Standing Room Only

(Note to the reader: this post deals with sports, but is not about sports. If you aren't a sports fan, tough it out, it gets better.)

John Lackey is not a terrible person. Actually, he might be. I have no idea what kind of person John Lackey is, but I'm assuming he's not a terrible person. He's most likely no worse than the worst person you've ever met, and a strong case could be made that there are many athletes more deserving of the adjective "terrible". To the best of my knowledge, he's never been arrested, never been accused of any sort of domestic disturbance. He's never even sat in the back of his SUV while a friend drove it and led police on a low-speed chase through Orange County. However, as a teammate and employee (which, despite being accurate, seems like a ridiculous title to give anyone making as much as he does), he's among some of the worst, and it's this aspect of his career that I think about the most.

Lackey is scheduled to start tonight's game against the Seattle Mariners. Assuming that happens, it's a very safe bet that he won't finish the game. Maybe he has a rough outing and gets pulled early, or maybe he throws well and becomes a victim of Boston's pitch-counting. Either way, at some point, Terry Francona will walk out to the mound and take the ball out of Lackey's hand, and Lackey will be pissed off about it. How do I know this? Because it is what he has done with almost perfect regularity since arriving in Boston before last season. There is almost no situation in which he feels that the decision to take him out off the mound is justified. After his most recent episode, glaring back at Francona while heading to the dugout after 5 and 2/3 innings, giving up 10 hits, 4 runs, and 3 earned, many in the media agreed with Tim McCarver (a statement which may never have been made before), who said that Lackey was showing up his manager. While this may be true, what Lackey was really doing was exposing his sense of entitlement. Certainly, he's not the only professional athlete with this flaw, but he displays it in a way that represents one of the biggest problems in American society.

We live in a culture where everyone has the ability to express themselves. This, fundamentally, is a good thing (even if it weren't, there is no way someone writing a personal blog for free could claim otherwise). The internet allows the average person to share their thoughts and ideas with people they would most likely never speak to otherwise. Even if you oppose it for being trite (it's hard to imagine deep thoughts coming 140 characters at a time), Twitter, along with Facebook and other social networking sites, Youtube, as well as countless blogs (Hi!!), provide an ability for the masses to exchange ideas, and there is something to be said for that. The problem with this is that the vast majority of the people taking part in said exchange are raised in an era where we are told we are all special and important. And maybe we are. I, personally, like the romanticized idea that everyone brings there own special ability to the global party. But with all of these people having the ability to put their ideas out in the world, the growing sense among the average person is becoming that every thought they have, no matter how ill-conceived or underdeveloped, is loaded with with inherent value.

Twenty-five years ago, if you wanted to voice an idea, you had fewer options to do so than provided today. You needed some sort of credential to get your words (in whatever form you put them in) to the public. There was no internet, at least not in the way we know it today. You couldn't just write something and have it be out there. The closest you could get to that, perhaps, was writing to your local paper, and even then, that would have to be approved by an editor before it would be published. In 1986, if you were giving away every thought that came into your head, you were probably insane and shouting on a street corner. We've essentially replaced that corner with the internet. Now everyone is crowding the sidewalk, cramming to find a place to express ourselves.

Okay, I know I mentioned this earlier, but it's worth repeating. I don't think this is a bad thing. I think more people trading more ideas is a good thing. It's part of why I do this. But I know that no one is obligated to pay any attention to these posts at all. I suspect some people understand this and feel the same way about their blogs/twitter/facebook/etc.., but I am also pretty sure that a lot of people don't. I think many (possibly most) people not only think that what they post is important, but that it deserves to be viewed by everyone. And if you don't believe me, check out your facebook sometime and see how many people "like" their own status.

This constant ability to express ourselves has given many people the sense that it is their right to express themselves about anything, at anytime, and that these expressions shouldn't be suppressed by anyone, for any reason. Well, maybe. I'm not exactly suggesting that we should have free reign to shut people up whenever we want (even though it may sound like that). I just think that the world and, in particular, our corner of it would be a lot better off if we suppressed ourselves a little more often, even if just long enough to consider the impact of what we might have to say.

Forgive the (cliched) sentiment, but we're all in this together. There are just under 7 billion people in the world, slightly over 300 million in the U.S., and about 1 million here in Rhode Island. There isn't enough room for us to force our thoughts out everywhere we go. Get them out there, by all means, just leave space for the everyone else.

I'll be watching John Lackey tonight. I hope he pitches well. I hope the Red Sox win. But most of all, when the time comes, I hope he leaves the game quietly, without incident. For all of us.