Have you ever stuck with a TV show long after it jumped the shark?
Most of us have done this at some point in our lives–we invest so much time and emotional capital in a show that no matter how much it frustrates us from week to week, we can’t bring ourselves to give up on it until it eventually, mercifully, it goes off the air.
For me, that show was Lost.
Lost aired from 2005 to 2010 and was set in the aftermath of a plane crash that left its surviving passengers–nearly all of them with movie star looks–on a desert island. The show was designed to manipulate viewers’ perceptions as we struggled each week to figure out what was going on. Was the island actually a metaphor for purgatory? Are The Others good or bad? And what the hell is with that black smoke monster???
As the plot confused us more and more each week–driving viewers like me to seek out any crazy theory the internet could come up with–Lost‘s only saving grace, perhaps, was its character development. The show’s format in the first few seasons focused on one main character each week, jumping back and forth between the their lives on the island (post-crash) and off the island (pre-crash).
My favorite character was Sawyer, the good-looking conman with the southern drawl who called everyone only by sarcastic nicknames. I was always pumped when I found out next week’s episode was “a Sawyer.”
But as the writers dug themselves deeper into a hole and it became obvious that many of the questions posed in season 1 through 5 weren’t going to get answered during season 6, the final season, my interest in the show began to wane. Yet I couldn’t make myself walk away. When the finale aired on May 23, 2010, I wasn’t exactly satisfied. Really, I was just relieved.
I found myself watching a rerun of Lost two Mondays ago on G4, an off-day during the Yankees-Tigers playoff series. (I recommend every fan of the show try this at least once–watching the show completely out of context is trippy.)
At that point the Yankees were in the midst of their own crash. Their sputtering offense could hardly manage to score any runs and their shortstop/team captain/my favorite player, Derek Jeter, broke his ankle late in Game 1 and was sidelined for the remainder of the playoffs.
Back in 1996, I was the biggest Yankee fan I knew. At age 14, the Yankees were more important to me than anything. I wore Yankee gear as often as my laundry rotation would allow, except for days after the team had lost the night before–I suppose I did this so no one would call me out for wearing the colors of a team that lost occasionally. Keep in mind the Yankees hadn’t won a World Series in 18 years, so younger fans of the team hadn’t yet developed the braggadocio they have today.
This was also before the internet really exploded and we were able to know all the intimate details about the players’ personal lives. For the most part we only knew about them on the field. The team featured “characters” like the soft-spoken center fielder Bernie Williams; the hot-headed right fielder Paul O’Neill who would punish a Gatorade in the cooler after making an out; and the former rival from the Red Sox turned Yankee Wade Boggs, who was known for superstitiously eating chicken before every game. It was also Jeter’s first full season on the team. (I remember having conversations about Jeter with friends, trying to figure out his ethnic background based on his last name and his looks–he’s half white, half black–because back then there was no such thing as Googling “Derek Jeter ethnicity.”)
If you go to a game today, you’ll still see the names and numbers of those guys from the 1996 team on the backs of fans. Incidentally, I wonder how many fans will be wearing the names and numbers of guys from the 2012 team in 16 years.
But by 2011, nearly all the guys from those 90s teams had retired, leaving only the “Core Four”–Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada–the players who were drafted as young men by the Yankees and came through their farm system, then went on to win five championships with the team.
As Jeter was carried off the field, the Core Four had lost yet another member: Posada had retired after the 2011 season; Rivera suffered a season-ending injury back in May; and Pettitte, who retired after the 2010 season then unretired before the 2012 season, pitched well in this year’s playoffs but also missed a large chunk of the season to an injury.
Meanwhile Alex Rodriguez, known more commonly as A-Rod, became the character Yankee fans loved to hate, a role he was not unfamiliar with. As A-Rod continued to struggle at the plate during this most recent playoff run, it was almost comical to watch him pick up a bat in a crucial situation, only to strikeout and hear the boos from the home fans at Yankee Stadium.
I’m not prone to booing, especially a guy on one’s own team (unless he displays a lack of effort) but A-Rod brings a lot of the ill will upon himself. He has been awful in October (except for 2009, when his play carried the team to a World Series–but Yankee fans have already forgotten about that). His off-the-field behavior–a high-profile divorce followed by a series of even higher-profile relationships with celebrities–is perceived by some as a distraction. He’s an admitted steroid-user, though only in 2002 to 2004, when he wasn’t playing for the Yankees. And he makes a lot of money. Like a lot of money. The Yankees owe him $114 million over the next five seasons, making it unlikely he’ll play for any other team other than the Yankees until after he turns 42, because no other team is crazy enough to take on that contract.
A guy like that is just more fun to root against than for.
Perhaps A-Rod simply came along in the wrong era. If he had played 20 or 30 years ago when the contracts weren’t yet so big, or the media wasn’t quite so ubiquitous, he might’ve been able to fly under the radar a little more if he wanted to. But others say he’s an ego-maniac who loves the attention, even if it’s negative, which is why he still insists he wants to be a Yankee even after another dreadful post-season performance that had fans calling for his head–he reminds me of a TV show character fans hope will be killed off.
For contrast, Yankee first baseman Mark Teixeira generally seems to be liked by Yankee fans. He’s a very good hitter, an outstanding fielder, and though he also makes a lot of money, he doesn’t get booed nearly as often as A-Rod. His personal life is so quiet–I’ve heard literally nothing about him off the field–that many fans would probably consider him the most boring Yankee on the team (maybe ever?). He’s only there, seemingly, to help move the plot along.
When Jeter became a free agent a few years back and the Yankees played hardball during contract negotiations, it seemed that there was a real possibility he wouldn’t be a Yankee for much longer. I contemplated whether I would still be a Yankee if Jeter was wearing another team’s uniform. Luckily the two sides came to terms and I didn’t have to make that decision. But when Jeter eventually retires, I’m not sure which Yankee character’s story I’ll care about enough to follow for the next 20 years or so.
Unlike Lost, which I knew would eventually go off the air and release me from its black smokey grip, the Yankees are a show that will go on forever.
A-Rod, who’s actually a year younger than Jeter, may end up being the last man standing. Yankee fans many want to be careful about trying to run A-Rod out of town, because once the rest of the Core Four are gone, he may be the only character we have left to root for–or against.
Jack 4 Lyfe!! Has your loyalty to the Yankees paid off? Have you ever wanted to make sure that Derek Jeter knows that you, personally, are a big fan?
I think he knows. My loyalty has paid off in that I get to enjoy an entire season’s worth of baseball every year rather than supporting a team who’s out of the playoff race by July.
So sweet, nostalgic & insightful. Loved it!
[…] So back to my FFIL. My advice, since he asked for it, was this: GO ALL IN ON THE NATS! (I didn’t actually yell it–we were in a restaurant.) My 13-year-old self would have punched myself in the face if he heard me say that. But as I wrote at the end of the Yankees anti-climactic 2102 playoff run that saw Derek Jeter suffer a season-ending ankle injury (an injury, by the way, that held him out of the 2013 opening day lineup), I’m no longer sure what I’m rooting for as a Yankee fan. […]
[…] I know what you mean…but I’m pretty much committed at this point.” I imagine my fellow Lost fans might have felt the same […]