Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball

Must There Only Be One?

The question weighing on every Mets fan’s mind for the past week: Who to root for in the World Series? And if that question didn’t weigh on your mind, I’m sure you’ve met a Yankee or Phillie fan who was more than happy to lob the question at you until you pleaded for mercy.

Maybe the real question is, Do I have to root for anyone? Can’t I just watch the World Series in the hopes of seeing some exciting games? I watch football games all the time that I have zero rooting interest in, and enjoy myself quite a bit if the game is good. Can’t I just do that with the World Series?

Unfortunately, the answer is no, for two reasons: 1) This is already touted as a battle between two “evenly-matched teams”, which virtually guarantees that one team will slaughter the other. It’s always a five-game series where one team ekes out a win in, like, game 3, while the victor destroys the other team 10-3 in every other game.

Reason number 2: It’s the Yankees vs. the Phillies. No matter who a Mets fan roots for, it will be bad. If the Yankees win, they’ll have to hear it from their fans about how they easily dispatched the team that’s tortured the Mets the last three seasons. If the Phillies win, their fans might finally achieve the arrogance and entitlement of Boston fans, while retaining their traditional anger and penchant for mayhem, a deadly combo.

So can you root for one team to lose? No, you can’t. Because whoever loses will still have made it to the World Series. Losing in the World Series is not humbling, unless you blow a big lead or have totally disastrous meltdown a la Bill Buckner. In other words, even the loser can lord that fact over the Mets. And if you actively root for the team that wins and rejoice in their victory, you’ll need to shower for a week to wash the shame from your soul.

This is like Alien vs. Predator: no matter who wins, we lose. Or like a situation Tom Scharpling once called “the reverse Highlander”: must there only be one? Or, please let there be just one.

The Unanswerable Question raised its ugly head as I watched game 6 of the ALCS with my extended family. Most of them are Mets fans of varying degrees of fanaticism, but there are few Yankees fans in the mix as well–particularly an uncle who’s loved to torture my mom about the Mets’ woes. So when the Angels went down in order in the ninth, the ball had barely left Mariano Rivera’s hand before this uncle asked me and my brothers and cousins who we would root for.

Our initial response was, begrudgingly, the Yankees. Now that Roger Clemens is long gone and disgraced, I don’t hate anyone on the team, whereas the Phillies have several players I can not stand (exhibit A: Shane Victorino, an obnoxious, hypocritical punk who’d hit about 7 homers a year in any other ballpark and any other lineup). I know a lot of Yankees fans who are decent human beings and who will be happy if they win. The pain that the Phillies have inflicted on the Mets in the past few years is much more fresh and cutting than anything the Yankees done. And when the Phillies won last year, even during their championship parade, they wouldn’t shut up about the Mets, as if the only reason they won the World Series was because it might hurt the Mets’ feelings.

Yes, my first thought was that I could imagine myself quietly rooting for the Yankees in this situation. And then I saw this in today’s New York Post:

nypost_102709.jpg I have a hard time deciding which is worse: the front or the back cover. And yes, I realize this is coming from the Post, not the Yankees themselves. But it’s indicative of certain type of Yankee fan and organization arrogance, dismissiveness, and flat-out ignorance of anything outside of the Yankee Universe

Let’s start with the front cover. And let’s ignore the bad Photoshop job on Cheerleader Victorino. And I’ll try to forget the fact that I hate Victorino for a moment. The Phillies are the defending world champs. They’re a really good team. They beat the Yankees two out of three at the Stadium earlier this year. It’s really dumb and childish to write them off as if they’re nothing, just because they’re from Philly, and to think that they’ll wither and die under the MAJESTY and the AURA of the New York spotlight.

Not to mention the caveman sexual politics behind depicting someone in a skirt to imply that they’re weak. Because women wear skirts and they’re so weak and fragile and can’t drive! And don’t get me started on my mother-in-law!

Peep some of these idiotic quotes from the accompanying article, entitled “Their fans are second rate & so is their city”:

Yankee fans have a message for the Phillies and their hometown: This ain’t Rocky, and the underdog won’t win!

Are the Phillies the underdog? Maybe, but not by a huge margin. I think anyone with half a baseball mind knows that the Phillies are a strong team up and down. The bullpen has regressed (or Brad Lidge has, anyway), but their starting pitching and lineup is actually better than it was last year. A good chunk of Yankee fans wouldn’t know that, because they’re are about as familiar with the NL as they are with self-restraint and perspective.

“Philly fans are a bunch of whiners and should learn how to dress[, said a fan] “They should try reading GQ.”

This has to be the first time a sports fan has insulted other sports fans by suggesting they pick up an issue of a high class fashion magazine. “Those mooks down in Philly don’t even know how exfoliate! Yo, try pickin’ up some skin products from the fine people Aveda some time!”

And don’t even try to compare the iconic House That Ruth Built with the long-gone Veterans Stadium.

You mean the iconic House That Steinbrenner Tore Down so he could bully the city into building a new billion-dollar Yankee Stadium on public land? Or are you referring to the iconic NYY Steak/House of Blues/Johnnie Walker Pavilion with the baseball diamond in the middle of it?

Of course, the article is filled with fans talking shit about Philadelphia and saying how it can’t compare to New York. You will not find a more pro-NYC person than yours truly, but thumping your chest about the greatness of your city is lame at best, bullying at worst. If New York is truly as great as you think it is, you shouldn’t have to put down other places to prove it.

But if anything can top the idiocy and short-sightedness of the Post’s front cover, it’s the back cover. The Yankees wanna win one for The Boss? Really?

Here’s how George A. King III starts his article that rests upon this thesis:

The Boss has lost something off a Hall of Fame fastball, but that doesn’t mean the need to win has been sucked from his marrow.

There are quotes from Derek Jeter, Reggie Jackson, Brian Cashman, and the Steinbrenner sons, all insisting that winning this World Series would “mean a lot” to the ailing Boss.

You won’t see buttons attached to the pinstriped uniforms that read, “Win One For The Boss,” but there is a feeling in the organization that it would be a nice touch to give the 79-year-old Steinbrenner another title.

Sure, the Yankees have won six World Series under his ownership already, but that’s small potatoes. Ring number seven, that’s the real special one.

Winning a World Series would be “a nice touch”. Yankee fans, wanna know why everyone hates you? Peep that statement. It’s like an entire organization of those rich assholes from the Lexus commercials.

Look, I know that Alzheimer’s is terrible. I’ve had family members suffer from it. I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. The Wife and I have already said that if either one of us gets it, the other one is morally obligated to push them in front of a moving bus.

But the fact that George Steinbrenner suffers from it now shouldn’t make us forget the fact that, before he was banned from baseball in the early 90s, he was an insufferable prick. The fact that he ruined the franchise. Yankees fans literally cheered when he was banned–at Yankee Stadium. And after his reinstatement, he was only slightly less intolerable. I understand not wanting to speak ill of someone who’s sick, but this goes beyond that into the realm of historic revisionism.

So who am I rooting for? The meteor, the earthquake, the last-minute union job-stoppage, or the month-long rainstorm that would wipe out any hope of a World Series this year.

1999 Project

1999 Project: NLCS Game 5

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Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

Given a stay of execution, the Mets looked like they were back in midseason form. That included some needless clubhouse squabbling.

Rickey Henderson was upset when Bobby Valentine replaced him in the middle of game 4 for defense and waited until he took the field to do so. The manager apologized for waiting so long to remove him (if not for removing him in the first place) as he came back to the dugout, but Henderson brushed passed him, went straight to the clubhouse, and was not seen in the Mets locker room after the game.

In a postgame interview, Turk Wendell praised his teammates–23 of them, anyway. “This is a real team effort except for one guy who quit,” he said. When asked to clarify, he gestured toward Henderson’s empty locker. “Look around the room.”

99_nlcsgm5_wendell.pngBefore game 5, Rickey responded in typical Rickey fashion. “If he doesn’t respect me, then tough luck,” he said. “He should be happy he’s in this position. He wouldn’t be here if not for me.” Henderson also suggested that Turk could “kiss my black ass”.

Wendell tried to apologize to Henderson later, but Rickey refused to accept his apology. In one of those awesome “oops!” episodes of live TV, as Craig Sager related this saga, NBC cut to a shot of Wendell idling in the bullpen, just in time to catch him strenuously picking his nose.

The renewed turmoil also brought with it more anonymous grousing about Valentine. One unnamed “prominent Met” told Bill Madden of the Daily News, “It looks like he wants to get fired and go get a job in Japan.” Madden also reported that some players were upset about Valentine pinch hitting for Robin Ventura in game 3 against John Rocker, even though Ventura was 0 for 5 with five strikeouts against him. It was perceived as a slight against the third baseman, who’d been playing through serious knee pain for quite some time.

Valentine could try to soothe some bruised egos and hurt feelings once the piddling matter of another elimination game was resolved. If the manager had any ideas about sitting Henderson–either for insubordination or ineffectiveness (he had only one hit so far in the series)–he scrapped them when Roger Cedeno could not start due to back spasms (he later said it felt like he had “a knife in my back”, a feeling Valentine could certainly relate to). Bob Costas guessed Cedeno suffered the injury after twisting to catch a hard hit ball by Ozzie Guillen in the top of the ninth of game 4. Either that, or jumping into Mora’s arms after they scored the tying and go-ahead runs.

For Atlanta, John Rocker did not look worse for wear after his blown save the night before. He celebrated his 25th birthday by continuing to spar verbally with Mets fans, calling them “subhuman” and “the worst fans in baseball”. He also shagged flies in the outfield and pretended to throw them to awaiting fans in the left field stands.

Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone was given the unenviable task of keeping Rocker out of trouble, shadowing the closer during pregame warmups. “Is this part of coaching or what?” he grumbled.
Continue reading 1999 Project: NLCS Game 5 →

Baseball

Blatant Homerism Theatre, in Conjunction with Lack of Historical Perspective, Brings You a Jayson Stark Production

The great thing about sports in general–and baseball in particular, I think–is that it turns adults into little kids again. It makes us marvel at amazing feats, believe in miracles…

/the theme from The Natural swells

Sorry, almost had a Costner moment there. Schmaltz aside, sports are fun because they can bring us unbridled joy and enthusiasm. We can all go a little nuts when our team wins The Big Game, pump our fists and proclaim THAT’S THE BEST DAMN GAME I’VE EVER SEEN!

And when I say “we”, I mean “the fans”. That should not include members of the media, who are paid to be impartial and stoic and have a sense of perspective during even the most thrilling moments. Jayson Stark of ESPN must have missed that day at J-school, because he busted out a column about game 4 of the NLCS that blew my mind with its complete lack of historic perspective or rational thought.

When last we met Mr. Stark, he was advising the Mets (via anonymous MLB scouts) to trade Jose Reyes. So his judgment is already suspect in my eyes. My opinion of him has not been elevated by his piece about Monday night’s thriller, entitled “Phillies walk off into history”.

He sets the scene with a series of one-sentence paragraphs, describing how the Phillies were down to their last strike when Jimmy Rollins belted a two-run double into the right field gap, completing a come-from-behind victory and putting Philadelphia on top three games to one in the series.

It was a dramatic win, to say the least. It deserves some dramatic prose. What it does not deserve is to be described as “an October baseball game that is going to be talked about for the rest of our lifetimes.”

Maybe Stark has powers of prognostication that I don’t. But “talked about for the rest of our lifetimes”?! This was, at best, the third-best playoff game played in the past week. It was the second-best playoff game played that day. Games 2 and 3 of this year’s ALCS–extra-inning, tension-filled marathons–were both better.
Continue reading Blatant Homerism Theatre, in Conjunction with Lack of Historical Perspective, Brings You a Jayson Stark Production →