The Crying Game

Jimmy Dugan: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There's no crying! THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!
Doris Murphy: Why don't you give her a break, Jimmy...
Jimmy Dugan: Oh, you zip it, Doris! Rogers Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pigshit. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I cry?
Evelyn Gardner: No, no, no…
Jimmy Dugan: Yeah! NO. And do you know why?
Evelyn Gardner: No...
Jimmy Dugan: Because there's no crying in baseball. THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! No crying!

Thank god baseball’s not a real sport. Because in sports, especially those still predominately owned, operated, coached, played, and televised by men, there’s a dirty little secret that our preening machismo normally won’t let see the light of day: We cry.

I should qualify that statement. We cry…sometimes. Sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable. For all of the male gender’s overwrought playground codes, “Respect the player whose love of the game makes him shed a tear” is one of our most guarded. We protect it to the point that, for the sake of appearances, we often appear to violate it, casting aspersions and hardhearted jokes in the direction of any man with a wet cheek. See: “Vermeil, Dick”. But if you think this unwritten law exonerates LeBron James for Sunday’s news that Heat players—right or wrong, most of us have just accepted that at least one of the players in question was Bron-Bron—were crying after their loss to the Bulls, think again.

Timing is everything. Those tears have to be earned, through the stress of years spent shoulder-to-shoulder in battles that have created a sense of brotherhood amongst teammates. What men find questionable about another man crying isn’t necessarily that he cries, but that he’s openly doing it in front of other men. We understand that men, as human beings, cry. It’s a science thing that we know we can’t control, no matter how much we wish we could (Onetrik over at "Us, Bottles, and Friends" wrote a very accurate—and funny—piece on male crying and those occasions when it’s sanctioned). We’d just prefer that it only happen in private moments. Public waterworks displays are better left to mall fountains. But we know that it’s unavoidable…sometimes. If that man has poured every ounce of his heart and soul into the group effort, for the cause of the brotherhood’s survival and glory, then as males in the sports world we absolve his “sin”. We identify with that pain.

For all of the fond anecdotes from my high school football years, including victories over rivals, improbable touchdowns, and last second heroics, the one memory that probably resonates more than any other is of the final few minutes of my “career”. Our team, undersized—and, frankly, often out-manned—had fought our way into the playoffs. In the first round, though, we ran into a team that exposed all of our flaws and capitalized on our mental mistakes, and who quickly turned the game into a rout. As the final minutes ticked off the clock, the coaches removed the starters, and we sat on the sideline as a collective of conquered soldiers. Battered, beaten, and bruised, I sat side-by-side with my fellow seniors, guys I had played alongside since we were freshmen. We watched from the bench, a place that none of us had known existed since our first days as sophomores on the varsity squad. I dropped my head into my hands, unable to bear the weight of the moment. And I cried. But before I could even begin to wonder if I was doing my image a disfavor, our quarterback, only a junior, was kneeling next to me. With his arm slung over my shoulder and his head lowered next to mine, he said, “Thank you for all you’ve given us, man. You played your ass off out there. I love ya, man.”

That’s how it works for guys: When you’ve earned each other’s love and respect, your teammates are your brothers, and every man is his brother’s keeper. LeBron has been a member of the Heat for all of about eight months now. People have been known to bond in less time than that, sure; but it does make me question just how close he is with those teammates not named “Wade” and “Bosh”.

The timing of the tears, though, is even more suspect. LeBron’s never been considered the most expressively passionate player on the court. But now he’s reduced to tears following a regular season loss? Really? Keep in mind that this is the same LeBron James who barely seemed to care as his Cleveland Cavaliers team died slow deaths in Games 5 and 6 of last summer’s Eastern Conference Semifinals. The postseason is typically the one time in sports when a man’s tears are not questioned. Had James fought to the last minute against Boston, fallen to his knees as the buzzer sounded on Cleveland’s season—and on what he more than likely already knew was his final game in a Cavs uniform—and began sobbing at midcourt, very few would have criticized him for it. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume his Cleveland teammates would have embraced him and supported him in that moment of emotional exhaustion.

Of course, less than a month later that very same Cavs brotherhood was publicly humiliated by “The Decision,” as was the team’s entire fanbase. So LeBron playing his heart out for them may never really have been an option.

I wonder how they feel about his sob story?