Snobs vs. Slobs

I never wanted to write this.

I never wanted to think about it. I never wanted to contemplate it. I never wanted to do this.

Alex Taft passed away last Thursday, May 29, 2008. He was driving on an Interstate in Colorado when a drunk driver was in the wrong lane and collided with Taft’s car.

This, this was not in the script. Taft was 27 years old. I was supposed to make a speech at his wedding or something. We were supposed to put together another Handsome Man Team. We were supposed to do another all-star voting post.

Taft was my closest friend from the time we brought our “posses”—yes, we called them that in high school, like the obnoxious pricks that we were – together in the 11th grade at New Trier. I’d not developed much a peer group before that time in high school; Taft, not surprisingly, had an extensive group of friends.

Like the man himself, Taft’s memorial service was perfect in many ways and terribly imperfect in that it had to exist. His father and brother gave brilliant speeches, while his supposed close friend – me – could barely get anything coherent out. The strength in that family was on display and it was as powerful as ever. His brother Erick was strong, despite the world coming down on him. Erick played traffic cop, mayor, host and rock all at once.

I’d be lying if I said that Taft’s passing hasn’t been tormenting me. Everyone with whom I spoke recounted some wonderful story of Taft’s friendship and I – one of his closest friends – barely repaid the favor. I was constantly talking his ear off like a moron about the smallest things – mostly my own insecurities. I was a harsh critic of a lot of his work and I’d always couch my descriptions of him in “most people think he’s really funny,” excluding myself out of… I don’t know… Something defensive, I guess. Pride? Jealousy? Jealousy.

I was not as optimistic as I should have been about Taft’s chances in Hollywood. I didn’t bombard him with advice, but I did warn him that Los Angeles is a “who you know” town and it was going to be a lot of work to prosper there. I as trying to dole out some “realism” (as I justified it to myself) and it probably just made him leery of his lifelong dream. In college, I gave him not one or two embarrassing nicknames, but three. I wasn’t there enough for him.

In a letter she read at the service, our friend Annette mentioned that there is no not loving Taft, only not knowing him. She’s right, both in the friendship department – obviously—and with the ladies. Taft seemed to always have some new girl fawning over him. Like many young men, Taft had trouble – not that much trouble, mind you—meeting women when he was working a 9-5 between undergrad and grad school. I remember telling him before he left for Syracuse that he’d have no problem with ladies as an Orange; after all, I lived with him at Missouri and there were no shortage of ladies coming around. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “ ‘Funny’ is the currency of TV/Radio people and plenty of people think you’re funny. You’ll be fine.”

Not surprisingly, this turned out to be the case. He never had any trouble meeting women at Syracuse, one of the many reasons he loved it there. He fit in perfectly, performing and writing screenplays and comedy. It’s a testament to both his happiness and his charm that so many at Syracuse came out to his memorial service Tuesday.

It was difficult coming up with things to at the service. A lot of those things have one solid anecdote, but my relationship with Taft was made of many more littler – and, quite frankly, more obscene – moments. Most recently, the glorious trip to Laramie, Wyoming last year – that trip was the most fun I’ve ever had on a vacation.

It’s looking back to high school and doing our obnoxious impression of a French vagina (don’t ask), complete with ridiculous accents. It’s also our shared obscene impression of the Crocodile Hunter performing deviant acts on his wife that always left our friend Kara in laughing hysterics. It’s sitting in the scrounge, goofing off. It’s sitting in WNTH meetings, doing impressions of the El announcers.

It was the long conversations on the phone – exceptional also for the fact that I hate talking on the phone – that shifted from “30 Rock” to baseball to his family to his ever-present annoyance at the CTA.

It was the Hallowe’en costumes, one after the other. The lava lamp. The Christmas gift. The man-in-shower. The robot. Always self-made and always clever, Taft’s costumes were a highlight of the holiday every year.

It was the passion for music we shared, talking about songwriting and comparing CD collections and acquisitions. As we got older, I’d press him on jazz artists, a genre I know absolutely nothing about.

It was his generosity, cooking for our roommate Mark and I in college. Sloppy joes. Salads from the salad spinner. Lasagna. You name it.

It was our softball games against Team No Friends, as Taft used his excellent bat handling and gawky frame to lead our team. We spent many a summer playing Team No Friends, as our team – Team Latent Homoeroticism— won, maybe, 10% of the time.

And, of course, it was his love of baseball. It was this site and his multiple Cub unis and that ratty hat and his ring leading the Sox hate with our friends. I love him for that. It was the time, two summers ago, when we went to a Cubs/Sox game at Wrigley on my dad’s tickets. I, with my Puritan-esque rules for adult baseball game attire, wore a simple Sox hat, jeans and a black t-shirt. Taft, passion in tow, wore an open blue Cub jersey, a gray “property of the Chicago Cubs” t-shirt and his sweated-through Cubs hat. It was both heartwarming and embarrassing at the same time. I may be a baseball fan, but that, I thought to myself, is a baseball fan.

(Not surprisingly, the first person who called me after the Sox won it all in 2005 was Taft. Right after the final out, my phone rang with a – admittedly begrudging – congratulations from him about a team with a very large horseshoe up its collective ass. He loved that phrase.)

Our group of friends – the combined posses of our New Trier days – remains tight to this day. Most of them are in Chicago and I regret greatly that I wasn’t able to help them and the Tafts immediately after everyone found out. I was only in Chicago for a short bit, but our friends tried to all get together to lean on one another. We did so Monday evening and hashed out what I was going to say. We drank whiskey, wine and beer and we told stories about Taft. The one where he told me about spilling out of an adult sippy cup (those travel coffee mug things). The one where he got no bids in the KCOU date auction. The one where our friend Alison, his roommate at the time, came home to find the ceiling had caved in, but Taft was bopping away in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Needless to say, she blamed him and his clumsiness.

I had a softball game Sunday in DC and I had real reservations about attending said game. I was worried that I wouldn’t be up for it, as I still haven’t slept comfortably since Taft passed. I knew I’d be fatigued and emotionally spent. As overwrought as it sounds, Taft probably would’ve wanted me to play softball. Plus, I knew I needed something to take my mind off my pain and I knew softball – one of the things I enjoy most in this world – would help that.

I was wrong.

The day started inauspiciously, as I’d forgotten my batting gloves (yes, I’m a serious softball player) at home. But, I came up to the plate for my second at-bat—after popping out in my first – hoping just to avoid striking out. I connected on the second pitch and the ball just seemed to keep going. A few players from my bench screamed “keep going, Ross!” and I dropped my head and ran as hard as I know. I made it to the plate without a throw, hitting a home run. I dashed to our bench area, high-fived with the ferocity of a person trying to maim and that’s when it hit me. I retreated back behind the backstop to sit and bawl. I couldn’t hold in my tears; my closest friend had passed away and I did this… for him? Because of him? I have no idea, but he was all I that occupied my mind.

And after the game, I sat against a tree and changed into my non-cleats (shut up), talking with teammates and it hit me again. I just started weeping, knowing that I will never be able to share this with him. Every home run I hit was relayed to Taft. I’d text or e-mail him every time I had a good game and every time I jacked one out.

That, in a way, is the nature of a great friendship. It’s being there for one another. It’s sharing our tragedies and triumphs. It’s working through problems and it’s avoiding problems altogether. It’s mocking each other lovingly – when he found out my ex-girlfriend’s pet name for me, he called me “Stinky” for a month straight. It’s the little things and it’s the big things, but it’s all about being there for each other. And Taft was always there for me.

(I, of course, need him now more than ever. I need to talk in silly voices to him. I need to discuss 30 Rock or the writers strike to occupy my mind. I need his ebullience to cheer me up, his encouragement to tell me it’s going to be OK.)
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And the whole of it is complicated because my selfishness is just that. It’s selfish. Cliché as it is, the world doesn’t get to have Taft anymore. His dreams of living in Los Angeles, writing for TV were cut down and you’re goddamned right to think he’d punch up whatever show he worked on. He was, I’m sure, 10 times more talented than 95% of the people writing on sitcoms now. That the rest of the world missed out on his gift is not just bad, it’s a tragedy.
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I write all the above as a friend, but not everyone visiting this site knew Taft as a friend. A lot of you knew him as a Cub fan and if I had to describe him to a stranger, that’s probably the way I’d do it. As our friend Liz told us, Taft was a fan. He was a fan of TV, hence his dream to go out to L.A. He was a jazz fan, hence his being our college radio station’s jazz director.

Mostly, though, he was a fan of baseball. Specifically, the Cubs. He wrote with the passion of a thousand suns about the perpetual underdogs and would go to a game at the drop of a hat. He went to three games the last time he was in town and loved every minute of it.

And he wrote this site. While I administred the technical side of things, he wrote the actual pieces that sites like ours thrive on. He came up with the betting on the Sox/Cubs games. He was always pushing to do more predictions, more analysis. And he, of course, is responsible for the Handsome Man Team.

Some of his great work includes our site’s introduction to the world, his analysis of Wrigley booing, his ballpark review of PNC Park, his elation of the Cubs clinching a playoff spot, his love of the Fukudome signing and, of course, his hatred of the Edmonds signing, his final piece for the site.

All are great and show Taft’s ability as a great writer.
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I don’t know much about the future of the site, as posting was intermittent recently. But, ultimately, sportswriting and analysis – even blogs like this one that don’t take ourselves too seriously – is silly and not worth much. It remains the practice of writing about grown men in costumes chasing after a ball. I hope we’ve been able – especially due to Taft’s humor – to lighten up baseball for our readers.

Because of graduate school and another Web project of mine, we didn’t post much in the last year or so and we did not do a Handsome Man Team, the most popular pieces on the site, last year. In fact, one of the last conversations Taft and I shared was about this year’s Handsome Man Team. “The People Demand More Handsome Men” was the text message he sent me.

So, this year, the Handsome Man Team gets a new (sorta) name: The Alex Taft Memorial Handsome Man Team. I’ll have a full team with loads of guests helping us write the capsules and presenting the team.