Volume 3, Issue 56: Monday

"Everybody's wondering, "'where he'd go?' He must be down in Pensacola hiding from the snow."

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I have covered, let’s see, six World Series, six Final Fours, all six College Football Championship Games (until this year’s) and eight Super Bowls. According to Sports Passport, a terrific site, I have been to nearly 1,000 sporting events in my life. If you account for travel, you can make a pretty strong argument that nearly a year of my life has been spent watching sports, and that’s not even accounting for all the sports on television, my goodness, when you account for the sports on television, it’s possible I’ve watched sports more than I’ve done … anything else?

And this is still the most amazing sports thing I’ve ever seen.

This is what I want from sports. I want the escape, sure, and I want that (mostly) safe tribalism of my team beating your team. I want the cold beer in the stands, and that unique baseball thing of basically being the perfect excuse to just sit and talk to another person for three hours. (Going to a baseball game should be fun even for people who don’t like baseball. Find me another activity in which you just get to talk to another person, casually, no pressure, with a defined, specific beginning and ending, for three hours. Don’t you miss talking to a person for that long? I sure do.) I want the casual, empty conversation that sports provides, the way it can give me something to talk about with people I have not met and do not know, the way it can be a gateway to a friendship that’s lasting and ultimately about so much more than sports. I want all the silly stuff too, the stats, the lunchtime reading material, the feel-good human-interest stories, the joy, and even calm, of having something in your life that in that matters more than anything in the world and also does not matter at all.

But at the end of the day, that, that above there, is what I want most: I want a moment that makes me want to jump and scream and hug everyone in sight who just went through that moment with me. I want to feel connected to something. Sports makes me feel connected to other people. It’s a lot harder to do that without sports than it should be.

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I’ve been a professional sportswriter for, my goodness, 16 years now, ever since that September day in 2005 when they finally switched all the Deadspin posts I’d been writing from “Draft” "to “Publish.” I never wanted to write about sports—not because I didn’t like sports, but because I loved sports. All the professional sports reporters I’d met, they were all so miserable all the time, beaten down by the grind, by players and coaches who don’t want to talk to them, by readers who are always yelling at them, by the undeniable truth that, by signing up for a career in sports, they’d lost the sense of joy and wonder that attracted them to sports in the first place. Sports were, are, something that provides me immense pleasure. The idea of a job, a profession, eating away at that was the precise opposite of what I wanted. I knew I wanted to write. But I wanted to write and still love sports. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the latter for the former.

Deadspin, in many ways, was designed to make sure I didn’t lose that enjoyment of sports: The access part of the Sports News without Access, Favor or Discretion was all about making sure I kept my distance. But even after I left Deadspin, and even after I started “covering” some sporting events in person, I found I was still able to separate the two. It’s just easier to write about things you care about. And I care about sports. I care about it deeply. I think I love sports now more than I did before I started writing about them.

I wrote about that game above, that Villanova-North Carolina national championship game, back in April 2016, so much of the Before Time, for Sports On Earth. I republished that piece on Medium this week, as the NCAA Tournament started, just to remind myself at what it felt like to be there, to remember what moments are in store for us as the world begins to slowly open back up, as we can start to feel like ourselves again. Here’s a line from that piece:

We deal with a lot of junk from sports — too much. We rationalize, or just ignore, its numerous faults and corruptions, its messy, inextricable and unfortunate connection to the deeply flawed real world we walk around in every day. We put blinders on because otherwise, if we were rational actors, we’d have to look away. It can be exhausting. Sports are pretty ugly sometimes.

But this is why we do it. This is what we’re always waiting around for. This is what replenishes it all. This is the whole point. You think it’ll never pay off. And then it does, in a way that so little else in life truly can.

I cannot stop watching everyone hugging each other in that video. Here, watch it again:

I don’t know if there’s a series of more concise, easily understood representations of what “joy” looks like than the ones in that video. Seriously: Nothing else in life provides that. Is that joy fleeting? Of course. Everyone eventually has to go back to their normal lives afterward, with all their problems and their fears and their pain. Are sports terrible sometimes? Yes, yes and yes. But they are also a reminder of what we are capable of, of how we can truly still lose ourselves, how certain moments can transcend everything. I don’t care about Villanova basketball more than any other team, not really, but seeing that moment happen will always make me feel a little connected to them. I’ve seen them at their most purely human.

And I’ve seen them at their most inspiring too. Because they can still inspire.

And hey, every once in a while, a moment like that happens for the team that you root for. Which means it happens for you.

In the next few months, the world is going to open up. Families and friends will be reunited. Offices will be reopened. As I wrote this week, stadiums are going to be full of fans sooner than you might think. So much of what was taken from us will be returned. It will be in a different form; it won’t quite be what we remember as “normal.” But there’s an upside to that too. We will be seeing it all differently, too, experiencing it with an appreciation that couldn’t help but elude us before. It will be, in every way that matters, joyous. It will be complicated, by the context of the world we live in, by the problems that haven’t gone away, problems that, as we have seen with the tragedy this week in Atlanta, can feel insurmountable. But the world will be ours to work with again. I do not know how we will tackle all the problems in front of us. But I know it will be easier when we don’t have to do it while so alone.

There will be joy in the reopening. There will be something about it that will be pure. There will be something about it that will make you want to jump up and hug everyone.

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WEEKLY BOOK UPDATE: SEVEN WEEKS TO LAUNCH

Every week here at The Will Leitch Newsletter, we count down the weeks until the release of How Lucky, my novel that comes out May 11. This is the spot for weekly news, updates and pre-order reminders.

I promised you two weeks ago answers about the book. With seven weeks to go, it’s time you got some. I picked three, so this newsletter isn’t any more unnecessarily longer than it already is. If you have more questions, send ‘em to howluckythebook@gmail.com.

I don't say this in an accusatory way and as you said, it's not quite the plot as much as the set up -- But were you inspired by Rear Window for any part of it? — Eric

I feel so accused! Eric, you are a monster. I think it’ll be pretty clear when you read the book that only the setup sounds Rear Window-ish, but, obviously, I know (and love) Rear Window and was aware of it when I was writing. But Rear Window is much more obsessed with the act of watching, of viewing, of even spying. To me, that’s what that movie is about so much more than its plot. (Which is nothing like How Lucky’s plot anyway.) The book isn’t really about that sort of voyeurism, so I’m pretty sure any memory of Rear Window will fade pretty quickly, even if you’re thinking about it coming in.

Being someone who primarily reports and writes nonfiction, how hard was it to ‘flip the switch’ and write fiction? — Nick

The actual writing part was a ton easier, for one simple and obvious reason: When you are writing non-fiction, you are restricted to the facts of the matter, and thus you can’t just make the people in the story do whatever you want them to. You totally can in fiction! They’ll go wherever you make them go! The problem, though, comes with the editing. In real life, people must follow logic and reason and the physical realities of the planet. In fiction, you have to make them do that, yourself. The problem is not creating the people. The problem is making the world they live in make sense and not having gaping continuity errors. My number one fear is that we won’t catch them all, and, when the book comes out, everyone will notice, laugh and point.

Who is going to narrate the Audible version? Did you have any say on that as the author? — Liz.

I can’t say who it is yet, because from what I understand they are doing it this very week, but they gave me a list of five people and I had to choose the one who sounded the most like Daniel. I’m very happy with my choice. I’ve actually contacted the reader to see if I can interview him for this newsletter when he’s done. I’ve never had an audio version of one of my books before, and I must say, I’m fascinated to see how it turns out.

So: You can pre-order the book right now. If you don’t want to use Amazon, I recommend Bookshop. Pre-ordering is important, though: As a bookseller friend put it:

preorders boost bookseller confidence. Having a lot of preorders is an early indicator that the book will sell well and can encourage retailers to increase initial (ie. 'laydown') orders at launch. Did you know that bookstores can RETURN copies to the publisher that don't sell? So there's no risk to stores except loss of that literal real estate on their shelves and STILL 95% of traditionally published books never see the inside of a store. 

So hey, you’re here, reading this far already. Pre-order already.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. The Crowds Are Coming Back, New York. It’s going to be great.

2. You’re Doing Remote Work All Wrong, Medium. Well, you are.

3. Your Big NL Central Preview, MLB.com. If the records seem off here, it’s because this is the last division I did and I had to make them all equal and apparently I was a little too optimistic about the first five divisions I did.

4. What If This Is Really the Illini’s Year? Smile Politely. Well, what if it is?

5. The Thirty: Reasonable Expectations For Every Team, MLB.com. What’s the goal? What’s the standard? What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

6. Six Teams Guaranteed To Be Better Than Last Year, MLB.com. Congrats, Mets. And Royals!

7. This Week in Genre History: Dawn of the Dead, SYFY Wire. The one Zack Snyder movie I like.

8. What’s Your Vaccine Timeline? Medium. Again: Start making those plans.

9. Internet Nostalgia: Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Medium. Way back, there you go..

10. From the Archives: Villanova Beats North Carolina, Medium. As I said, one of my favorite gamers ever, to celebrate the return of the tourney.

11. Playing Pepper: The 2021 St. Louis Cardinals, Cards Conclave. I’ve been a part of this annual blog post for … 10 years now?

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, an all-Reboot show, discussing “Apocalypse Now,” “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” I also did a huge NCAA Tournament with the great Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.

People Still Read Books, I talked to John Gasaway about his new book “Miracles on the Hardwood.”

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, no show this week. We had to cancel because of rain. It’ll be nice to stop canceling podcasts because of rain.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“How the West Lost Covid,” David Wallace-Wells, New York. My friend and editor (and Michigan State fan) DWW has been perhaps my most trusted voice on this entire pandemic, and this piece is definitive, and often surprising.

ARBITRARY THINGS RANKED, WITHOUT COMMENT, FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON

Zack Snyder Movies

1. Dawn of the Dead

2. Watchmen

3. 300

4. Man of Steel

5. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

6. Zack Snyder’s Justice League

7. Sucker Punch

8. Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Birdhouse in Your Soul,” They Might Be Giants. There was about a two year stretch in the early aughts that I was really into They Might Be Giants, which probably won’t be a surprise to you. It’s pretty incredible that they once performed with Doc Severinsen on “The Tonight Show,” in the above clip. Did you know that Doc Severinsen is still alive? He’s 93!

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Oh, got this done this week.

There is no such thing as a flattering vaccine selfie. Go get your own!

Be safe, everyone. And go Illini!

Best,
Will