I would be remiss if I didn’t write about the Dodgers second World Series win in as many years. With the highest payroll in baseball ($95M/year more than the Blue Jays) much of the buzz leading up to the World Series was on the topic of the underdog, and so in this blog post I wanted to take the opportunity to explore this concept in greater detail. The idea of the underdog is complex. When we think about famous underdog stories like David and Goliath, it’s natural for most of us—aside from those with a personal stake in the outcome, like Goliath’s friends or family—to sympathize with the one who’s clearly outmatched. Especially if, in a match of intended fair play, one side appears to be equipped to a greater degree than another. Why is this?

​Well, my take is that it comes down to the idea of justice. Justice is what is called a “master signifier.” This means that although you can look up the word in the dictionary, it has no definite meaning. It is a purely visionary concept which one always strives to achieve but can never grasp. You can think of it as something that brings meaning to the world rather than has its own definite meaning. Other examples of master signifiers are truth and love. Poets will forever seek to describe their elusive nature, but luckily, never will. The law is the current distillation of the rules of justice, but this is exactly why the law changes, because, over time, we come to realize where the law, although seeming just, was not just. And so, we arrive at the underdog. The underdog appears when the Libra scale of justice has clearly become unbalanced  - when one side has the upper hand in some way. Using this image, justice always appears on the lower side of the scale - the side of the oppressed. And the oppressor can never be just unless the scales swing and they become the oppressed. This is why Simone Weil claimed that “justice flees from the camp of conquerors,” because if the oppressed happened to overtake the oppressor, they would become the oppressor, and the scale would shift the other way. This is precisely why everyone prefers to think of themselves as the underdog (I mean, I watched the Patriots claim to be the underdog for 20 years while they won 6 super bowls) because, as Camus said, “the king is always evil.” The king lacks a just purpose. The underdog is the only one with the valiant task of removing the boot from their neck, but the master only seeks to hold it there. This gives the underdog a strong purpose, and why the master, although appearing to be happy, or releasing an ecstatic burst upon winning, is typically, in their moment of triumph, more lost of purpose than the underdog. 

We see this in action during Freddy Freeman's interview after winning the greatest prize in baseball. He was asked how it felt to win back-to-back championships. He immediately reframed the answer in the guise of the underdog and referenced the Yankees as three-peat champions, maintaining his status as lower than the Evil Empire.

So, what does the Blue Jays manager, John Schneider, still have on his side after the World Series loss? My claim. Justice. And that's not a bad side to be on. For as MLK said, the universe "bends towards justice."

If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com

With a new book, Klobberland, coming out in October, I describe the trajectory of my work.

Book 1: A book of meditations on baseball, a game that says something deep about the fundamental nature of reality.
Book 2: The story of one man’s uncensored encounter with that fundamental reality, and the suffering that can result from a lack of awareness of one’s relationship to it.
Book 3: An attempt to describe that fundamental reality directly through a creation myth. What it turned into was a critique of the prevailing myths and stories of our culture, which do everything they can to hide this fundamental reality from the world.
 
Book 1: The Art of War and Baseball – in the words of the commissioner A. Bartlet Giamatti (late 80s) “baseball breaks your heart. It’s designed to break your heart.” – And so is life. This can discourage the best of us. We believe we find no pleasure in the all-too-frequent valleys of the game. We become easily disinterested in the vicissitudes of sport. We can’t buy-in to the struggle, the habitual failure of a .250 batting average. But this brokenness of heart can also have the opposite effect, keeping us in an endless illusion of belief, that tomorrow will finally bring the win that will make one a champion, and end the need to continue the game at all. Both of these responses betray the game. One runs while another wishes its end. And then there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. And it’s only when we live well with that “nothing” that we find the eternal, we see “nothing,” not as worthless, but like the Rubin’s Vase, coming into focus before our eyes. Although this nothingness is the ungraspable component of the universe, when we have the courage to reduce ourselves towards it, we can see it uniquely cloaked in the state of being a game. Not in endless wins or losses, not in belief or disbelief, but in that joy of suspended disbelief, the state where we know it’s all a game, and we know it’s here to break our heart, but we choose to participate anyway. Through cold or intense heat, and sometimes, in a warm green field, in the sun.

Book 2: Hologram Heroes – Johnny is affected by a physical brokenness. The most prominent actor in the play of Johnny’s life is his amputated hand, a phantom, a present absence that can fulfill or destroy. “Hologram heroes” is his reference to hologram baseball cards – reflecting the power that the stories we tell ourselves have to create the prevailing myths and heroes which outline the enjoyment or despair of our current state.

Book 3: Klobberland, is a mythic journey beyond belief and identity that reveals what emerges when the stories fall away and the brokenness that remains paves the way for the mystery of the self to break through. 

Be careful of this word “religion,” for, sadly, this term has come to often represent an insidious exploitation of the worst qualities of man. Although this may seem a harsh critique, I am opposed to downplaying the devastating effects this term can have on the potential for widespread destruction if left unchallenged. Why? Because "religion" has come to embody a type of commodity fetishism, selling fantasies and feeding off the hidden (and glaring) ambitions of the wayward while disguising itself as a type of comforting security blanket to protect people from their alienation and brokenness. If religion is a righteous occupation to be involved in then one should ask oneself why a rich and powerful robber baron who outwardly attacks the downtrodden, sexualizes and oppresses women, insults the disabled, steals from the poor, and exhibits little, if any, remorse would be interested in its proliferation. It is easy to be initially tricked into thinking there is some nobility in this cause, maybe regret, or desire to change one’s hateful ways. But this would be to disregard all evidence to the contrary, evidence that is found in the continuation of this man’s selfishness, arrogance, cynicism, narcissism, and self-centeredness. No, what draws this type of person to religion is twofold. One, religion’s ability to control the masses through “sacred” manipulation and authority. And two, its likeness to a type of high-brow capitalism in which one acts, not to sell products for material riches, but in a type of economic exchange of belief and conformance for salvation and eternal treasure. Unfortunately, I think "religion," in the common use of the word, is a lost cause and should likely be abandoned for other terms which better align to its original intent.

This is sad because, at its best, religion is simply a response to an unconditional event which cannot be conceptualized. It is this event, experienced even in the most common everyday unhappiness and brokenness of life, which drives every poet to attempt to articulate it. Yet, every artist feels, as they stand back and look at their completed work, like they’ve left out some essential component, as though this event of life could never be captured as it has been claimed to be in today's religion. This antagonism of wrestling with this event is what fuels an endless stream artistry and beauty in the world. This, I feel, is what the atheist finds most concerning about religion. Not the acknowledgement that there is a dimension of material reality that isn’t reducible to it, but with the assertion that this dimension can be discussed with authority. We make any discussion on religious ideas profane when we forget we are always engaging, with our speech, in a type of hoax. There is a domain of reality that cannot be talked about without our talking becoming hypocritical. This is no reason not to talk, but all the reason to caveat our words, when we attempt to point at it, with humility. Baseball, as religion, is touching on something other than the common use of the word. Not as a set of dogmas which elevates players and coaches for worship. Not as a ritual act of batting and catching. I’m talking about a much more subtle aspect of baseball. A subtly that is nearly lost in religion, as a concept, today. It is baseball as something that only promises one thing: heartache. Baseball is openly honest about this knowledge and doesn’t try to cover it up. It doesn't woo you into joining with the promise of eternal triumph. It exposes the sacred in a never-ending struggle for desire. It exposes God as a type of Absence which can never be filled but ever fuels one’s energy to come back, day after day. It is fulfilling in what it doesn’t give you. It’s a religion of nothing.

If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love my other work on the BENEFITS OF BROKENNESS!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com