See Ya

The Major League Baseball trade deadline just came and went and The Diamondbacks made a lot of moves, the biggest of which was trading Dan Haren to The Angels. Every year, I am reminded that I can't get too attached to the players on my teams because they may be gone at any moment. In this world of fantasy team owning sports fans, no one seems to want to watch the same players day in and day out. Fans are as interested in trades nowadays as they are in the actual playing of the games. I feel like I may be the only person who wants to see the same players year in and year out and watch them grow from rookies to veterans on one team and retire with that team. I don't want to see Brett Favre in a Vikings jersey or Michael Jordan in a Wizards jersey. It just doesn't look right; I want to see the Cal Ripkens and the Larry Birds retire with the right colors on.

Even the players you think would never be traded are not safe. The Suns traded Dan Majerle, one of the most popular Suns of all time and my favorite player ever, for John " Hot Rod" Williams in 1995. And the fans were largely to blame. As Majerle was getting older, he started shooting more and more threes and we saw less of the thunderous dunks of his youth that gave him his nickname Thunder Dan. Fans became restlesss and wanted him gone. I was crushed by this trade, and worst of all so was Dan Majerle. He never wanted to wear another jersey in his lifetime. In this era of players who demand trades and want to play in big markets like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, finding a player loyal to your organization is almost impossible. Teams and fans should hold onto these players when they find them.

Last summer, I felt like this was happening all over again when fans started calling for Steve Nash to be traded. "He doesn't play defense." "He can't win a championship." I wanted to grab every fan I heard complaining about Steve Nash and physically shake some sense into them. Steve Nash may be the greatest Suns player of all time and people actually wanted to trade him. Be careful what you wish for is all I can say because while the grass is always greener on the other side, it was not very fun to watch John "Hot Rod" Williams hobble up and down the court like Andre the Giant while Dan Majerle continued to be a great player with the Cavs and Heat. We ask for loyalty from players and show them none back. Luckily, The Suns kept Steve Nash and he rewarded us with an unlikely run to the Western Conference Championship. The fact is, I would not have traded Nash for Kobe Bryant even if I knew that we would win a championship. I would rather lose with Steve Nash than win with Kobe Bryant and I would hope that most other Suns fans would too.

Role Models

I was over at my sister's a few weeks ago and there was golf on the television. My nephew Jack, who is six years old, looked up at me and said, "I love Tiger Woods." I didn't know what to say. I wanted to steer him away from looking up to someone like Tiger, but I couldn't explain to him why. I just told him, "I like Phil Mickelson."

Now I see all these pictures of kids crying about Lebron James leaving The Cleveland Cavaliers and they are crushed by it. As I get older, I think about when I will have kids and how I don't want them looking up to athletes. When I was younger, one of my idols was Suns guard Jason Kidd. I played point guard on my grade school basketball team and I only wanted to play like Jason Kidd. He was an unselfish point guard who played to make his teammates better. There was even this cheesy commercial with clips of Jason Kidd and that Vertical Horizon song "Everything You Want" playing in the background. It's a terrible song, but I loved that commercial because I thought it summed up how great a person Jason Kidd was. The only problem was that he wasn't a great person, he was a great athlete, but I couldn't distinguish between the two as a kid. My world came crashing down when he was arrested for hitting his wife. I was sitting on the coffee table in my living room just staring at the television and wanting to believe he couldn't have done such a thing. I lived with my mom and three older sisters and respect for women had been hammered into my mind, so hitting women was unfathomable to me. I sat there in shock, just hoping that he was innocent.

But he wasn't and sports took on a different meaning for me that day. I never idolized an athlete like that again in my life. I look at my nephew's love of Tiger Woods and realize that he is going to feel that same disappointment one day. I don't want my kids to be let down like that, but how can you let them watch sports, and keep them from idolizing the players they cheer for? I want them to experience the same joy that sports have brought me and leave out all the pain, but I don't think the two can be separated. I can only hope that future athletes start to take the idea of being a role model a little more seriously.

Where Did You All Come From?

I have been a die hard Arizona Cardinals fan my entire life. It hasn't always been easy because they were the laughing stock of the NFL for many years, and were not considered lovable losers, even though they were to me. But there was something special about being one of the few fans of a team. Not many people in Arizona really cared about the Cardinals, no matter what they say now. They only made the playoffs once when I was a kid, beating the Dallas Cowboys in the first round and then losing badly to the Minnesota Vikings in the second round.

I was twelve years old and was home listening to sports radio the night the Cardinals lost. They announced that the Cardinals plane would be arriving in a couple hours and encouraged fans to come and welcome them back. I immediately wanted to go, but it was a school night and already past my bedtime, so I knew there was no chance. But without my even asking, my mom said, "We should go."I don't know exactly why she decided to take me. I do know that she was one of the many fans that welcomed the 1975 Suns back at the airport after winning a spot in the NBA finals. That was a memory she always had and maybe she just wanted me to have a similar one.

It was a cold night and we waited out on the tarmac with about a hundred and fifty other fans waiting to show our support for what had been the most successful season in Cardinals history. Their plane didn't get in until close to midnight and when the players walked off, they gave every fan that had come a handshake or a high five. I got a high five from my favorite player, Aeneas Williams. It's a night I will never forget.

Now, the Cardinals are about to start a new season and have shed their loser image. They made the Super Bowl two years ago and the playoffs again last year. They are playing in a new stadium, to sold out crowds with legions of new fans. And part of me is bitter. Where were all these people when the Cardinals were terrible? True fans were the ones who showed up on the hundred degree days when the Cardinals were playing at Sun Devil Stadium. We sat on those burning hot bleachers and watched our inept team while having to deal with the opposing team's fans, who usually were greater in number than us. Then I feel ashamed for thinking this way. I have what I wanted; the Cardinals are finally good. What is it about liking something that makes it so much more special when no one else does? It's the same way with a band or an author. We think that everybody should love them, but then we get mad when they do. I know that I need to get over it, but it's going to take some time. At least I will always have those memories of the lovable loser Cardinals. The ones not too many other people loved.

I Hate John Paxson

I was six years old, my shaggy hair was pushed to the right, dividing my large, round head. I had on a green, button up Killer Tomatoes shirt and was sitting on the floor of my living room. My face was two feet from the screen of the television. “Danny, scoot back, you’re going to hurt your eyes,” my mom repeated. I already needed glasses; she just didn’t know that yet. I inched closer and closer to the television as the clock ticked away on the basketball game I was watching. It was game 6 of the 1993 NBA finals and the Suns were playing the Bulls. I was obsessed with the Suns and Dan Majerle was my God and they were playing the hated Michael Jordan’s Bulls. I sat there watching as a little known Bulls role player named John Paxson lined up and took a three with little time remaining and the Suns up by two. I stared as the ball spun in the air, and was just happy that Michael Jordan wasn’t the one shooting it. But it ripped the chords and went in. I cried when the Suns lost and have hated John Paxson ever since.

I thought of this moment yesterday when my sister asked, “Why are all these people so angry with Lebron James? God, people take sports so seriously, it’s ridiculous.” I see this response from non-sports fans all the time. They think it is silly to get so attached to grown men playing games.

“It’s sports hate,” I explained to her, “which is it’s own category of hate. When I say, I hate someone who plays on the Lakers, I don’t hate them in the same sense I hate someone who is a racist and kicks puppies.”

“But some people take it way too seriously.”

“Some people do, but you have to understand that people are invested in their teams. You cried at the end of Lost and those are fictional characters. Sports have real human beings doing real things.”

“They’re playing a game, the people on Lost were doing important things.”

I can only laugh at that argument. She may be right, it is kind of ridiculous to get so wrapped up in men you don’t know playing games for millions of dollars. Part of me is embarrassed that I take it so seriously. But the emotions I have with sports are genuine, and at a time in my life when I have fewer and fewer genuine emotions, that is something I want to hold onto. I can’t recapture the joy of running out to see my gifts from Santa on Christmas morning, but sports make me feel just the way I did when I was six. They make me jump out of my seat and yell at the top of my lungs. That is a rare thing and I am not going to let my brain talk me out of it because sometimes I am embarrassed by it. For all I know, John Paxson is a very nice man, but that doesn’t change the fact that every time I hear his name, I wish he was standing in front of me so I could kick him in the shin and run away.

The Worst Commercial Of All Time

For those who don't know, this is why I hate John Paxson.