pre-woild-serious ramble
the frost is on the pumpkin, snow is on the land, rain filleth the firmament and baseball is going to be played in november. this is not a travesty, it is a crime.
the commissioner of the owners of baseball is derelict in his duty at best. (like all used car dealers he thinks the problem is marketing, not the quality of the product.) the season started late this year because of some cockamamie idea of his. this time it was an international baseball tournament which, like all international baseball except the blue jays, ought to be played during winter ball so it doesn't interfere with the delicate rhythms of spring training, much less push back the end of the season beyond indian summer.
extra levels of playoff and the wild card were introduced by that same invertebrate pseudo-commissioner whose bumbling tinkerings with the game have masked his inability, or unwillingness, to protect what matters. but in his drooling incompetence the owner's commissioner forgot to shorten the season (say from 162 back to the historic norm of 156 games) so as to leave time to play baseball during actual, genuine baseball weather.
because even the venal collection of millionaires that owns baseball is incapable of creating any more summer climate in north america than god allows for. trying to stretch it leads to weather disasters such as were seen in this years' league series and last year's woild serious.
i personally am holding out for three rainouts and a snow day just to publicly humiliate baseball ownership's greed. here's a clue: if baseball players made more money from the extended season and playoffs than ownership did, would the extensions have happened? you don't think so either? i rest my case.
meantime i have to be for the filthadelphia filthiex even though they are the principal rivals of my noble, doomed washington nationals. (whose unjustly-fired ex-manager manny acta, an adult human being and a class act, has just hooked on with the cleveland indianx, for whom i will cheerfully root in the 2010 AL.) usually you want to beat the team that beat you. but in this case following that rule would mean rooting for the disgusting NY yanx. not none o' me.
now, i was for the yanx one time. it was late in about 1984 to 88 when the oriolex had to be my team even though earl weaver wasn't there anymore. in september there was a team ahead of the o'x in the standings that needed to be beaten for the o'x to advance. the other team was playing the yanx and, despite every fibre of my being emitting tortured screams of the souls of the damned in hell, i rooted for the yanx: for one game, maybe two. then the o'x fell back into their usual post-weaver mediocrity and there was no tactical need to adopt the putrid bronxians.
for the record, there are no circumstances, conceivable or inconceivable, under which i would ever root for the yanx in the playoffs, much less the woild serious. not that people in new york aren't entitled to. they are. (although i do look askance at guys from phoenix wearing yanx attire.) but i can't do it myself. not only has steinbrenner's profligate and self-centered stewardship been uniformly disastrous for baseball as a whole, but although papa s's ego needed no inflating, it obscenely bestrode the public face of yanquidom. and then there are the NY fans, as blatantly provincial as any southerner while pretending to vast and mostly unmerited sophistication. they are best exemplified by that rabbit-toothed ex-mayor giuliani, called by jimmy breslin 'a small man in search of a balcony,' whose in-office malfeasance and neglect directly caused the deaths of firefighters on 9/11 behind whose heroism he continually hides.
besides, i always prefer my championships earned, rather than bought. they are just more tasty that way. as for foxic TV and the repetitively redundant and redundant repetitions of tim mccarver, thank god for jon miller and joe morgan on ESPN radio. so here's to champagne along the schuylkill river this year, same as last, and to tears, salt tears in the bronx. and to a three-day nor'easter along the way...
the commissioner of the owners of baseball is derelict in his duty at best. (like all used car dealers he thinks the problem is marketing, not the quality of the product.) the season started late this year because of some cockamamie idea of his. this time it was an international baseball tournament which, like all international baseball except the blue jays, ought to be played during winter ball so it doesn't interfere with the delicate rhythms of spring training, much less push back the end of the season beyond indian summer.
extra levels of playoff and the wild card were introduced by that same invertebrate pseudo-commissioner whose bumbling tinkerings with the game have masked his inability, or unwillingness, to protect what matters. but in his drooling incompetence the owner's commissioner forgot to shorten the season (say from 162 back to the historic norm of 156 games) so as to leave time to play baseball during actual, genuine baseball weather.
because even the venal collection of millionaires that owns baseball is incapable of creating any more summer climate in north america than god allows for. trying to stretch it leads to weather disasters such as were seen in this years' league series and last year's woild serious.
i personally am holding out for three rainouts and a snow day just to publicly humiliate baseball ownership's greed. here's a clue: if baseball players made more money from the extended season and playoffs than ownership did, would the extensions have happened? you don't think so either? i rest my case.
meantime i have to be for the filthadelphia filthiex even though they are the principal rivals of my noble, doomed washington nationals. (whose unjustly-fired ex-manager manny acta, an adult human being and a class act, has just hooked on with the cleveland indianx, for whom i will cheerfully root in the 2010 AL.) usually you want to beat the team that beat you. but in this case following that rule would mean rooting for the disgusting NY yanx. not none o' me.
now, i was for the yanx one time. it was late in about 1984 to 88 when the oriolex had to be my team even though earl weaver wasn't there anymore. in september there was a team ahead of the o'x in the standings that needed to be beaten for the o'x to advance. the other team was playing the yanx and, despite every fibre of my being emitting tortured screams of the souls of the damned in hell, i rooted for the yanx: for one game, maybe two. then the o'x fell back into their usual post-weaver mediocrity and there was no tactical need to adopt the putrid bronxians.
for the record, there are no circumstances, conceivable or inconceivable, under which i would ever root for the yanx in the playoffs, much less the woild serious. not that people in new york aren't entitled to. they are. (although i do look askance at guys from phoenix wearing yanx attire.) but i can't do it myself. not only has steinbrenner's profligate and self-centered stewardship been uniformly disastrous for baseball as a whole, but although papa s's ego needed no inflating, it obscenely bestrode the public face of yanquidom. and then there are the NY fans, as blatantly provincial as any southerner while pretending to vast and mostly unmerited sophistication. they are best exemplified by that rabbit-toothed ex-mayor giuliani, called by jimmy breslin 'a small man in search of a balcony,' whose in-office malfeasance and neglect directly caused the deaths of firefighters on 9/11 behind whose heroism he continually hides.
besides, i always prefer my championships earned, rather than bought. they are just more tasty that way. as for foxic TV and the repetitively redundant and redundant repetitions of tim mccarver, thank god for jon miller and joe morgan on ESPN radio. so here's to champagne along the schuylkill river this year, same as last, and to tears, salt tears in the bronx. and to a three-day nor'easter along the way...
Labels: baseball, world series
posted by Slangwhanger-in-Chief at 10/27/2009 05:46:00 PM
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