I believe the male football fans of Baltimore have a major man-crush on Ed Reed. I know. I'm one of them. We're having a bromance with No. 20 for your Baltimore Ravens. The women like him, too, but it's not the same thing. It's a guy thing. I hear guys all the time say how much they "love" Ed Reed. Ed might not think this is very amusing - guys having a crush on him, and the word of that getting around the Ravens dressing room. I mean, already - just 90 words in - this column probably embarrasses him.
But I don't care. We have to be honest. Those of us who have watched professional football since, say, the black-and-white 1960s, have never seen someone play football like this. Certainly there have been great quarterbacks, starting with Johnny Unitas. And there have been great running backs and receivers, and there have been great linebackers (Baltimore has had two of them, Mike Curtis and Ray Lewis). And a few years ago, the Ravens had an enormously talented defensive back named Rod Woodson.
But Ed Reed - he's an enormously talented defensive back, but he's different. He's way out there by himself. He's got that certain something called the duende.
I am always very careful about this duende thing. I take it very seriously. I only play the duende card after reconsidering the word - its literary meaning and its meaning metaphysical. It's a complex word, as exotic and as precious as saffron. One must always be sure how to use it. Though I think I know the recipe for great duende, I always open the old books and make sure I have it right.
Duende is something like charisma and style, something like passion and power, something like chemistry, something like soul, and probably all those things. Federico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet, called duende the "energetic instinct" that flamenco dancers or matadors must possess. The jazz critic George Frazier described it as "heightened panache or overpowering presence ... that certain something."
Duende is a living thing, but with a spectral quality. (The literal Spanish definition is "hobgoblin" or "ghost.") Frazier detected duende in the horn of Miles Davis. Frazier once wrote that duende "was what Ted Williams had even when striking out, but Stan Musial lacked when hitting a home run." I believe Frazier also said Joe Namath had duende by the ton, while John Unitas had none.
