 |
 |
 |
 |
The Red Sox are trying to kill my father.
My dad grew up living and dying with the Red Sox, and even though he rooted for the Phillies when I was a kid and he roots for the Twins now, if you open him up and look at his heart, I'm convinced it's got that "B" on it. And every time they play the Yankees in a situation of any significance, he steels himself by telling me in advance how bad it's going to be. "The Red Sox will get killed by the Yankees," he says. Of course, he also likes, "The Twins will get killed by the Yankees." The Yankees loom large in his mind, the same way people who get thrown into lakes as children remain afraid of the bathtub.
In a way, it would have been merciful if they had just been swept. Four up, four down, forget it, and everybody gets to go home. Especially after they lost 19 to 8. NINETEEN TO EIGHT, people. Now that's just plain damn embarrassing. That series, at that point, could not end soon enough for me. Sometimes, it just hurts to look at it, you know?
I wasn't really surprised that they won a game when they were down 3-0, though. First of all, they're a better team than to get swept, and second of all, that's what the Red Sox do. They pump you up with a little hope, the better to rip out your liver with a melon baller. They always find, it seems, the most painful way to lose. The most agonizing way. The way that suggests that they may actually be trying to kill my father. I was a little surprised they won a second game. But that was the part that gave all the sports columnists the opportunity to say, "Don't be fooled -- they still don't have a chance."
I couldn't resist last night's game, even though I knew I shouldn't watch it. I am one of those people who hates the Yankees, for reasons that range from inherited (see: Dad, above) to visceral and mindless (I HATE the uniform, I HATE Derek Jeter, I HATE the fans, I HATE the word "Yankees," I HATE seeing them every goddamn year) to the relatively rational (those of us from small-market towns have every right to resent the way our measly payrolls are dwarfed in the stupidest financing system in sports) to the personally vengeful (see: Twins) to the philosophical (I really do believe having the rest of the American League effectively shut out of the World Series for almost ten years is bad for baseball, not that baseball doesn't shoot itself in the foot in a thousand other ways). I was pretty sure I would see the Yankees wrap up the series last night if I tuned in, because they really wouldn't want to let it go to a Game 7, and some part of my brain believes that the Yankees can do whatever they want to the Red Sox whenever they want to. It's inherited, like I said.
Curt Schilling logged more than eight seasons with my old team, the Phillies. He's 37 years old, and he's been in the major leagues since 1988. I'll put it this way: he's been doing it since I was in high school, and my 15-year reunion is this weekend. It's not OLD old, but . . . it's old. I always feel a sense of ownership with ex-Phillies and ex-Twins. It's not surprising that a guy who played all that time in Philadelphia wouldn't give a crap about his bleeding foot. I was just explaining to LTG last night that the Phillies are notoriously, always, unendingly a mess. Tobacco juice running down their shirts, sloppy hair, big guts . . . come to think of it, having been raised in that baseball environment is probably another reason I don't trust all those neat, perfect little clean-cut Yankees. But anyway, a guy with a bloody foot, with the pain and the oozing sock and everything would probably be the neatest and most put-together guy on the team. A guy coming out of dental surgery would still look better than John Kruk.
And damned if he didn't gut it out. Curt Schilling is a fucking stud. He pitched seven innings and gave up four hits. Yeah, one was a home run, but . . . whatever. The Red Sox didn't even have to think about pulling him until the eighth, and even then, the TV guys were bitching that it was too early.
It is fortunate that the umpires fixed the two calls that they got blatantly wrong. How would you like to have woken up this morning to find the Red Sox out of the series, having been denied the benefit of a home run they should have had? Or having been subjected to that cheap-ass bullshit Alex Rodriguez tried to pull? Dirty little cheater. I loved how he acted surprised in the paper -- not claiming he wasn't trying to slap the ball away, but surprised that he isn't allowed to slap the ball away. That was his argument. He didn't know you weren't allowed to grab at the ball and try to knock it out of the guy's glove. So that's who he is, I guess. Did Mientkiewicz (hi, Dougie! We still love you!) block the base path? I don't think he did on purpose; I think he was trying to cover the base if necessary, but he probably did get in the way. Had Rodriguez run for the bag and been called out because he didn't touch it or called out for being outside the base path, he might have a point. But that's got nothing to do with slapping at the ball, which is, and remains, bullshit.
So it's good they got that one right. And the home run call, which wasn't the Yankees' fault at all. And one other thing -- you know, TV guys, there are a lot of little kids who watch these games, even when they go late. Could you please not say there was nothing wrong with Rodriguez slapping at the ball, because otherwise, he would have been out? It's against the rules, y'all. It's not okay to violate a well-known rule and hope you don't get caught, just because it's your only way to avoid being out. Don't say it is. It isn't. It's described in the rules as "malicious" or "unsportsmanlike" to do that. Is A-Rod going to hell? Oh, of course not. Does everybody do that stuff? Hell, yes. But please don't specifically call out what a perfectly good decision that was on his part. Little League coaches are trying to teach little kids not to be cheater assholes. Please don't undermine the effort.
So now, Game 7. Which, in all likelihood, the Red Sox will lose. (See? Inherited.) There's every reason, based on history, to believe that the Red Sox will have once again found the most painful, most agonizing, most wrenching way to lose -- bringing their fans to the brink of a historic screwing of the team they hate the most, and then doing some ridiculous thing like . . . I don't even want to think about what. Fortunately, the pub quiz is tonight, and I will probably miss most of the game. It's just as well. And I think my father is busy tonight also. That's even better.
I'm a little disappointed to learn that A-Rod isn't going to hell, but apart from that: man, you're telling me. I may not be your father, but that game (and the previous two) have killed. Me. Dead. I'm not sure I can stand tonight's game, for precisely the reasons you suggest. But of course I will watch, and I will weep like a baby should the other shoe, once again, drop.
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.frolicanddetour.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]They are trying to kill us all.
Me, especially, by playing games that, in my time zone, start at 1 and go till 5:30.
I just hope it takes several more attempts.
I've got coffee. I've got a brown paper bag to breath in and out of. I've gotten over feeling like an idiot about sitting in front of a computer screen and clapping by myself in the dead of night.
Go Sox!
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]At the risk of incurring wrath, "so that's who he is, [you] guess"? I think it's a bit much, even for a Yankee-hater, to suggest Alex Rodriguez is a dirty little cheater for trying anything to get past the guys who were blocking the base path. Yes, the rule is the rule and the umps went by the rules (which also put Jeter back on first, when in reality, on that tag play, had ARod not knocked it away Jeter would have been on second). However, the rules also allow for taking out middle infielders legs and crashing forearms-first into the catcher to try to disrupt things and dislodge the ball. So it's not like it's a crazy, out-of-left-field idea to try to dislodge it from Arroyo in that situation. S'all I'm sayin' there.
I'm a Yankee fan and while I totally know where Boston fans are coming from with their "We'll probably blow it tonight anyway" thinking, well, I just have to say, everything else seems to have gone out the window in this series. The Sox have tried hard to blow it and still managed to hang on. There's no way to handicap a game like tonight since it's NEVER happened before. Amazing. Never.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]First of all, "That's who he is, I guess," related to his lame-ass attempts to lie -- because you know it's a lie as well as I do -- and tell everyone that he didn't know you weren't allowed to swat at the ball when you're the runner. In Little League, they know you can't try to reach out and grab the ball from the fielder when you're the runner. "I didn't know it was illegal" is bullshit. As is his other explanation that I love: "I don't know what I was trying to do." I mean . . . dude. Just say, "It's an intense game, I tried to get away with something and they caught me. It happens." That would have looked a lot better than this crap.
Nobody who plays baseball doesn't know the difference between crashing into the fielder in the act of running and reaching out with your paw to knock the ball away. There is NOBODY who doesn't know the difference. You're telling me Alex Rodriguez, who plays infield himself, doesn't know that a runner isn't allowed to try to take the ball out of his glove by hand? You're telling me that if he's covering the base and he's making the tag and the runner REACHES OUT AND TRIES TO KNOCK THE BALL AWAY WITH HIS HAND, Rodriguez will shrug and go, "Oh, well, that's not illegal. What do you mean, 'Yes, it is'?" I just think that strains credulity.
Like I said, he's not going to hell. But it's not a move that covers you in glory, and to act the shocked innocent later on doesn't make me think very highly of you.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]I must admit, when I heard Conan O'Brien saying last night that the game was still going, my first thought was ... boy, I hope Dad isn't watching THAT! Thanks for the overview - go RED SOX!
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]IwilnotwatchIwillnotwatchIwillnotwatch.
(sigh) I'll watch. I'll watch knowing that somehow, some way, in some excruciatingly bizarre fashion, The Team That Shall Not Be Named will win.
I grew up on the Prairies just north of you, a Twinkies fan, only sharing my boundless love with the Bosox when I moved to the East Coast of Canada. Now, inundated with Bosox propaganda on a daily basis (our cable stations originate out of Boston), I'm fully inculcated.
Well, not fully. I don't believe. I hope. I pray. I hex the TTSNBN. I yell at my TV. I call A-Rod a dirty little cheater. But I don't believe.
I want to. But I know if I do, they will kill me.
And I'm with you on the TV folks not telling kids that it's OK to cheat. The same smirking, it's-OK-if-you-don't-get-caught attitude came out way back in 1991 when Kent Hrbek (buy a vowel!) wrestled Ron Gant off first base for a pick-off that preserved a Game 2 win in the World Series (over TOTTSNBN).
It was wrong then and it's still wrong, and without making baseball more than what it is, that attitude gets into society somehow, and if you let kids think it's OK to do that in baseball, well, there you go, it's the thin edge of the wedgie. And we all know how painful that can be ...
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Pub quiz is tonight? Shoot, I never figure out when it is early enough to make plans to attend. My girlfriend and I are dying to test our mental mettle against the Mighty Miss Alli!
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]I'm a newcomer both to baseball and to the Twins, but I think I'm catching on (after all, I now own a homer hankie).
The best part of the post-season, though, has been how I've been able to use it in my test prep teaching. If I'm trying to teach the kids how to use context clues to do sentence completions, there is no better sentence than: Twins fans think the Yankees ____________. And I have yet to teach a class that hasn't shouted out "SUCK!" in unison :).
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ](Not that you couldn't argue the Hrbek/Gant tussle endlessly - Hrbek insisted it was legal, and maybe it was. But at the time - and this is the point here - sportscasters who judged it illegal smirked and said "Well, he got away with it, so it's OK." That, and not the call itself, was what I found objectionable. I loved the call.)
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]The Yankees don't suck. Assertions that they do are best backed up by fans of a team that can beat us on the field.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]I, personally, have never asserted that the Yankees suck, except in jest. You can say many things about people who run over their league every damn year, but I'm not going with "suck."
Furthermore, when it comes to college basketball, I am a Duke fan, and we are the Yankee fans of the NCAA, for almost all of the same exact reasons. And I can react with nothing but a bemused smirk to "Duke sucks," no matter how many times the Fark guy says it. I mean . . . Duke bores you? Duke stole your lunch money? You hate Coach K's mouth? Those are all fine. But we don't suck.
I feel you, Sars.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Sars. Darlin'. Love you, respect you, hold you in the highest esteem ... but ... if winning or losing becomes our sole criteria for judging suckiness, society as we know it will collapse. Where will we be if we can't all agree that some winners - in baseball, in Presidential politics, in business, in reality TV, in any field of human endeavor - Still. Royally. Suck.?
Not that you should agree your winner sucks. Just saying. Some winners do.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]I would be with you, Nils, if I believed that I, personally, would hate the Yankees so much if they didn't win so much.
Nobody would be obsessed with chanting that the Yankees suck -- or that Duke sucks -- if they didn't win all the time. I hate the Yankees for winning so much. I don't deny it. I feel like they're hogging what I'd rather see a little more spread around.
Presidents who win suck because they're bad presidents. Reality show winners who win can suck because they're bad human beings.
But the Yankees, to me and to most people I know who hate them, suck for winning. Or at least for dominating. What would I have against the Yankees if there were more parity in the American League? Well . . . nothing.
I hate Jeter for being Jeter, and I hate the pinstripes because they're the pinstripes and they screw teams I'm emotionally attached to. I have never heard anyone yell "Yankees suck!" who had any basis for it that was independent of how much the fuckers win.
If they stopped winning, there's nothing about them I find inherently objectionable. Perhaps it's a level of detachment that comes from, as I said, being a Duke fan, but there it is.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Yeah, OK. I hate them because they win. Damn them. But still ...
Nope. It's the winning. (sigh)
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Linda: My point precisely. I've got no beef with people hating the Yankees; I can argue some of the points (Lord, deliver me from the small-market debate -- I agree it's unfair, now get off me and go tell it to Selig), but if they sucked all the time, they'd be lovable scamps. They win all the time, so they're Vader.
I hated John Tudor for having too small a mouth. I'm not better than anyone. I'm just saying, hate the Yankees for another reason, because that one won't hunt.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]For the record, I don't personally think the Yankees suck, I just find the widespread belief (at least in Minneapolis) that they do to be a valuable teaching tool, at least with high school boys :).
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Linda - Loved the essay. My father is a lifelong Tigers fan, and while he certainly hates the Yankees the suffering isn’t as deep as a Red Sox fan’s. Though he wasn’t exactly heartbroken when the Tigers were no longer in the East. Alex Rodriguez is not going to hell? This is not the prevailing opinion in Seattle, where we aren't allowed to wear "Yankees Suck" t-shirts, so as not to offend delicate Northwest sensibilities.
McCarver et al. basically congratulating Rodriguez for cheating was really low.
We watched the YES network wrap-up (well, flipped between that and ESPN) and a woman reporter was talking about how the Yankees were in one of their hitting slumps. My husband and I both burst out laughing; didn't they break several records for offense in 2004?
I've never liked "Yankees Suck" because they don't, but I suppose it depends on your definition of "suck." "The Yankees are the agents of east coast bias, big market dominance, stupid rules against facial hair, plus they always beat my team" just doesn't work somehow
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Now, see, I'm not so much a "that team sucks" type person as I am an "I hate [Colorado Hockey Team]." Because yeah, "suck" is so vague and doesn't really get it. So saying, "I hate [CHT]" usually gets the response, "Oh, yeah, why?" To which I can then reply with the myriad of - completely justifiable - reasons and the other person then has no legitimate response except "Yeah, well, the Redwings suck." Thus, I win.
And also? Redwings are the Yankees and Dukes for the NHL.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]It isn’t so much that I hate the Yankees, as I hate their attitude. It is hard to describe, and the best I can come up with is “an attitude of entitlement”. Maybe that comes from the history of the club, or all the winning, or a combination of those and other factors. I am not sure. I just like the Mets more than the Yankees. And, considering I am a Cardinals fan, that is saying something.
So, basically: the Yankees don’t suck, but I definitely don’t like them.
at 05:37 AM on 10.20.04
[ link ]Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
