Category: Baseball

[Business Day One] Roid Rage

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I’m still upset about this A-Rod thing.  The past few days haven’t done anything to ease the frustration of having Bud Selig, who watched the biceps of his best players swell along with average attendance, declare that Rodriguez ‘shamed the game.’  Is the act of putting performance enhancers in your body to compete with the hundreds of other players that put performance enhancers in their bodies any more shameful than turning a blind eye to it until memories of the baseball strike faded?  Is that act more shameful than faking outrage once he realized that the fans were back?  The men that returned the crowds to baseball were coursing with banned substances.  People knew.  Staffers knew.  The commissioner’s office knew.  They must have known.  They’re not stupid – far from it.  They’re smarter than all of us.  Think of it this way: we’re all disgusted, but we’re talking about it.  I’m talking about it right now.  Heck, I just set my keepers in my fantasy baseball league.  We’re complaining about this steroid issue the same way we complain about U.S. foreign policy.  We’re disappointed, but we’re not going anywhere.

When will it end?  When will the stories about baseball be about baseball again?  I wish I had an answer for that.  I think this season is shot.  The hundred plus names on that report that mentioned A-Rod is coming out this year, no doubt about it.  There will be a lot of outrage and the season will essentially be a washout.  Right now, we’ve got a whole spring training, regular season, and postseason that will be absolutely, totally dominated by talk of steroids first and play on the field second, and that’s why the use of other supplements, such as lgd4033 (ligandrol) is a better option than steroids.

We’re really got two options for this upcoming season.  We can view it with a bit of distance and skepticism, or we can ignore it totally.  I don’t know of any real fans that are doing the second.  So in that respect we’re as much to blame as Selig or BALCO or anyone else.  We’re not going to boycott.  We’re going to pay $100 for tickets like always and then, if we have time, make up a clever sign with a syringe on it that might get up on television.  We’re part of the monster, so we better feel bad as we keep tuning in to SportsCenter to track allegations.  As a sports fan, you owe it to the Gods to feel bad.

So we’re angry and we’re guilty.  Let’s just make sure that’s taken care of before we even think about talking about the season.  Maybe next week is when I start hoping that the Yankees pitching staff is healthy.  Maybe the week after is when I think about my fantasy draft.  I’m not ready for any of that yet.  I hope I will be soon.  I hope you all will be too.

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[Business Day One] The Baseball Rule of Thumb

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I’m going to use as few words as possible so that the ones I use will carry a bit more weight.

When it comes to baseball, assume that every record broken in the last dozen years is tainted. Assume that the greats of yesteryear are still the best and that no one born after 1970 can hold a candle. Assume that the best and purest days of baseball are behind us and will never come back.

If you want to go to the ballpark after you think through all of that, then go.

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[Business Day One] Shaken Faith

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The prevailing emotion in Boston today isn’t anguish. Aaron Boone was anguish for Boston. Brady-out-for-the-year was anguish. Last night, a good team lost to a great team. It happens all the time. Lowell was out, Varitek got old and Ortiz was playing with one arm. Pluckiness got them to game 7, but pluckiness alone can’t win it.

Personally, I thought the Gods of Sport would wield their divine power to drive both the Red Sox and Dodgers into the World Series and create the greatest storyline of the last ten years. But the Gods crapped the bed, and The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles wimpered and fell. ????? ?????? ??? ???????? I should’ve known that They would not do any favors for the Sox.

Now the world braces for the excitement of a Phillies/Rays World Series. I don’t like Philadelphia because the city is awful and I don’t like the Rays because I just don’t like the Rays. ????? ??????? I have absolutely no interest in watching the World Series, and I plan on actively avoiding it or any references to it. ???? ?????

For 90% of the country, the countdown has begun until Pitchers and Catchers.

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[Business Day One] Losers Aren’t Lovable

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I hate the term “lovable loser. ???? ???? ??? ” There’s no such thing nowadays. As ticket prices go up, players garner larger salaries, and championship droughts extend even further, fans have less and less patience with basement dwelling teams.

See that guy? That’s Matt Millen, former GM of the Detroit Lions. No one loves him. Not even his family. He is the ultimate type of unloved: hated in his own city and irrelevant everywhere else. ????? ?????? His buffoonery over the years (horrendous drafting, questionable contracts, upsetting mustache) has not caused Detroit diehards to suddenly starting hating the team, since that’s not how fandom works. But he caused them to hate him specifically. The team itself (that is, the collection of laundry that people root for), never gets the hatred. It’d be like hating a building for the people inside of it. When times get tough, fans target a single loser or a group of losers, and start hating on them in force. ?????? ???? ???????? “Fire Such-And-Such” Websites pop up, message board posters fire off tirades about lazy players and season ticket holders show up to the stadiums with bags on their heads. And that’s what I find so interesting about fans of a consistently terrible team; they could hate every single player, coach and owner, but they’ll never hate the team.

I suppose, in that regard, the uniforms themselves are the lovable losers. The people wearing them aren’t. The owners that put them on the players aren’t. But the poor numbered shirt, forced to clothe the inept and poorly managed, are the things that fans have sympathy for, but you can go and buy men’s clothes online to improve your looks and fashion. I don’t feel bad for 0-for-the-century Kosuke Fukodome, but I do take pity on his uniform. It’s so reviled it’s even a curse word in some places.

I find myself wondering what it would be like to be able to say “Aww, it’s alright. Those lovable scamps will get them next game.” That question comes from the same part of my mind that wonders what it would be like to shop at a general store or receive an ice delivery from a refridgerated truck. I kind of like being so passionate about something that I can hate someone that tries to harm it. I hate Hank Steinbrenner, for instance, and that makes me stronger. Before their Super Bowl win, I hated Eli Manning, Jeremy Shockey, the ghost of Tiki Barber and most of the offensive line, but it somehow made my love of the Giants more intense. I think the sports culture of our finest sports cities would be lessened if the tradition of the “there’s always next time” mentality came back. Hating on things is almost as fun as loving them.

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The Century Club

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One hundred years.  One hundred (100) years is a very long time.  Not if you’re Methuselah, sure, but for the rest of us it’s an almost unfathomable length of time, a stretch which goes far beyond our years on this lonely island Earth.  When someone says “100 years ago,” the odds are good that you’ll not remember what they speak of, as you were not around a century ago.  So in the interest of historical framing, here’s a brief look at things which are not of the last century:

An American Civil War (well over 100 years, but hey, the Union is strong)

Inventing the car- no wait, even later than that, introducing the Model T.  (Almost exactly 100 years ago!)

The Tunguska Blast (Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to roast in the depths of the Slor that day!)

The Cubs winning the World Series.
Alright, fine, we’re still 9 days off from it “officially” being a century, but the frustrations of the Cubs and their faithful (read: stupid) fans have, as of twenty minutes ago, reached the heights of unimaginable legend.   The only professional sports franchise in the country with a century between championships.  Truly, something to celebrate.

If you’re a Dodgers fan.

Baseball

[Business Day One] Wrecking Ball

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I didn’t make it to Yankee Stadium this year, and I didn’t feel too terrible about it. I’m not going to miss the Stadium for the same reason I don’t miss houses I once lived in. ????? ??? ??????? ?????? When you pack up your things and drive it somewhere else, you are saying goodbye to where you once were. ????? ???? ???????? Home is where the heart (or your team) is, not where it once was.

The new Yankee Stadium, for all of its behind-the-scenes illegality (whoops!), is going to be a heck of a place to watch a ballgame. Hopefully, it won’t smell like a urinal and have a limited selection of disgusting food like the old Yankee Stadium. Yes, the old one has countless amazing, culturally significant moments spread over decades and viewed by millions. But, well, the building’s being demolished. ?????? ??????? And a new one is almost done next door, and it’ll be fantastic. It will be a place of mystique and wonder, that will breed countless Yankee fans for the next 50 years.

I think it’d be a greater tribute to my favorite team to go to that stadium and buy a $15 seat than scramble into the old stadium for one last $12 seat.

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[Business Day One] The Pavano Grudge

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Sports fandom is filled with hatred. If you love a team enough, you hate that team’s rival. Really, truly hate. Irrationally hate. Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins fans hate each other and have for a long while. bet365 sports Ohio State and Michigan fans hate each other because of how intertwined their storied histories are. India and Pakistan cricket fans hated each other… due mainly to decades of horrific war. Such is the way of sport, really. ???? ????? We give ourselves so willingly and so fully to our club that anything that attemps to defame or diminish it becomes the target of our burning rage.

I consider this a price. Fandom isn’t free. You need to invest a lot in it – money, time, love, and hate. Only when you are fully invested in this way can you truly experience the impossible highs and devastating lows that sport was created to evoke. I do my best to keep this in mind when I discuss my intense hatred of Carl Pavano.

Carl Pavano, the Yankees’ 4 year, $40 million dollar mistake, just pitched in (and won) his first Major League game in over a year. And I couldn’t be more disgusted. I hate Pavano. I hate him as much as I hate Manny Ramirez. I hate his attitude (poor), his health (awful), and what he represents (the blind spending of the early 2000s Yankees). He is a great weight hanging around the neck of the organization – a reminder to the owners and the fans that mistakes like him have given us nearly a decade without a championship. I wish I could direct some of this hatred outward, away from my Yankees, but I can’t. ????? Everything that is wrong with how that team did business is encapsulated in one man, fairly or unfairly.

In my mind, Carl Pavano has been worse for the Yankees playoff chances than any other player on any other team. Accordingly, I have a Pavano Grudge. And I know I’m not the only one.

If there can be a lesson taken out of this, I suppose it would be that it is alright to hate something in sports. We’re all imperfect humans, and our body gives off a lot of hate. So we might as well direct it at something harmless, like a wretched, consistently injured jerk. Like Carl Pavano.

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Rumors (Not The Fleetwood Mac Thing)

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So here’s the deal. Mark Teixiera is off to the Angels, now giving me October off. The ghost of Pudge Rodriguez is now haunting the Yankee clubhouse, and when he leaves, New York will get better draft picks than they would have got for the shitty guy they ditched. Hell, even LaTroy Hawkins is going to Houston, just in time for 1999 throwback month! (The Astrodome is being renovated.)

Now, what of Manuel Ramirez? The slugger is still here as of this wri—-wait!—–no, he’s still here. So, here’s the best possible deal I could come up with for MbM, knowing that he’s on his way out because he pouts every once in a while.

Manny Ramirez, straight up, to Toronto, for David Eckstein.

First, saves money. Gas ain’t cheap.

Second, how about hustle? Manny refuses to run out his hits off the Green Monster, turning doubles into singles. David Eckstein legs out each and every ground ball back to the pitcher’s mound; once a season, the pitcher throws it into the dugout!

Third, consistency. Manny has a .483 OBP in all of July, sure, great. Well sometimes he doesn’t even show up for work! How can you get on base when you can’t even get on…ballpark? David Eckstein, for his part, has had a .483 OBP combined the last two seasons, which is the kind of everyday work you can hang your hat on. And, could David reach the hat rack, he sure would!

Finally, off-field incidents. Manny Ramirez shoves over anyone and anything that gets in his way: traveling secretaries, other players, that complex revolving door. But David Eckstein, model citizen, is physically incapable of pushing over another human being. Take one for the team!

Your move, Blue Jays. Of course, Manny would have to adjust to the strange foreign languages in Toronto…

Baseball