While not fellating a blow-up picture of Theo Epstein, Mike Lupica finds time to grace the public every Sunday with a column that details his views on sports and sundry matters of import. Entitled "Shooting From the Lip," I've often mocked the column's subpar substance and style.
Have I simply been shortsighted?
In an online review of "Huckleberry Finn," an Amazon reviewer who uses the name "C. Middleton" eloquently explains the impact of Mark Twain thusly: "Twain chose to write this book in the language of the vernacular, while other writers maintained an allegiance to English prose."
The importance of Twain's approach can hardly be overstated. Groundbreaking, mind-expanding, earth-shattering, possibly as influential as any book ever written. Twain broke the rules. Twain wrote in the Language of the People.
With this in mind, perhaps I have misinterpreted Mike Lupica the entire time.
When a man shatters journalistic standards by ending his paragraphs with sentences such as "Epstein sure did," and the jaw-dropping "And did," then perhaps the destabilizing effect on the reader is intentional. Perhaps Lupica's bizarre application of his Poetic License is a call-to-arms to all journalists throughout the land.
Lupica is not writing in the haughty prose of the journalistic elite; he is not even writing in the vernacular of the people. Lupica is pushing prose back to the Elemental. The way a child would write, the pure, pristine Language you somehow knew before you knew how to write, before you knew how to speak, before you knew how to think.
I've misinterpreted Mike Lupica's journalistic manifesto the whole time. He is intentionally choosing to bypass the biases of intelligence, logic, and skill. Lupica's goal is to push journalistic standards to a new high. The only way this can be accomplished, ironically, is by constructing the English language as though he were a retard.
Do you need more proof?
Mike Lupica not only breaks up the following into two sentences, he considers it a whole new paragraph: "Then he has to decide. On his own."
Lupica also considers this a paragraph: "Nobody knows anything."
Genius.
As for Theo Epstein, Lupica seems shocked and amazed that the Red Sox have organizationally rebounded from last year's ALCS, perhaps ignoring the fact that the Red Sox went out and bought Curt Schilling and the closer from the team that almost knocked them out of the 2003 playoffs in the first round.
Winning is great. Winning is why you play. But, as some writers have unnecessarily pointed out, Epstein is a Genius because he has $130 million to spend.
This is not sour grapes from a Yankee fan, because buying a title is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just the obvious reality, and, for some reason, most observers seem shocked that the Red Sox are going to stick around and challenge the Yankees for a while (like they have pretty much for my entire lifetime?) and buy into the marketing camapaign that Millionaire Mercenaries can still be Dirt Dogs.
David Ortiz can rake. If he was on my team, I would love him to a degree that my psychiatrist would find alarming.
But David Ortiz did not win the WS just to make Boston fans happy. David Ortiz was a ten-year-old in the Dominican Republic when Buckner made the error, okay? He does not know your pain, he does not have any empathy for you, he does not share the collective Red Sox Nation psyche. He is a mercenary who has played in Boston for two years.
The Red Sox are heroes because they won the World Series. It is not inappropriate to point out that they're highly-paid, mercenary, greedy, free agent heroes.
Very odd reaction from the non-Boston journalistic community when you consider how often the Yankees have been mocked for buying World Series titles.
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