  

Man. 

Here is a photo of Waylon and Buddy taken in 1959, ten days before the plane crash:

—

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. If you are reading the Gene Pool in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

And finally, if you continue to read this newsletter for free, I respect you; you are playing by the rules. You are smart and prudent. But if you choose to pay fifty bucks a year, which is $4.16 a month I revere you. I lionize you. I extol and exalt your existence. I worship your elbows. I will send you a funny letter of gratitude. $4.16 is exactly the cost of a single Venti Latte at Starbucks.

—

Q: Are you not aware that the Chicago White Sox are almost as bad as the Marlins?  Why did you not mention them as potential candidates for our hatred?

A: I am of course aware.  But the Sox have had a recent small streak of wins, and that suggests they are recovering at least somewhat from their putrescence.  But I need to take issue with your use of the word “hatred.”  It is not hatred I propose for the Marlins, but love.  Tough love, maybe, but I would just let it go as love.  We want what is best for them. 

—

Q: Regarding that Babe Ruth – kid’s bedside skit you posted: 

SCTV did a Babe Ruth/sick kid sketch with John Candy:

– Jonathan Paul

A:  Very good.  Very physical.  Very John Candy. 

—

Q:  My father boxed when he was young and taught us how to throw a punch. He also taught us to never start a fight, but always finish one.

The upstairs bar at Bugsy’s in Old Town used to be called The Penalty Box. (The owner, Bryan “Bugsy” Watson spent over 2200 minutes in the box during his 16 year NHL career.) We’d often go there after playing at the Mt Vernon rink. One night, Ronnie and I were the first ones there when some jarhead gets in my face for no other reason than that he wanted to get into a fight with somebody. I tell him to back off, he takes a swing and I then follow my father’s advice and finish it. The bartender grabs the guy, flings him out, then sets a small bag of ice for my hand and a free pitcher of beer in front of us saying, “That guy’s been looking for a fight since he came in here. Glad you gave him what he needed.”

So, in the forty-five years that I played organized hockey, I never got into a fight on the ice, but I can say that I got into one in the penalty box. – Gregory Dunn 

A: I pulled this from the Comments on Saturday, something I seldom deign to do, but it was so good.  And comments tend not to be read as broadly as is the central copy in the Gene Pool.  So, now you’ve got it.

—

Q:  Comeuppance job interview in 2009.  I call it my Job intervies. I was ready and composed and was asked about my thoughts on the work of Shakespeare.  (Long boring story about why.)   I went for broke and pontificated about one of his little remembered play that I had actually seen. “A Cry of Players.”  

It was little remembered because Shakespeare didn’t write “A Cry of Players.”  It alluded to Shakespeare, but it wasn’t in his canon.  It was written by a guy named Gibson…. In 1967.   A terrible idiotic mistake, and I got caught on it.   Didn’t get the job.  

A: A glorious comeuppance. Worthy of The Marlins.

Q: The question regarding a postal carrier refusing to deliver mail that conflicted with their religious beliefs does have a direct analog, which was a county clerk (I don't remember where, this was several years ago) that refused to marry a gay couple after the state that they were in legalized gay marriage. In my opinion, when you start doing that, it's a first amendment violation. You are now forcing YOUR religious beliefs on someone else. Your religious beliefs dictate YOUR behavior, but you don't get to dictate someone else's behavior. 

Q: A good point.  But is that any different from the postal carrier? 

–

Q: Perfect joke: “I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.”

— Jonathan Jensen

A: Yes, close to the prototype of perfection. 

Q:  Perfect joke:  Straining for humor is like a fart.  If you have to force it, it’s shit. 

A: Not perfect, but it made me laugh.

—

Q: Sorry, I could not find a non-Twitter source.   

A: And this is obviously not staged.  Superior. 

—

Q: I submitted this last year as one of my two favorite jokes of all time. But I do think it qualifies as perfect, so here it is again. Say what you will about pedophiles, but at least they drive slow in school zones. 

A: I’m surprised I didn’t use it the last time. Or did I?

—

Q: Perfect joke nominee:

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. -Groucho, I think.

-Marc from the Military

A: Yes.  What is particularly impressing me about all these nominated jokes is that they are, indeed, pretty obscure.  This was obscure to me, and people I talked to about it, but it apparently is not obscure to citizens of the more erudite world of linguistics. 

This sounds like Groucho, but it’s not.   It is, according to Wiki, “a sentence that is used in linguistics as an example of a garden path sentence or syntactic ambiguity, and in word play as an example of punning, double entendre and antanaclasis.”

The Wiki page on this sentence is huge.

—

Q: I have a confession.  I answered both sides of the Weekend poll on slapping and/ or punching.  Not to get the answers, which I trust you to share, but to offer a perspective on your lefty liberal pacifist audience.  I answered the women only side for myself, a paid subscriber to the Gene Pool, with "neither".  I answered the men-only side for my ex, who is not a member of this community because he doesn't trust Substack or Facebook and is not aware that it exists, but was an active member of the WaPo community back in the day, so he kind of counts(?), with "both".  Because he has done both to me, as well as having slapped one of our kids at least once that I'm aware of.  The perspective I want to offer is that if he HAD answered for himself, despite the anonymity of the poll, he would have said "neither".  He would not have been lying, because he does not remember having been provoked by the respective victims to have done any of those things.  These events do not accord with his liberal pacifist self-image, so he has "forgotten".  I suspect he is not alone, either in believing that slapping/punching when provoked is no big deal (I've heard male professional (divorced) colleagues express similar outrage at having been held accountable for such events) or in forgetting they ever happened because they were "no big deal".

 I am not suggesting that any esteemed male member of this actual community has had similar memory lapses, I have no idea.  Your results may be completely accurate. But cognitive dissonance on this subject is a thing.  

A: Understood. 

Q: A sign at the entrance to a Pizza Hut said, “Shoes and shirts required to eat here.”  Underneath those words, in black sharpie, was written, “Socks can eat wherever they want!”

A: Thank you.

—

Q: Why did Hitler kill himself?

He got his gas bill.

I, and a number of people I know think this is a very funny joke. But not everyone. My wife for one, finds it utterly tasteless. I've long been interested in when a joke's punch line clashes with its potentially offensive subject matter. Paraphrasing Sarah Silverman, "With jokes you have to know where to draw the line. I mean, even The Holocaust isn't funny ALL of the time". 

In a comedy roast of George Takei, Gilbert Gottfried said "How can you tell when you're at a gay picnic? All the hotdogs taste like shit". Takei roared with laughter.

So what say ye Gene? Did you laugh?

A: Only at Sarah’s line.   It uses the horror to make fun of herself. The others are just mean and/or crude.  I saw that Takei roast.   Yes, the joke was on a stereotype, not a reality, which makes it usable, but it’s still kinda trite and lame.   Takei HAD to laugh.  It was a roast of himself.  You have no choice but to laugh at everything.   Unless you are Will Smith. 

—

Q:  Regarding OJ- So, Ok, obviously violent murderer gets off. I’m making the case, not that I need to, that he was tried and acquitted by a jury of his peers. I think that an occasional acquittal in this manner reinforces the premise “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt”, regardless of our analysis of these facts.

A: Totally agreed.  It reminds me of why you should never be upset about how many unused handicapped spots there are in parking lots.  That’s the idea.  You never want a situation where a person in need of help cannot get a handicapped spot. 

Uh, This post was once timely. It came in shortly after he died.   It has been sitting untended in my inbox for a long time. 

s

Later Report from the Poll:

Total votes, about 150.

Men on hot dreams, top to bottom: 14,34,38, 14, 10.

Women on hot dreams, top to bottom: 10, 29, 37, 17, 7.

These are percentages, not raw numbers, obv.

The poll on rooting for your team to lose: 24, 14, 19, 43.

That last number is particularly disappointing to me.

—

This is Gene. I am calling us down onaconna I now have to drive four hours. Please keep sending in questions and observations to this orange button:

And I will answer them when we next meet, on Thursday, when we present the results of the Grandfoals contest.

And for all of you feeling generous, and who want to be able to enter future Invitationals, and to post Comments: