A devoted sports fan rarely has an occasion to stop and consider the hazards of his obsession. There is nothing wrong with sports when your team is winning, or more precisely—noting is better in the whole world than your team winning. Even in devastating losses a true fan mourns but doesn’t waver, appreciating, even through the fog of defeat, the beauty of the game, its designed drama and the limits of the human body.
But ever so often, sports fandom runs up against another kind of limit, that of human morality. Our heroes fall, perhaps they never should have been heroes in the first place, and we are forced to look away from the game we love in disgust and confusion. We wonder why we watched and cheered for people who now seem obviously flawed (and occasionally truly vile). Could we have known? Should we be surprised? The whole enterprise can look suddenly look suspect, from the team president to the popcorn seller to even you, the fan.
The Texas Rangers have had a truly terrible season. They own the worst record in baseball and have set an MLB record for most players used in a single season due to an astonishing number of injuries, several of them serious. Young pitcher Martin Perez had Tommy John surgery and may not return until late next season. Another pitcher, Matt Harrison, suffered a back injury so severe he may never pitch again. In addition to frustrating but ultimately trivial on-the-field disappointments, the Texas baseball community was shocked and deeply saddened by the sudden passing of beloved beat writer Richard Durrett earlier this summer.
The season from hell refused to end quietly. On Sept. 5, Ron Washington, the manager of the Rangers, abruptly resigned from his post without explanation, saying in a statement: “I deeply regret that I’ve let down the Rangers organization and our great fans.” That afternoon, general manager Jon Daniels, flanked by team owners Ray Davis and Bob Simpson, addressed the media in one of the strangest, most cryptic press conferences in recent memory, refusing to give any clues to the reason for Washington’s resignation and appearing to be nearly as shocked as anyone in the audience. A local radio host remarked that it looked like Daniels had been crying.
Washington, known as “Wash” by fans and media alike, was a charismatic leader best known for his highly quotable nuggets of baseball wisdom and his old-school appreciation for the game. He won more games in his eight seasons as manager than any other Rangers’ skipper, including leading the team to the World Series in 2010 and then back again in 2011, coming within one strike of winning the championship.
I loved to watch Wash manage my favorite team. I could continue with pages more of stories and memories. But in the week since his departure, we have begun to learn more about the reason for his sudden resignation. No major news outlet has confirmed the story, so I won’t repeat it here, but many in the media have hinted at a very serious legal issue being the cause of Washington’s disappearance. A few well-known baseball bloggers have given more detail, and if true, the allegations will certainly change the way we think of Wash as a person, and potentially how we remember his time with the Rangers.
In all of this I feel that strange discomfort, unrelated to wins or losses, disrupting my sports brain and introducing hard morality to the child’s game I watch religiously for six months a year. The moments when sports are most like “real life” is not in the highs of victory but rather right now, in the low valley, with another hero turned human. From down here, I still don’t know what to make of it all: I’m surprised and saddened. I’ll certainly miss Wash. And now, fairly or unfairly, I’ll always wonder what really happened. But the wondering, the seemingly illogical urge to care about a person you only know through a TV screen, is for better or worse a part of the addictive magic of sports, and yet another way it can break your heart.
