AL Central > NL Central? Pah

 Baseball  No Responses »
Jul 262013
 

I was reading a Paul Krugman analysis comparing the Detroit bankruptcy to the struggles of Pittsburgh in the 1980’s and 1990’s. As far as that goes, it was pretty simplistic. There are way too many causes for Detroit’s Chapter 9 to detail in a short post like Krugman’s. The comments take him to task for shallow analysis and as someone who has spent many hours defending my hometown, I get the sensitivity of Detroiters regarding their city’s dire situation.

However, I couldn’t let this comment pass. Arbitrot writes:

I don’t want to be testy, but as a native Detroiter I’d like us all to focus a bit here.
The Tigers currently leads the toughest division in the Majors by a game and a half, while the Pirates are two games back in the League’sd wussiest division — and dropping.
I mean, the Cardinals leading the division, without Albert Pujols? What’s that all about?

Wussiest? The NL Central has produced two World Series winners in the past decade. The AL Central is 1-2, with one of those losses being the Cardinals over the Tigers. As far as dropping – both the Pirates and Tigers are 6-4 in their last 10 games.

Continue reading »

Hating the Red Sox More Than the Indians

 Baseball  No Responses »
Oct 232007
 

It’s simple really – bandwagon jumpers and obnoxiousness.

In baseball, you either love or hate the Yankees.  But after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and broke their curse (and sadly, Maher did root for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees in the ALCS that year), they’ve almost become the new Yankees.  Suddenly there are scores upon scores of people claiming to have been Red Sox fans all along – so many people in Pittsburgh even began wearing that disgusting red B.  Seriously?

Normally I would ignore the Indians.  But because the Red Sox nation is peopled by a bunch of sanctimonious sh*ts, we root for the Indians.  Doing so in this limited instance does not mean that we approve of the very existence of Cleveland or Ohio, in general.  However, the Indians do not materially affect the Pirates’ fortunes, unlike the Browns.

Keep in mind though that had the Indians won the ALCS, we would have turned and rooted for the Rockies.  Of course, we are not surprised that the Red Sox came back from 3 games to 1 down to win the ALCS.  It is less testament to their excellence than the collective karma of the Mistake by the Lake.  We will continue to root against the Red Sox.

Another reason is Boston’s sports writers/sports personalities – people like Bob Ryan, Jackie MacMullen and Bill Simmons.  Oh to hear them go on and on and on about Boston this and Boston that.  Kill me now!

We all know that any East Conf team stands little or no shot at beating a Western Conf team in the NBA finals.  But now that Celtics have acquired Ray Allen & Kevin Garnett to go along with Paul Pierce, their national exposure will increase exponentially. Even though Allen & Garnett have been two of my favorite players over the course of the past decade or so (and who could forget Allen’s role as Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game), I will be hard presst not to begin to hate the Celtics given the disproportionate amount of hype they are about to receive.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled hatred (of Cleveland).