Men with Balls: The Professional Athlete's Handbook
If it’s your first year in the league, your fellow pros are going to want to indoctrinate you. No doubt attending college has given you a taste for massive group hazing. Now, being brutally sodomized with an unvarnished broomstick while rushing your frat probably wasn’t fun. But it was a small price to pay for the handsome reward of fitting in (in this case, literally) with the other guys in your house. Besides, at least the broomstick was cylindrical! Imagine if it had been a hockey stick! Talk about a square peg in a round hole!
Hazing is a test. Sure, it’s also a cruel and needless display of power born of the massive insecurities and unresolved inner anger of your new “brothers.” But it is also a test. If you accept your hazing with a minimum of fuss, your teammates will see you as a reliable colleague, one who won’t fold in the face of adversity. And that’s a valuable bond to establish, until half your teammates depart via trades or free agency the following year. Conversely, if you resist hazing, or act like a whiny baby about having all your clothes (wallet included) doused in lighter fluid and burned to a very fine ash, then you will be seen by everyone as a big pussy. Hope you enjoy eating lunch by yourself.
So get ready for a hazing redux your first year in the pros. The first one you need to know about is Bitch Duty. Bitch Duty means that you are the designated gofer to all of the veterans in the clubhouse. You must carry their luggage. You must handle their deliveries. You must carry their hashish through airport security. While annoying, this is all fairly benign stuff. If Bitch Duty is the only hazing you experience your first year, consider yourself lucky. And on a losing team.
The other classic rookie hazing ritual is the Rookie Dinner. This is when your veteran teammates “take you out” to dinner, only to order the most expensive food and wine on the menu and then stick you with the tab. This is especially fun to do with a seventh-round draft pick, who only gets a meager signing bonus and then must fight tooth and nail just to cling to your team’s final roster spot. You should see him start to freak out when he considers the possibility of having to split the tab equally, even though all he had was a panini and a mineral water, while everyone else at the table ordered five-pound lobsters and solid bricks of foie gras. Then, when he finds out he has to pay for the whole thing, he completely loses his shit. Man, does he get pissed! It’s priceless stuff.
Lugging bags and paying for dinners are not exactly extreme forms of hazing. There are, as you might suspect, more severe initiation rituals. The first of which is the Jump-In. This is when you stand in the middle of a circle of teammates and then each one “jumps in” to the circle to beat you senseless, often with some sort of foreign object. This mimics the hazing techniques of many inner-city street gangs, those great trailblazers of modern American fashion and social trends. Tight end Cam Cleeland was beaten with a sack full of coins by his fellow Saints in 1998. But instead of taking his subdural hematoma like a man, he went screaming to the media about it. What a little snitch.
The Jump-In is usually followed by the group Insertion. The number of times you will be penetrated and the objects that will penetrate you are strictly TBD. I suggest you close your eyes really hard and sing nursery rhymes to yourself. Everything usually turns out all right after that.
You also may be called on to do the obligatory Rookie Cross-dressing. Being forced to dress like a woman totally makes you gay, and your teammates will be more than happy to point that out to you. You may briefly become confused about your own sexual identity as a result of this, but I assure you this is a common occurrence, and nothing to worry about. Unless you’re gay. (See the end of this chapter.)
Other types of hazing exist and will vary by both team and region. You may have your hotel room bed short-sheeted. You may have lye poured down your throat. Some light bukkake may take place. It really depends on where you are, and just how bad your karma is. If you already have a wife and / or children, I suggest sequestering them until your rookie year is over.
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DID YOU KNOW?
The most accomplished hazer in pro sports history was Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, who plugged an astounding 132 assholes as both a player and a manager.
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Once that rookie year is finished, you will have the chance to become the hazer, rather than the hazee. It’s your opportunity to continue the horrendous cycle of peer-to-peer abuse, and it’s a great feeling to scar someone else’s psyche for a change.
Unwritten rules of the locker room. Now in written form!
In all sports, there is a code of conduct among denizens of the locker room. This code needn’t be written down. Everyone on the team instinctively understands it. But, in case you went to Florida State, and drawing logical conclusions is something that often proves troublesome for you, let’s not take any chances.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE LOCKER ROOM STAYS IN THE LOCKER ROOM. You will likely forget most of these rules, and indeed the majority of this book. But do not forget this rule. All jokes, confessions, fights, and torrid love affairs that occur between teammates are not to be spoken of outside the confines of the locker room. Ever. You don’t go talking to the media about it. Or your wife. Or your pastor. Or Larry King. You deal with that shit internally. Do not involve outsiders. The whole point of playing on a sports team is to experience all the thrills of being in the Mafia without having to commit any actual crimes. Even though you may indulge in that anyway. So don’t go fucking up the fun for everyone else.
ONLY STEAL TOILETRIES. Stealing from teammates is wrong. Former Yankee Ruben Rivera once stole Derek Jeter’s glove, no doubt to take in its fresh, cedarlike scent. He was immediately cut by the Yankees and stoned to death by crazed Bronx-dwellers as a result. So don’t do it. The lone exception? Toiletries. Help yourself to all the Pantene you like.
NEVER DISCUSS CONTRACTS OR MONEY. Did the guy next to you just get a $50 million extension? It never happened. Don’t even joke about it. Even when you’re joking about money, you’re not really joking about it. You’re just expressing your extreme jealousy in a more palatable fashion. Your teammate can read between the lines. He knows you’re really saying, “You dick. You don’t deserve that kind of cash. WHEN THE FUCK IS MY MOTHERFUCKING PAYDAY COMING?” Just let that elephant in the room keep stomping around and shitting all over the place.
ONLY THE TEAM CAPTAIN MAY TOUCH THE STEREO. At the beginning of the season, each team designates a team captain. The team captain gets a C on his jersey, plus a fancy hat with an anchor on the front. Team captain responsibilities include leading the team out onto the field, presiding over team stretches while counting in a very loud and husky voice, applying eye black to everyone’s face, and organizing involuntary voluntary off-season hill-running sessions. But the real prize of captaincy, the real reason your captain kissed all of that coach ass, is control of the locker room stereo. Only the team captain may touch the stereo. If your captain is black, you should expect lots of hip-hop. If he’s white, you should expect lots of heavy metal. Or country music. Or, if you have the misfortune of having a captain who likes Kid Rock, all three.
NO WIFE-SWAPPING UNTIL AFTER MIDSEASON. If you and a teammate have decided the grass is better shaved on the other side of the fence, you are not allowed to officially switch families until after the all-star break. You need that full half-season to make sure that you’re doing the right thing. Trading wives as if they were chattel is not something one does lightly. Oh, sure, it’s a fun idea as a lark. But you’re gonna want additional time for that frivolous idea to take an unexpectedly dark and serious turn. Those extra couple months will also give you time to ensure that you’re trading for the right wife, and not some cold fish. Also, if you trade wives, you must also trade children. No exceptions there. Don’t worry. Your new “daughter” will soon learn to grudgingly accept your twisted little experiment-gone-horribly-awry.
DO NOT MENTION YOUR TEAMMATE’S SUBPAR PLAY UNLESS HE BRINGS IT UP. If he wants advice on how to break out of his slump, rest assured he will come to you. Unless you
happen to be Joey Harrington. No one goes to Joey Harrington if they want to improve. He blows.
DO NOT MENTION STREAKS. If you mention a streak to your teammate, you’ll cause him to think about his streak, knocking him out of his groove. Many people know that Joe DiMaggio hit safely in fifty-six consecutive games, a hallowed record in baseball. What few people know is that the Yankee Clipper’s hitting streak would have gone seventy-eight games had bench player Red Ruffing not sidled up to him in the clubhouse on July 16, 1941, and said, “Hey, Joey D! That’s one kickass hitting streak you got there!” DiMaggio’s streak ended the next game. Later on, DiMaggio took out his anger with Ruffing by occasionally beating Marilyn Monroe and never tipping a waiter again for the rest of his life.
A time to kill: motivating your teammates.
Motivation can be difficult for the professional athlete. After all, you’re at a better point in your life now. Back in your college days, you were hungry, eager to prove you had what it took to make the pros. You were desperate. Urgent. You had a dream, and a single-minded drive to see that dream through. And now, you’ve realized it. You made the big-time and now have an incredible salary and lifestyle to show for it. What, exactly, is there to get up for anymore? It’s funny how, when your dreams come true, they stop being dreams. I’m pretty sure that last sentence was lifted from a Hilary Duff film, but I can’t confirm it.
It’s up to you and your teammates to motivate yourselves. This won’t be easy. It’s not like back in high school, when you had a veritable surplus of late-puberty testosterone coursing through your system that could spike instantly at the sight of a bare midriff. And there’s no token teammate with cerebral palsy to play for. That kid wasn’t good enough to make the pros.
Fortunately, I, a fully untrained life coach, am here to help. Now, I was a terrible athlete. I was third string, and even when the backup was injured, the coaches would move another player out of position so that I would not be able to get onto the field to fuck things up. But what I lacked in agility, and looks, and talent, and speed, and coordination, and reflexes, and general usefulness, I made up for in my astonishing ability to get fired up for games I had absolutely no chance of playing in. How? By devising a killer motivational speech. I’ve never shared this speech with anyone. After all, it’s not exactly stirring coming from a human traffic cone. But coming from you? Magic.
Be sure to recite this speech while listening to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” or watching the first forty-five minutes of Full Metal Jacket:
Men.
(Always start off your speech by saying, “Men.” It reinforces the gender status of everyone in the room. Also, start softly. And seated. You want to build to a crescendo here.)
Men, this is a special day today. This is the day we find out how we’ll be remembered. How do you want to be remembered?
(Leave a pause here so everyone can reflect on that point.)
Do you want to be remembered as strong?
Do you want to be remembered as a hero?
Do you want to be remembered as someone who rose to the occasion?
How do you want to be remembered?
(See what I did right there? I repeated the initial question over again! This is known as a “refrain.” I’m totally gonna do it again. Watch.)
How do you want to be remembered, men?
Do you want to be remembered at all?
Maybe you’d like to be forgotten.
Maybe you’d like to fade into history, to fade into the shadow of those assholes across the field.
Maybe you’d like everything we’ve gone through together up to this point to go to waste.
All the early morning lifting.
All the tape sessions.
All the things Coach (your coach’s last name here) taught us.
Is that what you want?
(Classic reverse psychology. Everyone in the locker room will get crazy pissed off. Now rise. Rise!)
Do you want to be forgotten like that?!
To shuffle off this earth without leaving an indelible mark?!
Is that what you want?! IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT?!
(Start crying.)
I FUCKING DON’T!
How do you want to be remembered?!
Do you want to be remembered as men?!
Remembered as winners?!
(Start throwing around shit. If there’s a chair nearby, stand on it.)
Remembered as the kickass motherfuckers who went out onto that field, took the game to those fucking worthless pieces of shit, AND FUCKING RIPPED OUT THEIR GODDAMN THROATS?! I ASK YOU: HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
(Everyone will now proceed to go apeshit.)
I SAID: DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AS CHAMPIONS?!
(Everyone will respond in the affirmative.)
DO YOU WANT TO FUCK SOME SHIT UP?!
(Everyone will again respond in the affirmative. Cue up “Shut ’Em Down” by Public Enemy on the locker room stereo, provided the captain gave you permission.)
THEN LET’S GO! LET’S FUCKING FIRE IT UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!! FUCKING BRING IT IN!
(Everyone brings it in.)
FUCKING WIN ON THREE! ONE . . . TWO . . . THREE!!!!!!!
WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, man, I am ready to run through a brick wall right now. Granted, this speech may be more effective before, say, a championship game as opposed to the last game of a nine-game West Coast road swing. But hey, that’s what snorting Dexatrim is for.
Why you’re in Detroit: traveling.
Business travel might be the most annoying part of being a professional athlete. Maybe you’re with a New York team and have the good fortune of playing most of your road games against nearby teams from the many cities that are tightly bunched into the Northeast Corridor. But if you play for Seattle, you are fucked. No matter what, you’ll be traveling on weekends and holidays. You’ll be taking chartered red-eye flights and be expected to take the field six hours later. And when you arrive, the airport limo may occasionally be three minutes late. This is the quiet suffering that fans don’t see. Maybe if they knew what it was like to travel forty-five days every year in exchange for millions of dollars and five months off, they’d appreciate you a little more.
PACKING. Road trips can last upward of ten days, and even longer if you play baseball and are in the middle of a divorce proceeding. So it’s important to know what to pack. Be sure to bring two bags with you on every road trip: a folding bag for your suit (turn the jacket inside out to prevent wrinkles!) and a rolling suitcase. I suggest buying Tumi luggage. It’s expensive, but nothing moistens a hotel lobby groupie’s panties quite like the sight of Tumi luggage. Having expensive luggage lets people know you have expensive shit inside your luggage. That’s well worth paying $1,000 per piece. And if you buy Vuitton luggage, you are legally allowed to walk into the hotel naked from the waist down.
AIR TRAVEL. If you play for big-revenue teams like the Mavericks or Redskins, you’ll be boarding a private, team-owned jet to fly to road cities. The jet will include first-class seating, satellite television, a fully stocked bar, a four-star restaurant, a crepe station, a fully operational health club, two hospitals, and a petting zoo. If you play for small-revenue teams like the Clippers or Royals, you’ll be flying AirTran. Sorry. Be sure to bring your own food, or else you’ll get the standard team “dinner” consisting of a day-old turkey sandwich, Humpty Dumpty potato chips, and a can of Veryfine Cran-Raspberry Cocktail. AirTran will also provide Shasta and unsalted pretzel nubs.
MEALS. You’ll be given a union-mandated food stipend for road trips, usually around $200 a day. It’s not much, but it should be enough to just barely get by.
BUS TRAVEL. Regardless of the length of your trip, you will find yourself on a team bus at some point. The team bus is used for road trips of two hours or less, and for shuttling you from the airport to the hotel and back. When you board the bus, go immediately to the back. Only kiss-asses sit at the front.
Your coach will sit at the very front of the bus. The only person he will make chitchat with is the driver. Trust me, he has more in common with the driver than he does with you. So don’t talk to him unless you like your casual conversations awkward and stilted. Your team bus and team plane have specific departure times that your coach has noted on his detailed trip itinerary. Your coach spent hours overthinking this itinerary, so do not test him by arriving late. If you arrive late, your team bus will leave without you and you will be fined and suspended for a quarter. Unless you’re really good, in which case you can show up whenever the fuck you want.
HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS. When you arrive at your hotel, you’ll be assigned a room. Certain superstars have suite clauses in their contracts that guarantee them a deluxe suite to themselves on the road (complete with champagne-glass Jacuzzi). But if you do not have such a clause, you’ll be sharing a standard room with a teammate. Veterans usually get to choose their roommates. But if you are a rookie, you will be matched with someone via a pairing system that is as poorly designed as the one that determines female freshman roommates at Middlebury. If you are clean, your roommate will be a slob. If you like to go to sleep early, he’ll be a night owl. If you’re in favor of fair trade, he will be against it. But you can probably survive this unpleasant circumstance so long as you adhere to a few simple rules.
ROOM ETIQUETTE. First, always tie a sock on the doorknob when masturbating. And make sure it’s a sock you haven’t “used,” if you catch my drift. Second, always bring a travel edition of Connect Four. You aren’t just connecting checkers when you play that game. You’re building relationships that will stand the test of eight to twelve hours. And always bring your own alcohol. You and your roommate may have nothing in common, but years of watching romantic comedies has taught me that people can overcome their differences and really bond if they get stone-cold shitfaced off margaritas and dance around to James Brown together. No matter where you’re from, alcohol is the social glue that brings us together in a sloppy, forgettable, and disingenuous fashion.