October Surprises
Oct. 14th, 2012 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelI love the way the national press, especially the New York-centric press, wails and moans about the dire shape the New York Yankees are in and how horrible the entire situation is.
Perspective: you suckers are in the American League Championship Series. So you're already in better shape than all but two teams in the AL and all but four teams in Major League Baseball. This is why nobody outside of New York actually likes you pinstriped pricks-- because if you're not winning the World Series every damned year, it's a tragedy!!!111eleventy-one.
Screw you guys. The Oakland A's were happy just to get to the ALDS, because everybody wrote them off before the season began.
OK. Derek Jeter breaking his ankle was not a nice thing to see. At the guy's age, it may well be the end of his career. It's not pretty and very squirm-inducing even if you hate the team's collective guts.
Now, if A-Rod had broken his leg and been out for the season, y'all would've breathed a collective sigh of relief and maybe busted out the celebratory champagne because that guy's become a jillion-dollar liability and it appears his body's shot even on a good day. And the rest us wouldn't have cared because A-Rod's an asshole and did I mention nobody actually likes you guys?
But A-Rod is part of the reason that empty seats in Yankee Stadium during the pennant race and the total inability of your batters to hit stuff (unless facing Detroit's own Papa Grande, whoops) do not constitute a tragedy for anyone with an iota of perspective. You paid for him, and he's your problem. A-Rod on his own costs how much more than the entire A's roster? Yeah. Screw you guys.
A Tigers/Giants World Series would make me very happy, but any season in which the Yankees get sent home during the playoffs is good in my book. I hope Justin Verlander and company can get this sewn up before the ALCS shifts back to New York, but we do have that little issue of a closing pitcher (ain't got one) and hey, people choke. So the Yankees aren't actually toast even now.
But to hear the Yankee-friendly press whine, you'd think they finished dead last in the AL or something. They're sore winners and sore losers and that's why nobody actually likes them.
Perspective: you suckers are in the American League Championship Series. So you're already in better shape than all but two teams in the AL and all but four teams in Major League Baseball. This is why nobody outside of New York actually likes you pinstriped pricks-- because if you're not winning the World Series every damned year, it's a tragedy!!!111eleventy-one.
Screw you guys. The Oakland A's were happy just to get to the ALDS, because everybody wrote them off before the season began.
OK. Derek Jeter breaking his ankle was not a nice thing to see. At the guy's age, it may well be the end of his career. It's not pretty and very squirm-inducing even if you hate the team's collective guts.
Now, if A-Rod had broken his leg and been out for the season, y'all would've breathed a collective sigh of relief and maybe busted out the celebratory champagne because that guy's become a jillion-dollar liability and it appears his body's shot even on a good day. And the rest us wouldn't have cared because A-Rod's an asshole and did I mention nobody actually likes you guys?
But A-Rod is part of the reason that empty seats in Yankee Stadium during the pennant race and the total inability of your batters to hit stuff (unless facing Detroit's own Papa Grande, whoops) do not constitute a tragedy for anyone with an iota of perspective. You paid for him, and he's your problem. A-Rod on his own costs how much more than the entire A's roster? Yeah. Screw you guys.
A Tigers/Giants World Series would make me very happy, but any season in which the Yankees get sent home during the playoffs is good in my book. I hope Justin Verlander and company can get this sewn up before the ALCS shifts back to New York, but we do have that little issue of a closing pitcher (ain't got one) and hey, people choke. So the Yankees aren't actually toast even now.
But to hear the Yankee-friendly press whine, you'd think they finished dead last in the AL or something. They're sore winners and sore losers and that's why nobody actually likes them.
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Date: 2012-10-15 02:36 am (UTC)Whenever UK lost a game while Tubby Smith was coach, all you had to do was turn on the radio and 50% of the stations were insane, furious, and possibly drunk UK fans screeching about how Tubby is driving the program into the ground and he needed to be fired yesterday, whine cry sigh, I mean we only got to the Final Four what a travesty
Then UK finally did fire Tubby and brought in Gillispie, and when UK failed to make the NCAA tournament two years later, a bunch of rich UK fans panicked, raised several million dollars so that they could fire Gillispie early, and brought in super-sketchy Calipari. And things are going well with Calipari now, but man, the dude's got such a checkered history that it's only a matter of time before he gets caught on a major recruiting violation, and then the UK fans will really raise a fuss.
(Full disclosure: I do consider myself a UK fan, but in the way that one might find a particularly insane uncle rather endearing and fun to hang around, since no matter what happens you're at least guaranteed to not be bored :P )
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Date: 2012-10-15 08:42 pm (UTC)I get the same impression of U of Michigan football fans and their coaching carousel.
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Date: 2012-10-15 04:51 am (UTC)But I guess it's bad in New York, too. When I went there in senior year, we were advised not to bring or wear any Red Sox or Boston insignia-- one kid who did got shouted at by a few vendors.
It's crazy. :\
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Date: 2012-10-15 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-16 02:26 am (UTC)I'm a born-n'-raised New Englandah and even I was glad to see the Red Sox crash and burn this year. And a surprisingly high number of people I've talked to share these sentiments (I'd put it around 60-70%) Half the team cares more about their beer quota than winning games, the owners are borderline frauds, the manager was a clown, and when even the "dirt dog" Dustin Pedroia himself is backbiting the coaching staff, you know you've got an unlikable bunch. XD
And the great underdog stories are one of my favorite reasons to watch baseball (Another reason I'm rooting for the Tigers--the Giants, Cards, and Yankees have all won the WS more recently)
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Date: 2012-10-16 02:34 am (UTC)That whole Bobby Valentine fiasco bordered on unbelievable.
Another reason I'm rooting for the Tigers--the Giants, Cards, and Yankees have all won the WS more recently
:D
Very true. I've been a Giants fan since before I knew who the hell the Tigers were, but they won two years ago. As for the Cards... I'm still smarting from '06.
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Date: 2012-10-15 05:53 am (UTC)(FWIW, I have your Tigers winning it all this year. Best starting pitcher in the league, and the best hitter in the league. Closing is another issue, but no one can pitch as poorly as Valverde did that game...not even Valverde!)
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Date: 2012-10-15 08:49 pm (UTC)He did it twice running. Makes one long for the days of Todd Jones! @_@
I'd love to see them win it all, and honestly I think they're the best of a problematic playoff field. But they did kind of underperform this year up until the end of the season, and even Verlander has off days.
But yeah... we've got the best pitcher and the best hitter. It's our series to lose. But baseball really has shifted to be more about the short-term series champs and less about season-long durability, to we just have to see how the next couple of games play out.
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Date: 2012-10-15 08:15 pm (UTC)The thing that bothered me the most about it is that they all have a sense of entitlement approximately the size of the planet Saturn. There were multiple occasions when I heard Yankees fans nonchalantly say stuff like, "oh, I like So-and-So-Player-On-Other-Team. We should get him!" They were being absolutely sincere every time. I get that the Yankees spend an exorbitant amount of money on their team, but assuming that they can just take their pick of any player they choose is obnoxiously arrogant, to me - yet so many of them see no problem with it. It's even more annoying than the fact that they also constantly assume they'll automatically make the playoffs. 9_9
(This is only somewhat related, but it's one of my favorite stories on the subject! Several of my grad school classmates were talking about baseball at one point, and one of them mentioned that several years back, he was dating a girl whose father worked for the Yankees. The classmate in question is not a sports person at all - he was a sculptor who regularly went to shows at the Met Opera. He said he complained to a friend about having to accompany his girlfriend to "some baseball game thing"... to which his friend expressed incredulity and jealousy. Turns out that "some baseball game" was the last game of the 2000 Yankees and Mets finals series. :D;
tl;dr Art students tend not to be very familiar with sports. I think I prefer it that way. :-P)
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Date: 2012-10-15 08:55 pm (UTC)The thing that bothered me the most about it is that they all have a sense of entitlement approximately the size of the planet Saturn.
The way it just leaks through even in non-fan-blog press coverage galls me the most. I mean, when the Tigers sent 'em packing in the playoffs last year, the NYC-area press ran articles on "Oh, God, how could they lose to such a crappy and unworthy team as the Tigers" and such. Um... we made it to the ALCS. You don't get there by sucking. If I picked half a dozen current news articles, I bet at least five of them would be shot through with this jaw-dropping sense of entitlement I don't see anywhere else-- not even in Red Wings hockey coverage. And the Wings are basically the equivalent of the Yankees as far as hockey goes in terms of being the evil empire everyone else roots against. :/