On the USFL, Instant Replay, and Baseball's Refusal to Adapt

So I watched last night's ESPN 30-for-30 documentary on the rise and fall of the USFL, and I highly recommend it, if only for two reasons: 1.) It utterly eviscerates Donald Trump, and anything that makes Donald Trump look like an idiot* can't be all that bad,** and 2.) Burt Reynolds is prominently featured. The narrative was well put-together, and director Mike Tollin's archival footage was first-rate, but there was one thing they glossed over that I wish they'd spent more time on, and that was instant replay. After all, the USFL essentially invented the entire concept, silly red flags and all, and it's something that has become utterly commonplace in American sport, this notion that technology can be effectively utilized to correct human error. And yet...here is baseball, just now engaging in this discussion, almost twenty-five years on, as its umpires continue to defend themselves by evoking the inherent prejudices of their internal organs.

And if last night's game is not a metaphor for baseball's continued refusal to adapt to modernity, maybe this Buzz Bissinger piece will convince you: For if you read between the lines, if you can get beyond the needless pissing match between Bissinger and the SABRmetrics nerds, the basic point is that Moneyball is not what dictates success in this modern incarnation of the game. Money is, and always has been, and, with rare exceptions, always will be. It's an ethic Trump would appreciate.

*See: The Apprentice, The Art of the Deal, everything else Trump has engaged in since 1986.
**I should say, I have a brief section about the death of the USFL (and take several digs at Trump) in my new book. (Available now for pre-order! Though as an ever-supportive friend recently pointed out, "Why should I bother to pre-order a book that MAY or MAY NOT be released to the public 10 MONTHS FROM NOW?" To which I say, Fair point.)

On the Fusina Feud, Cont'd.

And so Jeff Pearlman responds to my criticism of his criticism of the great Chuck Fusina--and he does it by "playing the USFL card." This is a low blow, Jeff, as we both know it is impossible to effectively parry against nostalgia for a league where an egomaniacal caricature of a billionaire, a personally fragmented running back, and an Oompa-Loompa briefly joined forces. It is also probably a bad idea to fan the flames of a virtual feud with an accomplished journalist who has handled the real-life Kenny Powers and the "real-life Emmitt Smith,"* but I am obliged to stand up for the honor of a quarterback who represents the one thing in the world of sports I still hold sacred--and I am not speaking of the Philadelphia Stars.**

Here's the thing: I cannot defend Chuck Fusina on the merits of his professional football career. And if I am being honest, I don't care very much about Chuck Fusina's professional career; I knew of him long before then. I knew of him in the fall of 1978, the year my family uprooted from New York to Pennsylvania, to a college town located approximately four hours from everywhere, to a hamlet in the geographic center of the state that will forever be defined by the distinct profile of its professorial football coach. I knew of Chuck Fusina because he was the quarterback of the local eleven, a group of young men who played in prison-issue uniforms in a stadium on the far side of town; I knew of him because that fall, in the backyard of a house on Devonshire Drive, my friend Scott Holderman and I would regularly re-enact the Fusina-to-Fitzkee connection.***

I turned six years old that fall. In New York, I had seen a few things; I watched the Yankees, because my father watched the Yankees; I watched the New York Cosmos, because--well, I have no idea why. But that was different; in New York, and in most big cities, there are so many passions outside of sports that the local teams often feel detached from the daily reality. But it's different in central Pennsylvania. And so the rise of Chuck Fusina portended, for me, the birth of the only true sporting passion I have left, the only connection that remains between me and my childhood:

I am a Penn State fan.

It kind of shames me to admit this, as I have based my entire career upon detachment and rationality. And I would like to think that I am not immune to criticism of said program (as witnessed here and here), and I do, in fact, find the blind worship of message-board acolytes to be a truly chilling proposition, but the fact is this: When a Penn State football game comes on the television, I am engulfed by a strange and powerful feeling. My temperature rises, and my temperament fluctuates, and I chew my clothing to pieces, and I emit guttural noises that have been known to literally frighten my girlfriend out of the room (in the wake of a last-second loss to Michigan a few years back, I actually jumped so high that I slugged her ceiling fan).

At age 36, I can honestly say that there is nothing else in the world that makes me feel this way. And I have a constant worry that one of these years, it will just go away, and I will be left with nothing, and all these decades I've spent indulging in this utterly irrational behavior will suddenly seem silly and useless, and I will spend my Saturdays watching The Beltway Boys and attending operettas. And I know Jeff has written (often and eloquently) about how sports no longer arouse any kind of mysticism for him, but I happen to think we need certain constants in our lives, and I happen to think this is one reason why sports fans cling to such irrational illusions. And this particular constant, in my case, began with Charles Anthony Fusina, with a quarterback who may be a footnote to nearly everyone else--but who opened me up to some of the most angst-ridden, passionate, pleasurable and entirely inexplicable moments of my existence.****

*Though I am not sure what this phrase--"the real-life Emmitt Smith"--actually means. Also, if you are reading this and you somehow haven't read Boys Will Be Boys, let me just say this: How can you possibly go wrong with a sports book whose primary Amazon.com "key phrase" is proctological?
**Though their move to Baltimore was, to me, the most crushing moment of my youth, on par with the cancellation of My Two Dads.
***This was Fusina-to-Fitzkee's rawer indie work, as opposed to their watered-down, pop-laden Philadelphia Stars material.
****And just to be sure there is a requisite amount of what the youth call "smack" and/or misplaced aggression in this post: The kind of man who cites The Cable Guy as "the funniest movie ever" is the kind of man who claims "Yellow Submarine" is his favorite Beatles' song. If you start arguing for the spiritual profundity of Weird Al lyrics, Jeff, I may have to call for a virtual intervention.