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The Halos haven't recovered from '86
There is no better time to be a voracious consumer of professional sports and amateur athletics than the present.
Unless you're a Mets fan - New York City's perennial second-class citizen;
Unless you're Trevor Hoffman - arguably the game's greatest career closer who came undone like trousers in a rub and tug the final weeks of the season;
Unless you're Gary Bettman - who decided that the solution to his League's seemingly never-ending pursuit of irrelevance was to start the 11-month-long season on the busiest sports calendar day of the year and...IN LONDON;
Unless your "Ocho Cinco" - who told the MNF cameras he was going to put on a show, then was held to three catches for fifty-five yards and on the wrong end of a swashbuckling by the voyeur-happy Belichick-led squad;
Unless your team plays in the Big Ten or Big Twelve conferences - clearly an inferior college football product at this point in time;
Unless you're Barry Bonds' record-setting home run ball - on the way to rest in a sleepy town with a funny looking brand on its forehead to be gawked at for years to come as the symbol of an era in baseball that will be tsk-tsked by generations of museum patrons;
How will the Cubs come unglued in '07?
Unless you're like either of us on Monday evening - each "what-the-fucking!" our way through the channels, looking in vain for playoff baseball and stumbling upon TBS's Craig Sager donning another one of his offensive unis, this time from a ball field instead of the usual hardwood;
Unless you're Knicks owner, James Dolan - who is no doubt rubbing his babymaker against a cheese grater at this very moment in a concerted effort to try and make the searing remorse over not firing Isaiah Thomas years ago go away.
The perfect storm of confluencing sports seasons has left us all feeling like Captain Billy Tine, awash in excitement, trepidation and pure cuticle-eroding terror as a number of our favorite teams are playing at once. But it's October. And October means playoff baseball. Whether or not you're a football disciple (most are these days), you must concede this month to the Boys of Summer and let them play out their fate. The heightened, collective buzz of the crowd both in and outside the ballpark; the clinking of the turnstiles as giddy fans pass through into the echoing din of those giddy with anticipation; the appetizing and pervasive waft of ballpark sustenance; the icy condensation from the cold draft in your palm and that spine tingling walk up the ramp amidst crisp fall air to your gate is the perfect prelude to the chills that overcome you upon catching that first glimpse of the ballpark's retina-burning and pasture-like green field of play.
If you have the opportunity to catch a playoff game in person, do so. If not, park your rump in front of a high-def Zenith and enjoy the access to humanity's superficial imperfections, it's worth your while. Okay, enough with the Costas-esque melodrama, let's talk playoff baseball...
JL: Who is the real Cinderella in the National League?
Is it the Cubs, who trailed the Brewers for most of the season? Is it the Phillies, who trailed by seven with seventeen to play before finally putting Philadelphia on the right side of sports lore? Is it the Rockies, who two weeks ago trailed as many as four teams in the wild-card race before putting on maybe the greatest closing kick in baseball history? Is it the Diamondbacks, who are so french-kissed by fate that they won 90 games this year despite being outscored by twenty runs? You've got two of the oldest (and least successful) franchises in baseball, and two of the newest. A month ago or less, it looked very possible that none of these teams would sniff the playoffs- including Arizona, which was in first place for most of the second half but still looked like a great collapse candidate because of its horrible Pythagorean number.
So which of these four keeps the ball going the longest?
MM: You can take your statistics and your Pythagorean numbers and stuff 'em in your JanSport along with your protractor. I take a much less Sabermetric approach to postseason analysis. Like any office's middle management superstar, I prefer to look at things from the "35,000 foot level," you know, try to "see the big picture." What I find so fascinating this year is that at least two of the National League playoff squads - the Phils and the Rockies - play a brand of ball that doesn't resemble the National League at all. Is this a conscious decision by their respective general management to construct their teams in a manner befitting each's launching pad of a ballpark? Or have they found religion in the truth that American League-style ball sells more tickets and more importantly (maybe), wins more games? Either way, this series will be more fun to watch than tube socks under Tevas at a maple syrup fair.
I predict the Phightins will advance. How can one possibly rationally predict the Rockies to lose at this point? That's easy: their Game One starter has been clobbered by the Phillies twice this year. Philly's MVP-to be, Jimmy Rollins, who was left off the All Star team, by the way, is a man on a mission, and accomplishing it. And the Rockies 13 inning, sudden death playoff game with the Padres will leave them in a physiological sinkhole for the short divisional series and out from that lethargy crater they won't be able to climb.
As for the D-Backs and their wretched uniforms, I'll show you some statistical solidarity on this one: the Cubs will defy their Wrigley ghost whisperers, at least for this round and eliminate the team that tried (unsuccessfully) to eliminate themselves all season long.
Could we discuss the American League now? The N.L. winners are assuredly inconsequential anyway. Everyone knows that.
JL: Don't tell that to the Tigers or their chain-smoking manager. But we're American League partisans, we make no bones about it, so let's talk some A.L.
Needless to say, I'm a bit engrossed in the upcoming Yankees-Indians series. People around here are putting on a brave front. They point out that the Tribe has the best one-two top-o-the-rotation punch in the game (they're right), they point out that in the Dos Rafaels, the Tribe has its best lefty-righty bullpen tandem since Don Mossi and Ray Narleski (or at least Eric Plunk and Paul Assenmacher), but looming in the back of everyone's mind is 0-6. That's Cleveland's record against New York this season. The Indians have been outscored by the Yankees 49-17 in the six games. In one game at Yankee Stadium back in April, New York trailed 6-2 with two outs and nobody on in the ninth, and scored six runs to win, the last three on an AROD shot off Joe Borowski that is transmitting high-resolution satellite images of the moons of Jupiter back to Earth even as we speak. You really haven't lived until you've "watched" your team give up six runs with two outs in the ninth on ESPN Gamecast at work.
To me, Game One of this series is more important than in any other series this postseason. Cleveland needs to break whatever mental adhesions have built up from its rough handling at the hands of the Yankees. This group of Indians, with the exception of C.C. (as a rookie), Kenny Lofton, Paul Byrd, and the by-now useless-except-for-pie-making Trot Nixon, has zero postseason experience. A rousing Game One win behind C.C. would go a long way toward making this a much looser, more relaxed club, and a more dangerous one the rest of the way.
On the other side, there's ARod's own psyche to consider. Give the devil his due- he's been magnificent all season, he's carried that team, he's the MVP with a bullet. But he still has a so-far dismal October legacy yet to overcome, and if anything, there will be even more pressure on him now, precisely because he's been so good this year. If New York wins Game One and he figures as a hero- like, say, he pulls off something equivalent to what he did to Joe Borowski in April- that might give him the shot of confidence that sends him, and his club, all the way. But let's say he goes 0-for-4, hits into a couple of rally-killing double plays, strikes out with the bases loaded, and the Yankees lose. What then? Does he, and the rest of Yankeedom, drop their heads and say, "Here we go again..."
I am pleased to point out, just as an FYI, that the Indians were steady knocking the Yankees out of the postseason back when Red Sox fans were still crying in their Narrangansetts about 1978. On that note, let's hear some thoughts on the other series, between Boston and the Anaheim Angels of Katella Boulevard.
MM: You're still pissed about '99, aren't you? Fret not my Cuyahoga River-swilling brotha, Pedro's already down at his mansion in the D.R. engaging in gargantuan acts of perversion with that creepy miniature figurine he toted around in '04 for good luck. He won't be coming out of the pen to end your season this go-around. But Joe Borowski probably will. (Hee hee.)
As for the Sox-Angels, not even Arte Moreno thinks his team can win this series. The Angels are plagued with injuries, which will seriously weaken both their offensive prowess and defensive capabilities, Game One starter John Lackey's stats reveal that he's spent his entire career as a double-agent on both Anaheim's and Boston's payroll (1-6 lifetime against Boston and 1-3 at Fenway) and frankly, the Red Sox own the Angels' playoff soul. If poor Donnie Moore were still around, he'd lament the same.
Theo Epstein eschewed conventional Fenway wisdom and scaled back on power for solid defense, pitching and even a bit of speed between the basepaths in return. The Sawx no doubt have their warts - a bespectacled French Canadian is certainly one of the more unsightly - but you know things are clicking when the apathetic J.D. Drew is piping hot heading into postseason play. Look for the Sox to win in four.
Posts: 21 Rank: 84 Joined:
9/18/2007
Location:
Crapchester, NY
Posted: 10/3/2007 12:14:04 PM
Not sure about everyone else, but I was going through withdrawal last night like Jared Leto in "Requiem" with no MLB or NFL.
I didn't watch Shitcenter out of fear they would do a half hour piece on some ex-athelete who now helps out window lickers in the ghetto as a filler piece, and Memphis v. Marshall is about as compelling as a JV matchup in rural Arkansas.
Posts: 1049 Rank: 9 Joined:
3/13/2007
Location:
Denver, CO
Posted: 10/3/2007 12:21:02 PM
In disbelief that the Rockies are actually in the playoffs.
Ok all you baseball people, what is the big fucking difference between American and National league play?
Also, this site used to have so many funny random articles, and now most of them are sports satire. I love sports but I miss the Tyler Smith ramblings of old.
Plus Paul Kersey Chronicles, WHERE THE FUCK IS THE NEW ONE??? Chronicles
I think the entire Mets team got deported after that loss to Florida.
NL is impossible, but I do like the Rockies and Cubs. Interested to hear what Cubs fans bitch about if something goes wrong, then the media to report it on the same level as a terrorist attack.
AL I'm going Red Sox and Yankees. ESPN anchors, executives, and janitors all achieve simultaneous orgasms.
Also, is anyone else stunned that two men as virile as Shartan and Evil Frank aren't into sports?
"I fell into to a burning ring of fire. I went down down down and the flames went higher."
Posts: 1913 Rank: 6 Joined:
2/27/2007
Location:
Ventura, CA
Posted: 10/3/2007 12:31:54 PM
I said it before and I'll say it again.
I FUCKING LOVE SPORTS.
I just HATE talking about them on the world wide web. It's gay. Especially chattering on about stats. I do that enough with my friends and coworkers. I come to this site to laugh and make jokes....and masturbate.
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