An existential crisis

This is something that’s bothering me the more I think about it.

If a video of an interview in which I appeared is removed by the MLB Network, did it — and by extension, did I — ever exist?

Several years ago (in fact, more than two years after it was released), I was a guest on the morning show Hot Stove to discuss 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. I prepared for it carefully and enjoyed every minute of being at the studio headquarters in Secaucus, NJ, where Tom Verducci and Fran Charles were the gracious co-hosts for the segment. As you can imagine, it was a very exciting moment for me (can’t speak for them). I still have fantasies of having my own show on the MLB Network about baseball literature and pop culture.

I think I acquitted myself well and used the clip proudly at the top of the blog’s sidebar for the Bookshelf. But, alas, as I was posting today — no clip. Gone. I still had the code but when I tried to find it online somewhere — anywhere — no go. I even tried the Wayback Machine site. Nada. In retrospect, I should have downloaded it and saved on my own.

People talk a lot about “legacy.” This was something my grandkids might have seen someday. Or I might have even used it as an “audition tape” for future appearances. But now I have nothing to prove that this semi-major event in my professional career took place. I can’t tell someone, in the words of Casey Stengel, “you could look it up.”

I did chronicle the experience on the blog at least, although the video is gone from that entry, too.

Let this be a lesson to you. It just goes to prove that nothing is forever, everything is temporary. At this point in my life, in my fragile mortality mood, I don’t need this identity crisis.