Hasta La Gadget!

Photo by Oakland Raiders

London, England – There was a time when an eight and eight record would get you fired. Since then things have changed for the worse. Former owner Al Davis passed away almost three years ago, his son (Mark Davis) whose less of a daredevil than his father has kept his coaching staff in place despite two losing seasons. The senior Davis hated to lose and found ways to win especially if it meant handing out pink slips.

The past two years, the Raiders have gone 4-12. A far cry from the 8-8- seasons that led the former owner to fire his head coaches.  Oakland is looking for win number one before heading into the bye week.  Head coach, Dennis Allen is confident about his job security and that the Raiders will win just as he does every week.

“I’ve always felt confident that this team can win football games,” said Allen. “But we’ve got to be able to go out there and do it on Sunday. We get another opportunity this Sunday against Miami. We’ll go out and put forth our best effort and see if that’s good enough to win.”

Is it time to panic in week four? Absolutely. Oakland traveled across the pond after their loss to the Patriots last week to prepare for the Dolphins this Sunday. Miami comes in with a 1-2 record. The match-up should be good since both teams are almost equal in stats except for the Dolphins rushing yards which is considerably less than the Raiders.

“We’ve always felt together as a team, we just weren’t winning,” Safety Charles Woodson said. “Just as any team we’re trying to build that mentality going into a game expecting to win. The importance was not to go 0-1. Nobody around here wants to be 0-4, so we understand the importance of this being just another road game.”

Woodson was not shy with his comments after week two’s loss. He basically said, “We’re not good”. A harsh reality coming from a veteran whose played with the best and worst during his playing career. Oakland’s defense flatlined in the first two games but made some crucial stops and held New England three times on first and goal. A vast improvement from their first two games. The Raiders offense struggles with the red zone yet quarterback Derek Carr continues to find ways to move the offense.

“Our game plan was simplified,” Woodson said. “We knew exactly what to do and when that happens, guys fly around knowing what’s expected of them. It showed in the film, guys were where they were supposed to be and that’s why we had a chance in the end.”

Carr found an open Denarius Moore who was unable to catch Carr’s shotgun pass on fourth down. That ended the game.  Oakland walked away with a good effort and loss number three. Today’s practice at Pennyhill Park, the team seemed upbeat and ready to get back on the field to compete. The time away from the U.S. has given the players a chance to bond more.

“I think anytime you get a chance to get away and keep your team (for lack of a better word), sequestered in a small area. They spend a lot of time together, it’s good for those guys to get together and bond,” Allen said. “And hopefully it’ll help produce wins.”

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To disclose or not to disclose; that’s the question many parents whose children have autism wrestle with every time they set foot in a public place. Is it better to be upfront about your kid’s disorder to bemused strangers, or to keep your private business private?

It’s an internal debate that’s been raging ever since my son was diagnosed at age 3. Because he’s at the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum, by outward appearances he looks like a typical 5-year-old, yet there are situations in which he acts peculiar, borderline aggressive. For the time being, my strategy (if you can call it that) has been to say nothing unless his behavior strays beyond the quirky into the offensive.

Although I balk at the idea of him wearing his label on his sleeve — because he’s so much more than just a label — I also wonder whether keeping mum about his disorder is somehow unfair or discourteous to strangers. For a friend who relies on public transit to take her young son to therapy, wearing an ‘autism awareness’ sign has been nothing short of a game-changer. Because her little guy’s actions can range from what she calls “annoying” (spitting, high-pitch screaming) to violent (kicking, hitting, head-banging), she grew tired of having to explain, or justify as it were, his behavior to fellow passengers.

“I’m saving myself the grief of having people tell me off,” she tells me, “If they know [about his autism], they easily ignore us. People have been thanking me of letting them know, because it makes them aware.”

Starers gonna stare. Judgers gonna judge. Is my child’s autism really anyone’s business, anyway? And if I do reveal my son’s diagnosis, am I doing so for his sake? Or am I merely doing so to save face so that people won’t presume, as is often the case, that he is simply being ‘naughty’ and that I’m a mom who needs to dish out some discipline?

Disclosure isn’t a concern for another friend whose 9-year-old is non-verbal because his needs are more obvious to the untrained eye. As with other ‘visible’ disabilities, she rarely feels the need to answer to strangers. In the main, the public is more sympathetic and forgiving of her son’s behavior, yet even she freely admits that labeling “is not the answer to everything.”

“It’s not like we stop teaching him to behave properly because he’s slow to learn,” she says. “There are some limitations for sure, like his speech. But it doesn’t stop him functioning like other human beings. [All] kids are work in progress.”

Indeed, labeling is so such a slippery slope that some parents avoid it altogether, putting off clinical assessments or, even when a diagnosis has been made, telling no one except for immediate family. I know of some moms who are reluctant to tell teachers, lest autism come to dominate and infiltrate every future discussion about the child.

Indeed, disclosure poses a very personal quandary. There is no right or wrong, and every parent has to carve out his or her own comfort zone. Sometimes fathers and mothers will take different approaches. While I prefer to disclose on a need-to-know basis, my husband takes a more pro-active approach, preferring to inform people before something potentially discomfiting happens.

Quite honestly, it’s been a sore point between us as a couple, because though I’m proud of my son for who he is, autism and all, the mama bear in me would love nothing better than to protect him from judgment, or at least to defer that judgment for as long as possible. At times I still long for my friend’s handy card or a T-shirt that spells out his difference so people can just quit staring and move on already. Yet in the next breath, I always decide against earmarking him in that way.

Maybe as awareness for autism continues to grow — and as our kids themselves grow old enough to figure out their own ground rules for disclosure — we’ll no longer need to plead for the patience and understanding of strangers. But for the time being, like many parents, it seems I’m destined to continue shilly-shallying between the urge to tell and the burning desire to keep quiet.

What’s your stance on disclosure?

Here’s a basic truism: in sports today you can either be a beater, a cheater or a Jeter. And since there is only one Derek Jeter, the other two categories are getting awfully crowded lately.

But here’s also the thing: Derek Jeter is a total stranger to virtually all of us, as are most celebrities, no matter how forthcoming or public they are.

During the game last night Yankee announcer Michael Kay kept trying to figure out what Jeter was thinking or feeling and that to me perfectly captured what the event was all about.

What it was not about was Derek Jeter because only Derek Jeter has the 24-hour job of trying to figure out who Derek Jeter is. Him and a few other people with perhaps a wandering lazy eye or two who have spent all their life savings at Lids and actually have Yankee themed bedrooms. And weddings. And funerals.

So what the hell was going on and why was I crying last night like my purse chihuahua died? Wait. Did I say that out loud?

After the game, Jeter admitted that rather than weep in front of his peers, he instead retreated to a bathroom stall to collect himself, he held back his man tears on the field and did everything that he could to mask his true self.

The life lesson here? There is crying in baseball and in my humble opinion, it would have been even more heroic to show it. Instead, the caveman rules ruled and boys were once again taught to keep it in and do their manly man job like a MAN.

But that did not stop any of us from privately weeping like middle-eastern widows in our beer stained secret bromance man caves.

But what were we crying for?

Derek? Uh. No. The guy’s a total stranger plus I think he will have a very nice life cherry picking top fashion models like rings at Tiffany’s and pretty much live the Michael Jordan royal way of life (he even gets to be smug and superior in underwear commercials).

In other words Derek will live on the fumes of his own MYTH, LEGEND and BRAND and we will all go to our graves still knowing virtually nothing about him.

Who are we crying for? We are crying for ourselves.

My friend Liz made the point that we New Yorkers have a rarified standard that is totally emblematic of where we live. We like our local heroes to be bigger than life with the powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men—especially those who were bought by that magnificent shopping spree sports owner George Steinbrenner.

Baby wanted the biggest and shiniest toys and baby got what he wanted, or baby threw a temper tantrum until he got it. And we all got to play with then in our legendary sandbox in the Bronx.

But even before him, we grew up with MANTLE, MARIS, RUTH and GEHRIG. And George bought us JACKSON, RODRIGUEZ (naw I’m just kidding) and of course we got the four living MT. Rushmore heads of JETER, POSADA, RIVIERA and PETTITTE.

Forget the Steinbrenners. By birthright we feel not only the illusion of the pride of ownership and but all the exclusive bragging rights that go with it as well.

We rhythmically chant Derek’s name and he obediently tips his cap right on cue. It’s good to be the king.

But we’re only playing at being rich and powerful.

You see, baseball is where men go to feel like little boys and where little boys go to feel like men. It’s where women get to swoon like little girls and little girls get to feel like one of the boys.

The truth is everyone, both players and spectators alike, are the exact same age at a baseball game.

Everyone comes dressed for the party, wearing a jersey and cap, and virtually everyone carries a glove (or an imaginary one) and everyone quietly dreams of snatching a foul or homerun ball from the air, which is the closest that we will ever get to catching a falling star. Baseball is where outsized dreams often, not always, come true right before your very eyes.

Baseball has always been there and will always be there. Just like the statues and buildings and bridges that we revere. It’s our communal ritual. It’s our shared national faith.

It’s magic made visible.

It’s Neverland where baseball boys are supposed to stay forever lost and are never, ever supposed to grow up.

Until, they suddenly do.

First comes that Andy Pettitte first blush of errant gray hairs, followed by a myriad of mysterious aches and pains and inevitably, the litany of sustained injuries that will do permanent body wreckage.

It’s the effects of Kryptonite in slow motion.

Meanwhile, in our own lives, there are marriages and divorces and illness and disappointing children and layoffs and dashed hopes and dreams that leave us beyond bewildered and battle scarred.

So we keep coming back to the park, because we want to believe that you can go home again, over and over again, until, despite the odds, you win the game.

But then our hero finally crumbles and falls.

And that is beyond tragic and unbearable to us because in this day and age of sheer terror, in a world where in order to access the future all you have to do is simply stand in line, with thousands of faceless, nameless others, waiting not for bread, but Apples, there are virtually no heroes left. Name five in five seconds. You can’t.

I grew up with tons of them. I thought in real life that my baseball heroes all smelled like Topps gum.

But sooner or later that bubble bursts. Just like it did last night.

And when it does, it is just a little harder to go on, because in the end, who will be there to rescue us?