After the Darkness, Games in a New Light
By Tony Kornheiser Sunday, September 16, 2001

 

What a strange day, Saturday. What a strange day, Sunday.

A weekend without any sports to watch. A fall Saturday without big-time college football. A fall Sunday without the NFL. No baseball, even with the National League wild-card chase so furious, and Barry Bonds and the Seattle Mariners pointed toward records.

No golf, no auto racing. None of the sports we have grown accustomed to watching every weekend, the stuff that marks the pages in our lives.Nothing to watch but the crystal clear color of the blue sky and the orange flames and the black smoke, and the horror they invoke as the planes deliberately crash into the World Trade Towers again and again and again. The smoke rises. The towers crumble. And here we are now in this terrifying brave new world. Wondering what to do next.

 

I am a sportswriter, and this is a sports column. About no sports. I miss sports and the joyful diversion they provide. I miss laughter. I miss walking down the street without worrying if something is going to fall on me because someone is trying to kill me.I want my life back the way it was before last Tuesday. And I understand that's not going to happen.But I want to know when it will be all right to play the games again – that's all they are, games.

All they do is entertain us and get our minds off the more weighty issues. And I want to know when it's going to be all right to laugh again. When can I start writing funny? Who's the arbiter of that? Who's going to flip the switch and say: "It's okay now"?

The last few days I've spent a lot of time talking about why the NFL should have played this weekend. But I understand why they didn't. I appreciate the sensitivity of not wanting to play any games just yet. I appreciate the feeling it's too soon to cheer. I appreciate the fears people have about gathering in large groups, and the anxieties the athletes have, even as they struggle with the notion that it's their jobs to play these games and entertain the masses; that's why Churchill kept the theaters open during the bombing of London, and why FDR kept baseball going during World War II. But in a way I'm relieved to hear athletes say that they are nervous about flying, and worried about security – so are all of us. It's comforting to know we're all connected by our mortality.But I miss the sports.

Playing the games or not playing them won't bring back any of the dead. Nor will it make any of the horror go away. No matter when the games resume it will seem too soon. But I'll welcome the small moments of comfort the games give. Sometimes the room looks real dark because you haven't drawn back the curtains.

There's been a tendency this week among sportswriters and sporstcasters to be preachy and tell people now is the time to realize sports is trivial and shun it, and hug your children instead and tell them who the real heroes are.Well, every day is the right day to hug your children and tell them who the real heroes are. The real heroes are the firemen, policemen and emergency workers who rushed fearlessly into those burning buildings to save the lives of the dead and dying.

The real heroes are the people who lined up to give blood and make sandwiches and carry buckets of rocks away from a pile of rubble. The real heroes are everyday folks who give blankets and clothing, and write checks to relief funds for people they never met. The real heroes are everyone big and small, rich and poor, black and white, male and female who cared and wept and tried to do something, anything, to help. But don't think for a moment that in another situation a real hero can't be an athlete who makes a catch or hits a ball or runs so fast that he makes a child think: "When I grow up I want to do that. And if I try, I believe I can." Please don't tell me an athlete can't be a real hero. Nobody has the franchise on real heroes.

I'd like to think we've learned something more than that we are suddenly vulnerable. I'd like to think we've learned something about character. I'd like to think that when our games come back we will embrace them with a new civility. Managers won't yell and scream at umpires as much as before. Players won't hate their opponents and try to hurt them as much as before. Fans won't work themselves into psychotic frenzies anymore. Sportswriters won't cast sports in terms of tragedy and war, and good and evil as much as before. Because we've seen tragedy now, and we've borne witness to evil, and we're in a war now, and it is nothing at all like what happens in football – nothing at all.People say the events of this week have changed our lives forever. That we won't approach each day in the same way again. We'll be more skittish, less secure.

There's a sense we'll be enveloped in a permanent gloom, and we'll never return to normalcy. Well, just the other day I was walking on the corner of 15th and K streets, and I saw a young couple in their early twenties with their arms around each other, laughing and nuzzling. It made my heart leap to see people so exuberant. It seemed like the longest time since I'd seen anyone happy like that. Instantly I knew how much I missed it, and how ready I was to get back to it.I believe every day changes us forever in ways big and small. The assassination of President Kennedy, putting a man on the moon, the Salk vaccine, the Challenger blowing up, the Internet, the bombing of Oklahoma City, Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs – it all changes us forever. We can get back to normalcy. Normalcy moves. We just can't get back to yesterday. As Paul Simon says, "These are the days of miracle and wonder, and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry."

© Copyright 2001 The Washington Post Company

 

*Sports columnist and contemporary-culture journalist of the Washington Post and ESPN Magazine contributor, Tony is known for his evocative columns ranging from sports and politics to tales of heroes and fools. In 1989, he began doing a weekly humor column for the style section of the Post, a feature which proved so popular that it was selected for national syndication in 1991 by Creators Syndicate.In 1997 was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His books include; BALD AS I WANNA BE, REDSKINS: A HISTORY OF WASHINGTONS TEAM and THE BABY CHASE.
A native of Long Island, N.Y - Tony, his wife and two young children live in Washington, DC.