Mitch Marner scored 63 points in 70 playoff games for the Toronto Maple Leafs.Chase Stevens/The Associated Press
When Mitch Marner sat down with TSN last week to do his non mea culpa, he knew he couldn’t state the obvious – that he no longer felt like playing in Toronto.
That would’ve made people angry. So Marner did what the modern sports type does to get themselves out of any sort of bother – he went full emo.
In Marner’s case, the lever was some donut posting his home address online after the Leafs lost last spring. That, rather than a fat contract in a city where there is no pressure to perform and it never snows, is what changed his mind.
The tone of the interview was ‘Let’s get Mitch on the couch,’ and he was happy to lean into it.
“It was a little tough, obviously,” Marner said, looking like he was trying to eke out a sniffle.
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Is the story overcooked for dramatic effect? Yes. Are any of us in the guy’s head? No. So who knows how he feels things?
That’s the point. A sports figure in trouble can fight with logic all he/she wants, and it isn’t gong to help. It makes people angry when you argue back.
In Marner’s case, he could say, ‘I scored 63 points in 70 playoff games, and you weren’t happy. So, fine, you get your wish. I’m leaving.’
The subsequent pile-on would reach low Earth orbit.
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has been in trouble for months.Ian Hodgson/The Associated Press
But when he says, ‘I felt bad/scared/weird/alone,’ the people who obsess over such things back right off. You’ve pulled the therapy wild card. It trumps every reality-based hand.
Once you start looking for the emo-reverso, you see it everywhere.
Manchester United just started its season. After hiring a hotshot new manager and buying a whole new team, they’re still terrible. They just lost to Grimsby in the Carabao Cup. That’s like the New York Yankees losing to the Home Hardware slo-pitch team.
That manager, Ruben Amorim, is in trouble and has been for months. He’s spent all that time explaining his plan, and all he’s accomplished is making people wild with rage.
So after the Grimsby loss, Amorim went full emo: “I’m going to say that sometimes I hate my players. … Sometimes I want to quit.”
Wait? He’s sad and upset? Well, that changes things. All the people who wanted Amorim fired didn’t know what to do once he’d said he’s considering firing himself.
The immediate pressure on Amorim, and therefore United, tapered off. They won a game they probably should have lost on the weekend, and Amorim said he “loves” his players again. It’s fun to watch, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense.
If you hire someone to front your US$6.6-billion business (per Forbes) and he goes out in public and says he hates the employees almost as much as he hates the job, you’ve got one logical choice. You fire that guy. He’s not in the right headspace to perform a task lots of people can do just as badly as he’s doing it, and for less money.
You do that everywhere except the entertainment business. The less able you are to do the job, the more accommodations you require to do it.
Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia argues with Taylor Townsend after their women's singles second round match at the U.S. Open.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Somewhere along the line, athletes learned that a minor change in phraseology – ‘No one is harder on me than I am on myself’ becomes ‘I feel anxious when I lose’ – unlocks the public. Your detractors become your supporters. Everybody’s pulling for you to overcome this ‘bad at sports, but still being paid like I’m good’ situation you find yourself in.
The ongoing U.S. Open is a symposium on the emo approach. Everyone, everywhere is melting down over something or another once things don’t go their way, and it’s never their fault.
Jelena Ostapenko threw a snit after getting her doors blown off because her opponent, Taylor Townsend, didn’t warm up right, or something. Ostapenko screamed at Townsend for a good minute, waving a big old finger in her face. Had Townsend dropped her at the net with a right cross, I’d have called it justifiable self-defence.
In a quarter-hearted apology post, Ostapenko acted like she’d already been forgiven – “I appreciate the support as I continue to learn and grow” – because of course she would be. She feels bad about it. What else do you want from her? Blood?
This is a function of a milieu that simultaneously has too many consequences and too few. Should Marner, Amorim or Ostapenko be torn to shreds on multiple platforms by many thousands of people because they had a bad day at work? No. But, sadly, that’s part of the job. No one’s making you do it.
How much simpler life must have been for a player of anything in the nineties. You screw up. Someone writes in the papers that you screwed up. You choose not to read the paper that day. End of.
Now everyone’s umbilically attached to their phones and can’t escape criticism. The people who say they don’t read anything are lying. It’s possible to stand under a daily waterfall of negativity. Some can handle that – mostly, by choosing to ignore it. Many can’t.
Having suffered so much blame, some will eventually reach a point where they become unable to accept responsibility for anything, or, in extreme cases, to regulate their emotions. I’m going to assume you know people like this. More than a few, probably.
The more people who act that way and get away with it in the sports context, the more their peers are inclined to try the same thing. It’s just easier to say you’re feeling sad after you acted like a complete tool, knowing it will get everyone off your back.
This is how you turn the entertainment business into a poorly managed kindergarten. The only difference from the real world is that in the sports daycare of this analogy, the kindergarteners are in charge.