10.16.2005

This is "winning"?

I know I've said many times that we're all winners this year, but the Astros and the White Sox? Ugh. How many more times to I need to hear AJ Pierzynski pretend he didn't get an assist from a terrible ump in a postgame interview? How many more times to I have to see Cardinals batters swinging at bad pitches against unhittable aces and anonymous scrubs alike? This team won 100 games?

The bottom line here is that I love watching baseball without worrying about Gary Sheffield hitting a three-run homer to tie the game or Tim McCarver explaining how Derek Jeter does "all the little things right". I'm not worried about Mike Timlin or the Cubs' closer du jour blowing a save or Kevin Millar check swinging a nubber back to the mound in a key situation, and that makes baseball fun to watch again. All I'm asking is that Guerrero hit the ball in the outfield once, a Cardinal not named Poo Holes get one extra base hit, or an umpiring crew calling one game without a devastating mistake. Something to make these LCSeses interesting.

Who am I kidding? We're all winners again this year, and you won't hear any more complaints from me. Unless Cl****s wins a Game Seven...

1 Comments:

At 1:55 AM, Blogger marklow said...

Had to chime in on this one...

I spent game one and three at the Subway Inn, and the latter turned into a bender, as Pat has mentioned. So I turned in my Whiskey jersey, and now the Angels go home vanquished. The 5 former Expos on the Angels (my 5 reasons to root for the Angels at the start of the '05 season) were uniformly atrocious:

1. Vlad the Impaler: .050 in the ALCS. 1-20, on account of that one grounder. Five percent...
2. Cabrera: .220 AVG and OBP, 9 for 41
3. Colon: Leads the 2005 Angels in IP. 8 IP in the Postseason.
4. J. Rivera: a hero vs. his former Yxxxxxs, .111 in the ALCS.
5. Curtis Pride: deservedly, didn't play. though he's the only Angel who was a member of the shoulda-coulda-woulda 1994 Expos.

The only consolation is that the 2005 Nationals had a worse record than the 2002 and 2003 Expos (who played in Puerto Rico).

It's not that I don't want the White Sox to win, its that my friend Kevin, a Chicagoan who called me from the Comiskey bleachers at Game 1 to tell me "My team lost, but yours didn't win, I'll call you tomorrow," did call me the next night to chime in about the falsity of the call. "We haven't won anything in 88 years. Gimme a break." I can give the Subway Inn mystique a breather for another year, but he was there with me for the Angels-Yxxxxxs and Angels-Giants 2002, with you at the Marlins-Yxxxxs 2003. Seems like he's borrowed the mystique and I want it back. That and he'll probably be at one of these WS games, to watch a team that hit .248 and won 4-straight. We missed this. You and me and Walt Brown coulda had boxed seats and fresh Labatts at Olympic Stadium for the 1994 series against... probably the White Sox.

And do you wanna hear something rich? Pat came to the Yxxxxxs defense just before we went to the bar that night, after I acted all stunned about the Post coming to Steinbrenner's defense.

Pat: Well, I mean they had a hell of a great year, despite everything.
Mark: I'm gonna say it. The Yxxxxxs are the worst team in baseball.
Pat: INJURIES! YOUNG PLAYERS! AGING STARTERS! COME ON! GIVE EM SOME CREDIT!
Mark: You're supposed to bring up young players, you're supposed to have rookies on your team. The Devil Ray fans have more to be proud of.
Pat: But I root for the Mets and we bought Pedro and had a worse year than the 2003 Expos who didn't have Pedro anymore and played in Puerto Rico. And we have Beltran, who hit .265 like he did every other year instead of the .450 he hit for a week last year. REMEMBER THE ALAMO AND MIKE PIAZZA!

...or something like that. Oh well, the LCS gave us a gem tonight, and we've got Pujols.

...at least til Wednesday night.

 

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