At the end of Moneyball, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, 21 Jump Street) shows his boss, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life), an endearing video of Jeremy Brown, an overweight catcher in Oakland’s farm system. In the video, Brown hits a ball hard, rounds first base and proceeds to do something new: He tries for second – “going for it,” as Brand puts it. Not the most fleet of foot, Brown puts his head down and sprints out of the batter’s box as fast as he can, only to embarrassingly slip when he rounds first base. He’s forced to literally crawl back to the base while the other team laughs at him. Brown doesn’t realize he had actually just hit a home run, 60 feet over the center-field wall.
It gets better. Next, we see Brown face down on the basepath with the other team’s first baseman helping him up. Brown eventually dusts himself off and starts his trot around the bases. As he rounds second, the shortstop tosses down his glove in admiration, gives Brown a big high-five and slaps him on the butt. Brown grins from ear to ear when he crosses home plate.
“How can you not be romantic about baseball?” Beane says at the end of the clip.
Eighteen months ago, I ran the Baltimore Marathon in four hours, 32 minutes and 31 seconds. That’s the first time I’ve ever admitted exactly how long it took me to finish. Normally I round down to “about four hours,” because that sounds more impressive and I never cared about lying to impress someone.
I ran because I was bored, depressed and unsure how to spend my buckets of alone time. Or so I thought at the time. In hindsight, I really just wanted to feel better. Not better about myself, but better than you – all of you, all 7 billion of everyone else. There was a grace period of up until maybe yesterday where I would try to finagle conversations, hoping to mention my marathon and brag shamelessly. I needed validation. That’s insanity.
Like Brown, we all take swings every day. Sometimes we make contact. My contact was the marathon that I rubbed in your face. It was that iPhone article I wrote and advertised until I was sure every soul I had ever met had read it. Now it’s my Twitter mentions that I check constantly – never receiving enough to satisfy my hunger.
Unlike Brown, when I take a swing and make contact, I don’t put my head down, sprint as fast as I can or “go for it” at all. When I do anything, I automatically assume it’s a home run and trot around the bases slowly and arrogantly, for all of the world to admire.
That is, until now (I hope.) My aim here is to publicize this little plight of mine and hope none of you share my yearning for constant validation. It’s a bummer, and it slows us down. Let’s focus on other people instead. Celebrate what they do, because they celebrate what we do. That way, we’re all doing something.
During the race – at about mile 24 – I almost quit. Actually, I did quit. I stopped running. As a guy dressed like Jesus and a man wearing a Dunkin’ Donuts costume ran ahead of me, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was another racer who I did not know. He had severely wrapped-up knees and looked to be at least infinity years old. He told me if I weren’t going to finish, neither would he. His name was Jerry.
At four hours, 32 minutes and 31 seconds, Jerry and I crossed the finish line, together.
How can you not be romantic about other people?
Drew Farrell is a senior English major. He can be reached at opinion@umdbk.com.
