Nathan Graziano would like to talk about our propensity for accepting bad behavior—as long as it is in the name of a win.
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It’s a drizzly Monday night in May, and the pitcher, a skinny 9-year-old boy, tugs on his hat, pulling it down and shielding his eyes. My son is batting with a full count. If the trend this season holds, he will either walk or strike out swinging. While I’d love to see him mash one into the left field gap, I realize it is unlikely, and this is all right with me.
At the ages of 8-10 years old, the boys are still learning the fundamentals of baseball before moving up to Little League, which they refer to, without irony, as “The Show.”
The pitcher doesn’t wind up. Instead, he lobs the baseball like a shot put in the general direction of the catcher. My son watches it cross home plate and turns to umpire, a retired man with graying beard who vaguely resembles the late-Jerry Garcia.
“Ball four,” the umpire says softly. “Take your base, son.”
The other team’s dugout erupts. The coach starts throwing haymakers at the sky. “Are you kidding me, ump! Are kidding me! That caught the corner! This is ridiculous!”
I volunteered to work the scoreboard and watched the pitch from the scorer’s box overlooking home plate. From my view, it was a close and could have gone either way. From my view, it doesn’t really matter.
But it appears to matter greatly the opposing coach, a uniquely American Douche. He barrels out of dugout toward the umpire, barking with his arms flailing. Both teams of stunned little boys and the scattering of parents in the bleachers watch his tantrum, collectively gape-jawed.
My son’s team is winning 10-4, and this will likely be the last inning because, according to league rules, they can’t start another inning after 7:30 p.m. After all, they have school in the morning.
Despite the fact that balls and strikes can’t be argued at any level of baseball, from the Major Leagues down, the coach is intent on making his point: His team got shafted on a call, and for the American Douche, the most important thing is not teaching the game or showing these boys how to comport with class and dignity; rather, the most important thing is always the win.
The message this sends to the boys is that it is acceptable to behave badly—to throw fits on the field and scream and kick dirt—as long as it is in the service of the win.
It is a dangerous message.
♦◊♦
When I hear the voice of the American Douche responding to me in my imagination, he always sounds like Clint Eastwood in Sudden Impact.
“You sound like loser, punk,” The American Douche will say. “Only losers complain about the winners. If you want everyone to win, if you want socialism, move to Finland. In America, in any capitalistic society, the winners rise to the top, and they’re too busy winning to worry about losers like you. In order to be competitive in world market, our kids need to play to win; none of this ‘everyone gets a trophy’ shit. That type of liberal coddling has left with a nation of eunuchs.”
There is some truth to this. The winners in American society—and in most societies—are the ones who reap the rewards, the money and the fame and the respect. Therefore, our kids need to learn to show up for the big games, to perform under pressure.
And what are sports, if not a microcosm for the way things play out in the amorphous real world? You don’t get paid to fail, and kids need to learn that when you fail, you need to learn to brush yourself off, accept it with poise, and try again. They need to learn the importance of winning as well as sportsmanship.
However, in my life—and I suspect some people can relate—I’ve spent a lot more time failing than succeeding, and while my parents and coaches and teachers and mentors have motivated me to press on and do my best, I’ve never found inspiration from someone or throwing tantrums over bad calls.
However, America’s arrogant culture of “winning” at all costs has produced this specific type of American Douche who is entirely unaware one salient fact: in most cases, they’ve already lost.
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In fact, had I not learned to shrug off a loss or some perceived injustice, I doubt I’d be writing this now. Anyone who has ever spent any time writing and submitting their work realizes the rejections far outweigh the successes; and like an umpire calling a strike, when editors read submissions, while there is a strike zone, it is a subjective decision. If I threw a fit every time I felt slighted, I’d have no time to actually write.
And the same thing can be said for applying for jobs or to colleges or a role in the community theater of Grease. The winners are not always the best, and to pitch missy-fits each time a call doesn’t go your way is childish and, quite frankly, a little insane.
I’m not suggesting that we raise our kids to be impassive bags of sand. And while I don’t have any particular philosophical school to which I subscribe—-although I believe, as Camus wrote, you have to “imagine Sisyphus happy”—-I do believe we should teach our kids to strive toward excellence, but you also need to accept loss with dignity and grace.
However, America’s arrogant culture of “winning” at all costs has produced this specific type of American Douche who is entirely unaware one salient fact: in most cases, they’ve already lost.
The truth is unpleasant, but for most of Americans, we’ve been losing for decades. The big banks and the billion dollar corporations—whose unscrupulous methods when the chickens came home to roost led to a tax-payer bailout—they are the winners in American society. They own our houses and our debts and our media. They make the calls while playing the game.
But these are a select few. To compensate, we’ve bred a nation of hotheaded jerks who bitch about minutiae and fall for their own delusions of grandeur. The American Douche shows our kids that bluster, not rational discourse, is the default mode when we get frustrated by a loss or an injustice. The American Douche shows our kids how to transfer larger frustrations towards the smaller things, like youth baseball, where they can actually win.
Hence, we have been manufacturing the American Douche, generation after generation.
♦◊♦
After straining his vocal cords, challenging the efficacy of his blood-pressure medicine and trying to convince everyone that bedlam he has created is a result of having his heart in the right place—and it could be—the American Douche loses the first playoff game to my son’s team.
Along with the other parents in the metal bleachers on the third-base line, we cheer our boys’ win but, more so, we cheer The American Douche’s loss—an act that serves to remind us that there is an American Douche in us, too.
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Photo: Paul Cross / flickr
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I wonder if its about winning or if its about not losing.
I know it sounds like the same thing but I don’t think it is.
Yes. I think this is an interesting tangent. We use body parts and excretions and such to describe others in a negative and colorful way, or to curse, and often those body/parts excretions are gender specific. Should we be offended on behalf of our gender? Do you define yourself by your genitals or any other gender specific attribute for that matter? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a man get offended by the sexism of “you’re a dick.” And it’s not because he receives the statement as a compliment, like “huh, I like my dick, it’s a good thing,… Read more »
“how many times have you heard a heterosexual man say “vaginas are gross” as opposed to women who act like they can’t stand to see the sight of a man’s penis? Honestly, which sex is most often made to feel like their nudity is unwanted/unappreciated more?” That is true that the nudity of both sexes is viewed differently. Women still feel ashamed or scared to say how much penises are attractive. And well, many in fact do not think penises are attractive, sexual repression is still going on. But then, how many times have you heard heterosexual women complaining men… Read more »
“how many times have you heard a heterosexual man say “vaginas are gross” as opposed to women who act like they can’t stand to see the sight of a man’s penis? Honestly, which sex is most often made to feel like their nudity is unwanted/unappreciated more?” That is true that the nudity of both sexes is viewed differently. Women still feel ashamed or scared to say how much penises are attractive. And well, many in fact do not think penises are attractive, sexual repression is still going on and strong. But then, how many times have you heard heterosexual women… Read more »
ha ha! i’ll keep my response to your question to myself, but suffice to say, it made me laugh right out loud.
peace, bro. <3
Hey, every human body has unwanted grossness: it’s not a slam against women, or their vaginas. It’s like calling him a snot rag. Ooh, OK, I retract douchebag, and suggest snot rag. There. You happy now?
Or would you rather we refer to him as a “dick?”
You support my point, Paul. It’s the association with the vagina as being a place of ‘unwanted internal grossness’ that I am objecting to. Or as you say, ‘complaining about’.
Presumably you’ve never called someone a dick, cockhead, wanker, or asshole… right carolyn?
I agree with Carolyn, but many other things could be said about the term as well.
And as for me, I have used dick and dickhead when I was a teen and didn’t know better. Now I only use asshole but only sometimes. 🙂 And yes, for both males and females. Everyone has a asshole, that is not gender specific.
Great article, with a LOT of political applications. As for complaining about use of the word douche as somehow misogyny: whether or not it can be interpreted as such, you might consider that there’s a point of insignificance at which you lose credibility in your search for equality, i.e. “really? who cares?” Nevertheless, to remedy the topic, let’s use the more logically correct term “douche bag,” which implies that the man is a bag full of unwanted internal grossness.
I live in London… Please remove the “American” from “American Douche”
😀
American Douche, lol!
Sorry for this Beevis-and-Butthead moment, but does American Douche come in different scents?
Anger Issues Almond?
Screaming Strawberry?
Aneurism Aloe?
Sorry for the above. I couldn’t resist. Maybe I’m a bit of a…douche myself!
Everyone be well!
Great article with important points, but man am I tired of the expression ‘douche’ as an insult. A douche is used for vaginal cleansing. To use it to insult is yet another subtle way our society denigrates women. It’s up there with blithely calling a t-shirt a ‘wife-beater’. Ouch.
Couldn’t agree more. Knock it off please.
The part I find interesting is that its used almost exclusively against men. And its largely women that use it.
Rather odd.
Or if you’re French, you’re simply calling him a ‘shower’.
Honestly, I’m surprised no one took issue with the term ‘missy fit,’ used to describe a *man’s* emotional outburst, as if losing control of emotion is somehow womanly as well as “douchey”. Language, always a reminder of how deep the gender stuff goes.
Loved it!! A lot!
But the yelling was NOT actually in service of a win, because it made no difference in getting a win. Maybe acting like a douche could be justified if it helped a team win, maybe, just maybe, but if being a douche has no effect on the outcome of the game, then it is simply douchery for no reason.
Just because someone is being a dickhead in the name of something doesn’t mean that dickhead is actually making a positive difference. But enough about American foreign policy, we were talking about baseball….
Oh yeah, that’s a good one! I’ve coached both my Daughters in softball , and my son in Little Leauge (Which a good friend of mine refers to as “Organized child abuse”) and I must say that this article brought back memories. One of the girls teams I coached went an entire season undefeated. The following year ,with most of the same girls back, we lost a close game halfway through the season. The loss didn’t really bother me ( if I look back on my life playing baseball and softball, I’m probably somewhere around a .500 record) It was… Read more »
I hear ya. I played in a very amateurish intramural softball league in college. In that league, every team that didn’t forfeit any games went to the playoffs. You could lose every regular season game and go to the playoffs. It really did not matter whether you won or lost in the regular season. We went to the playoffs as a 2-6 team and as a 0-8 team, didn’t matter. Did that make a difference to the hotheaded, overly competitive captain? Absolutely not. It was like every game was Game 7 of the World Series. Let’s keep things in perspective,… Read more »