THE BREAK-UP
‘Happily ever after’ a rarity in sports
JOHN Tavares’ departure is a reminder that for the overwhelming majority of athletes, endings are almost always messy and awkward. Sometimes it’s a free-agent divorce, like this one. Sometimes it’s age kicking the tar out of you. Few ever get the graceful exit we want.
Not everybody gets the emotional send-off Mariano Rivera did, or the note-perfect final Yankee Stadium chapter that Derek Jeter did, or the .417 average that Don Mattingly amassed during his one-and-only playoff run in 1995, which also turned out to be his victory lap.
In fact, while the Yankees have had more happy endings than most, they’ve also had some of the most uncomfortable partings in history, too, no more so than the unceremonious way they dumped Babe Ruth in 1934, then wouldn’t even consider bringing him back to coach or manage thereafter. Joe DiMaggio’s departure in 1951 was jump-started by an ugly scouting report assembled by the Giants that surfaced in a national magazine. Mickey Mantle stuck around too long anyway, then timed his official retirement to help assist the MLBPA in spring training 1969.
No, the hard truth of sports is that though Willie Mays is the one who has become the unfortunate and perennial example of the athlete who, as A.E. Houseman famously wrote, “… swell the rout/Of lads that wore their honours out; Runners whom renown outran/And the name died before the man …” he is hardly an outlier.
It isn’t always their fault, of course. Tom Seaver had three separate endings with the Mets, one more distasteful than the other: his exile at the hands of M. Donald Grant in 1977; his being left unprotected by Frank Cashen after the 1983 season, landing him in Chicago for nothing; and the final, ignominious chapter when he was battered in a sim game while pondering a return with the ’87 Mets.
Maybe none of those compromises the stronger memories of Seaver winning 25 games in 1969 or striking out 19 Padres in 1970 or spending most of the 1971 season virtually unhittable; they are still an unfortunate part of his total legacy.
Sometimes it takes a while for all of this to play out, too. Of the core of Knicks that captured the city’s imagination in 1970, it was really only Bill Bradley who left the team anywhere near the top of his skills, and then proceeded almost directly to the U.S. Senate where his Knicks legacy remained frozen in place forever. Willis Reed was fired as the team’s coach and Dave DeBusschere as its GM. Dick Barnett’s departure wasn’t awful, but he did probably hang on a year or two too long. Clyde Frazier was shipped to Cleveland, which seemed an especially harsh fate for a man who loved New York as much as he did (though his later renaissance as a broadcaster has softened that some).
Of course, no sport is as unforgiving as football. The end came for Phil Simms in a meeting with Dan Reeves when he was basically fired after leading the Giants to the playoffs in 1993. The end for Joe Namath came while sitting on the bench, and then for a failed season 3,000 miles away, in Los Angeles. Frank Gifford made a comeback after nearly getting murdered at Yankee Stadium by Chuck Bednarik, but nothing he did on the field after that was near as memorable as that terrifying moment.
Lawrence Taylor got to leave more or less according to his own schedule, and so did Tiki Barber. It can happen that way.
More often, the best you can hope for are some uncomfortable parting snapshots in odd-looking uniforms: Mike Piazza as a Padre, then an Athletic. Eddie Giacomin as a Red Wing. Patrick Ewing as a Sonic. Bryan Trottier as a Penguin. Bobby Murcer as a Giant.
John Tavares as a Maple Leaf. PJs and all.