Volume 4, Issue 8: Roger Maris

"He's clearly in a better place here, after the stress of what came before."

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My sister’s birthday, April 10, is exactly six months away from mine, so we’ve thus always marked our half-birthdays by wishing the other one happy birthday. When I was a senior in high school, she was in the seventh grade, so I went to college right as she was heading into the most formative transitional period of her life;. When I left for Champaign, she was a cheerleader and a gymnast and leading the school plays, and by the time I graduated, she was wearing all black and was obsessed with Ani DiFranco. A lot can happen in four years.

After I graduated college, I moved to Los Angeles, the first time anyone in our extended family had lived outside of Illinois since my father had been in the military. My sister was a senior in high school by that point and in full teenage girl rebellion. This was before the age of cellphones and texting, when a phone call from California to Illinois could run you about 60 bucks if you weren’t careful, so I missed most of this. Everyone seemed super stressed out over Christmas, but, otherwise, well, I was 22 years old and living on my own for the first time—I was off in my own little world at that point. Today, with my parents just living seven miles away, I’m acutely aware of every minute detail of everybody’s day-to-day existence. But back then, I had no idea what was going on.

Which is why I was surprised when my sister called me a few days before her birthday back in 1998, as I was living in a cramped Santa Monica apartment with four other people, a mangy, angry dog who was always growling at me and a mattress that lay flat on the floor surrounded by empty packs of Marlboro Reds.

“Hey, I’m coming to visit you for your birthday,” she said.

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Why?”

“I just need to get away from Mom and Dad,” she said. “They’re the worst.” I’m pretty sure they print this on T-shirts for teenage girls.

I picked her up from LAX on Thursday, April 9, the night before her birthday, and she met my roommates and charmed the dog and went out to dinner with me at my favorite Los Angeles restaurant back then. I sneaked her some of my wine, lit a cigarette (something you could do at Los Angeles restaurants in 1998) and asked her what she wanted to do while she was here.

“I’m getting a tattoo,” she said, matter-of-fact. “You have to take me. I want a tattoo, Mom and Dad won’t let me get a tattoo, but I’m 18 tomorrow and I want a tattoo so you’re taking me to get a tattoo.” My sister is a lot more forward and forceful than I am, and people tend to do what she tells them to. I am no exception.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked.

“It’s why I’m here,” she said, taking a drag from my cigarette. “I mean, obviously.”

I woke up the next morning to the phone ringing. It was my mother, already at work in the emergency room.

“You’re not taking her to get a tattoo today, are you?” she said, sharp, precise. “That’s why she’s out there, you know.”

“That’s what I hear,” I said. “Listen, if I don’t take her, she’s going to go somewhere on her own, and she’ll go to the cheapest place and it’ll be sketchy and they might, like, give her an infected needle or something.” I really didn’t know anything about tattoos. “At least I’ll find her a safe place.”

“Do not take her,” Mom said.

“She’s 18, Mom,” I said. “For better or worse, she can do what she wants now.”

Mom sighed deeply. “I have to get back to work,” she said, and then hung up the phone.

That afternoon, I left work early and found her a place in Venice that my boss’ boyfriend had recommended, they’d supposedly done a couple tattoos for Dennis Rodman, which, hey, must mean they’re fine. I pulled in front of the building and turned to my sister.

“You sure about this?” I asked.

“I’m out here, aren’t I?” she said.

“What are you getting anyway?” It felt strange that I hadn’t asked her this already.

“A butterfly,” she said.

“Huh,” I said.

And then she went inside. I told her I’d be back in a couple of hours. When I returned, her torso was covered in some sort of Saran Wrap and she was frowning. “That really hurt,” she said.

We got back to my apartment, where my roommates, who were well-aware of this whole saga and could not wait to see how it turned out, were waiting with wine and drugs. My sister started to take off the wrap.

I turned to her.

“This thing, whatever this thing is, is going to be on your body for the rest of your life,” I said. “That is wild. You’ll have this on you when you’re 90! You’ll have that thing in your casket!”

She just shrugged.

And then we saw it:

(That’s my roommate Marisa looking at the tattoo, not me. My hair wasn’t that long in 1998.)

There are decisions that only an 18-year-old with no idea what is going to happen to them the rest of their lives would make … and then there is the decision to get a big butterfly tattoo on your stomach at the time in your life when your stomach is the flattest and your body is your most resilient.

“It looks so cool!” everyone in the room said but me. Me? I couldn’t stop thinking about the casket.

***********************

Suffice it to say, I personally have no tattoos. If I’m being honest, it’s never really occurred to me to get one. I’m self-conscious enough about my body, particularly its almost total lack of hair (I’m essentially a dolphin; I’m barely a mammal), that raising the already-steep level of difficulty on staving off atrophy as I get older isn’t something I’m particularly eager to do. But I think more of it has to do with a tattoo’s total permanence. I’m constantly aware of how much the world is changing all around us, in every possible way, and fixing a moment in time on your body has always felt a little like making the decision that you are going to wear parachute pants the rest of your life and just hoping that society continues to consider that the predominant style moving forward. Who can be so sure of forever?

Someone told me this week, probably during one of my anxious frettings about Andre Curbelo, that if I had a tattoo, it would probably be of an orange and blue Illini “I.” That makes some sense. Sports teams are the one thing that I care just as much about today as I did when I was eight years old, and one of the few things I know I’ll still care about when I’m 90. (The Cardinals’ STL logo would be another option here, though it would require being comfortable with no one ever seeing me naked again.) The names of family members would be another option, though I don’t know if I would necessarily want my name permanently on someone else’s body. Seems like a lot of pressure: I’d feel pretty guilty canceling dinner plans with someone who literally etched my name on their back.

I’m probably too old to get my first tattoo at this point, even if I were inclined to do so. I try to stay in shape, but I’m 46 years old: Things aren’t going to get tighter around here. I also wonder if I’m less inclined to get a tattoo because, frankly, I do not feel particularly deprived in the “ability to express one’s self” department. I write tens of thousands a words a week and yammer on, jeez, four different podcasts now. If I have something I need to say, I do not necessarily require some spare flesh around the thigh to do so.

But I’ve still always felt a little lame about it. The fact is: I do think tattoos are kind of cool. I think it’s cool that people do it, that they have the confidence to do so, the faith in themselves to trust a decision they make now will not be one they regret in 50 years. I’m constantly questioning basically every decision I make. Committing to a tattoo? Even a blue-and-orange “I?” Ever watch a game where there are all those fans whose dedication to their team is so extreme that they paint their face their team colors? Well, a lot of times, those fans’ teams lose the games they’re there to watch, which means they have to leave the arena still wearing that paint to cheer on a team that just lost. Their painted faces are testaments to failure: They always look ridiculous. That’s what I’d be worried about with any tattoo. There are all sorts of decisions I made 25 years ago that I were certain were correct at the time and turned out totally wrong. There are all sorts of decisions I made yesterday that turned out that way. It’s bad enough that I made such bad decisions. Why would I want a permanent record of it … a record that I have to look at every time I brush my teeth?

But I’m not sure I’m right about that. I think there’s value in these markers of moments in one’s life, reminders of the journey, of the places you were that led you to be the person you are today. Even terrible moments; especially terrible moments. If I need to, I can persuade myself, by having no concrete evidence of a time in my life before now, that those terrible moments, or those big mistakes didn’t happen at all, that I’m a constant blank slate that can be wiped clean. A tattoo is more honest than that. A tattoo is the planting of a flag. I was here. And there is a part of me—that part, right there, on my arm, or my neck, or that butterfly on my stomach—that always will be. That doesn’t seem foolish to me. That seems almost courageous.

I asked my sister, this morning, while writing this, what she thought about that tattoo today, a tattoo that, next month, will turn 24 years old. What’s the butterfly look like today?

“It has aged great,” she told me, “but it’s in a terrible spot.” She now has five tattoos, including the other side of the butterfly across her back. She has the name of a beloved late dog on her right rib cage, and she has a whole complicated deal on her bicep.

That says “Evolve.” There is something lovely, I think, in having such a message stamped on yourself. It’s a reminder—one that will always, always be needed—that the world fluctuates wildly, and so will you, and you have to roll with it all and do your best to move forward. You will be thrown curveballs. You will face upheaval. Your life will turn upside down on you. But you have to evolve to survive. You have to be willing to meet the world where it is. You have to be willing, always, to change.

To have such a message conveyed by something that you cannot change … it’s sort of perfect. It’s the a message you’d want to look at every day when you’re brushing your teeth. It’s one you want to remember. It’s one we all need to.

But still: What about that butterfly tattoo? Does my sister regret it?

“I don’t regret the experience,” she said. “But if I could go back, I would probably chose the tramp stamp.

“I mean it was the 90’s.”

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 Vexing Problem of the Problematic Obit, Medium. I never knew that about William Hurt either.

2. How the New Playoff Format Could Alter the MLB Season, MLB.com. Holy cow it feels good to be writing about actual baseball again.

3. Pixar Movies, Ranked and Updated, Vulture. With Turning Red.

4. Tom Brady’s Retirement Never Made Sense Anyway, New York. I feel like it’s just my plight to write about Tom Brady retiring and unretiring every few months before one of us dies. This also has a great Shaq story in it.

5. Intro to the Book Zero Season, KyleWhelliston.com. My old friend Kyle Whelliston, originally from The Mid-Majority, wrote a good book, and I wrote a less-good intro for it, about what it felt like to live through the year 2004. You should buy it.

6. The American League East Is Going to Be Nuts, MLB.com. I mean, there could be four playoff teams from that division.

7. Five Takeaways From the Wild First Weekend of Moves, MLB.com. Wow, the Reds sure are making it easy for the Cardinals, aren’t they?

8. Your NCAA Alumni Bracket Filled, Medium. This was a good idea in my head, though I’m not sure it turned out that way.

9. Your Friday Five, Medium. Sometimes I type so fast I don’t realize the week is over.

PODCASTS

Seeing Red, oh yes, Bernie Miklasz and I are back on our weekly show, discussing the St. Louis Cardinals and how much better the world is with them in it. I missed all of this so much.

The Long Game With LZ and Leitch, we discussed the NCAA Tournament, Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and Jerry Jones.

Grierson & Leitch, we discussed “Turning Red,” “The Adam Project” and “Joe Vs. the Volcano.”

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, Tony and I had a conversation about Mike White, the new Georgia basketball head coach. (I think it’s a great hire.)

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“The Weakness of the Despot,” David Remnick, The New Yorker. I found this interview with Stephen Kotkin, a Russian expert and the author of three histories of Stalin, to be illuminating, reassuring and terrifying.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (And I’m finally all caught back up on these.)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“The Bad Thing,” The Mysterines. My friend Bertis recommended this album and it’s pretty fantastic. This sounds like the shit I was listening to in the mid-2000s, when we started The Black Table, music to ram your head into a wall to.

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

I cannot believe the Illini won that game last night. That’s the worst game they’ve played all year—OK, maybe Cincinnati was worse—and they still somehow won. Illinois, my beloved Illini, have not made a Sweet Sixteen in 17 years. It’s time. It’s time.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will