I have a special fondness for madmen in literature -- the gentle Don Quixote types who look around and decide that the so-called real world is not quite lovely enough for their tastes. And so, they wrap themselves in a cocoon of fantasy. And they live there and are content, happily ever after.
I think it takes courage to go crazy like that -- because people laugh.
J. Henry Waugh is the gentle lunatic of Robert Coover's 1968 novel, "The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop." Waugh's fantasy world is a rich, textured universe of make-believe teams stocked with make-believe players who vie for a make-believe championship. Games are determined by dice throws. Statistics are compiled and carefully recorded. Classic performances and legendary players are forever cherished in his memory.
For J. Henry Waugh, the real world pales in comparison. People laugh, but so what? When you're mad, you never even notice.
Today, I am recommending we follow J. Henry Waugh's example.
I suggest we all go a little mad and dump Major League Baseball; and forget about the National Football League. Let's invent our own, make-believe leagues, stock them with fictional players and build new and better sports legends. Let's replace televised games with cartoon animations. Let's make it so that the next "in-depth" profile of a sports hero is the invention of sportswriters (instead of being the invention of some marketing executive trying to sell shoes).
Why go to such extremes? Because the real world of professional sports has gotten too ugly for gentle souls like us. We deserve better.
As I write this, the lords and lackeys of Major League Baseball -- millionaires all -- are locked in a bitter, seemingly endless contract dispute over how to divide their untold wealth. Their squabbling led to the cancellation of part of last season and threatens to spill over into the next one. Not even the president of the United States -- yes, you heard me, the president of the United States -- can bring them to their senses.
And after the NFL spurned Baltimore's bid for a franchise yet again, one team owner had the temerity to suggest that the city build the league a new stadium first, in hopes of wooing the fickle owners. The NFL is 90 percent hype anyway. After Super Bowl 29, my reaction was, "snookered again."
Meanwhile, the sports pages are filled with the fresh excesses of the egotistical young men we have elevated to the status of gods: one breathtaking act of arrogance after another.
Do we need them?
Nah.
Sportswriters from each city can get together and establish the ground rules for our make-believe franchises. They can establish teams, draw up leagues, draft players. They can interview the "coach," analyze our prospects for the coming season, spice their stories with quotes from wily old veterans. I imagine writers trying to outdo one another creating outrageous characters for their home teams.
We could build entire soap operas, gut-wrenching sagas of romance, heartbreak, betrayal. We could have teams that are torn apart by internal bickering while players with other teams minister to the downtrodden between games.
The character of Mr. Coover's novel decided the outcome of his games with dice. But Mr. Coover was writing in 1968, a technological dark age. Today, we can run computer simulations of every game. Radio announcers can do the play-by-play.
So, now you're worried about the economic impact of turning our backs on reality. No problem. Each team can have exciting colors and flashy logos for use on sporting apparel. We could build a new stadium without fretting that doing so would enrich the purse of some money-grubbing baron. Then we could tear the stadium down and rebuild it, over and over again. Our economy would boom. Everybody would work!
Well, now you have my modest proposal. Perhaps you think me mad. Maybe I am. But if I had the capital I would launch my make-believe league with the biggest marketing blitz in advertising history. I'd have merchandising tie-ins and player profiles and action figures for the kids.
And I'd be a rich and contented madman.