Blame, Baseball, and Beyond

I don’t know why I’m so disposed toward blame. Certainly, we live in a culture addicted to blame: If something goes wrong, the first reaction is to find someone or something culpable, and it seems to make whatever has gone wrong a little easier to swallow, it localizes the pain.

But, I was hoping I might have gotten beyond all that—was more spiritual in my outlook. I guess not.

A couple of days ago, for example, I was feeling the negative effects of the Yankees' loss in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. I was frustrated and angry. I had missed watching the game on TV and had only heard about the final score after the game was over.

So, I went online right away to find out as many details as I could and discovered that, after being behind for much of the game, the Yankees had come back to take a late lead, only to give it all right back in the bottom of the seventh inning. My first thought was an outraged, “Who the heck was pitching?” 

The next morning, I woke up still agitated and disturbed by the game’s result. More than anything else, I wanted to know who was pitching, what idiot could have let the game slip away like that. 

Going to the online sports pages of one of the local newspapers, I found what I was looking for, and more. Not only did I discover who had been pitching and how the collapse had come to pass, I also discovered how much I myself am addicted to blame.

Right there on the website was a little box with an interactive survey in it. It said: “Take Our Poll. ALCS Game 5 Goat. Who was most to blame for the Yankees’ Game 5 loss to the Angels?” Thereafter followed five names, with checkboxes beside each one. And then, beneath that was another link that said “View Results,” so I could see how others had voted as well.

In that moment, the moment that I checked off the name of the culprit I believed was most responsible for the loss, it was as if all the bad things that ever happened to me over the span of my lifetime had coalesced onto the tip of my computer’s cursor, and, as I clicked the name of the game’s goat, I could feel this hollow voice inside of me exulting “Aha! Gotcha!”

It felt good for a couple of seconds, but unfortunately, the glee started to sink soon thereafter. As I felt the good feeling draining away, I realized that blame wasn’t going to change the outcome of the game one iota.

Clicking on the “View Results” link, I thought seeing how others had voted might restore the glee, but again, unfortunately, it didn’t do anything to rekindle the temporary satisfaction the attribution of blame had brought.

In fact, looking at the distribution of votes amongst the potential candidates made me realize there wasn’t one singular, clear-cut winner and that the loss, in reality, was a combination of events, a complex interplay of actions unfolding one minute, one second, at a time. 

Obviously, for me, this wasn’t so much about baseball as it was about myself. Why am I so quick to blame? And, what can I do about it?

Like most things in my life, the answers are spiritual. That doesn’t make them any easier to discern, but it does indicate how I might best proceed when faced with upsetting and powerful emotions.

For me, the first step begins with Acknowledgment. I have to admit that I have a problem, in this case, with blame. It makes my life unmanageable in the moment and the anger that comes along with it seeps into the rest of my life.

Then comes the aspect of Acceptance. Like all the other fans who needed those checkboxes to help process the pain and frustration of the Yankees’ loss, I am human and I have this need to put things outside myself. It’s actually a temporary pain management tool, admittedly rudimentary and ineffective, but one I share with many others. I am not alone in my pain.

And finally, comes Action. I have to do something. In this case, a simple e-mail to my brother expressing my disappointment with the outcome began a series of additional actions that slowly led me away from the sinkhole of my own emotions surrounding the loss. I have to reach out.

In my mind, I don’t necessarily think in these formulaic terms as I’m going through something. It’s really more in hindsight that I can look back and recognize what stages I have passed through. And, as is often the case, I’ve since discovered that what I thought I was reacting to wasn’t necessarily what was really going on inside of me.

In fact, it wasn’t so much my need to attribute blame that was causing the emotional upset, it was more my need to feel connected to something larger than myself that the Yankees, oddly enough, had come to represent. I want to feel connected and the loss, however it happened, and whoever was “to blame,” threatened that connection—not in reality, but in my mind.

Ahh, baseball... How tricky you can be.

• Print This Post
• Email This Post
• Log in to Save this Article