Weekend Update

Nothing much happened this weekend (cough) Red Sox (cough). But seriously. When the best team in baseball wins the World Series, how surprising is that?
Yeah, yeah--I know. The surprise isn't that the best team won; the surprise is who the best team is. And why is it a surprise? Because we're all still thinking that these are last century's Red Sox.
In the old days, if the Sox were behind in a seven game series by 3 games to 1, Red Sox fans everywhere would prepare themselves for defeat. If the Sox had a 6-0 lead that suddenly became a 6-5 lead, we would prepare ourselves for the game to end as a 7-6 or even 20-6 loss. We would prepare ourselves for the worst. What we don't know how to do? What we've never had to do till now? Is prepare for the best.
And the best is what this young century's team is giving us. The old Sox found new ways to lose. These guys find new ways to win. When a 6-0 game turns into a 6-5 game, they come back and score three insurance runs. A cancer survivor who has three stolen bases all year steals third and scores on a sacrifice fly. A pinch hitter swings at the only pitch he's ever seen in this World Series and homers what turns out to be the winning run in the final game. I'm sorry. I'm not used to that.
But I can get used to it real fast. Oh yeah. As long as I don't turn into a Yankee fan and start expecting it. If that happens, you know who you are and you know what you can do to me, so do it, because I'll deserve it.
And speaking of the Evil Empire--how classless was it of Scott Boras to announce that Triple-A Rod is opting out of his Yankees contract while the game last night was STILL BEING PLAYED? That's like interrupting your ex-girlfriend's wedding when the priest says " . . .let him speak now or forever hold his peace" by yelling out "Yeah, well, I'm getting married next week--to somebody I met in a laundromat, okay?--so there!"
It's the same old Yankee mentality: they have to be the center of attention, or else they don't exist. They have to be in the spotlight, even when they're off to the side of the stage somewhere. I know, I know--it wasn't the Yankees who did this, it was Boras. So either he's got their disease or they've got his disease, but either way, it's the same all-about-me mentality.

And speaking of all about me.

Roger?










Listen to your wife.

There's Always Next Year in Mudville

The latest episode in the long-running sitcom that is Manny being Manny brings up an interesting question.

When did "There's always next year" become the same thing as saying "We don't care enough to win?"

When did saying "It’s not like the end of the world” become the same as saying "We're not going to play like we want to win?"

Isn't it healthier to put things in perspective rather than view the world as a series of near-sighted do-or-die hurdles? Or does this fall under the "110% Rule," which states that you're not part of the team if you don't say things that make no logical sense?

Me, I prefer the long view.

Agrees:



Would never hire me as his manager:

No Joy In Mudville

In the old days, when Red Sox pitchers gave up four runs a game, you could count on the 8th and 9th place hitters to score like six runs apiece, never mind the power hitters whacking the ball into whatever parking lot sits outside whatever stadium they're in.

Now? Now you yell at the TV screen "Swing at the first pitch strike, you morons!" and go to bed with your left knee throbbing because you sprained it pacing up and down your living room floor.

I remember when the Celtics were going up against the Lakers in the '85 finals and totally blew them out of Game 1, I mean laughably blew them out of Game 1, so much so that the game became known as the Memorial Day Massacre. Who ended up winning the series? LA, four games to two. During which I just sat there in front of the TV wondering, "Hey--what happened to that Game 1 team, huh?"

Same thing here. But it's not the Game 1 Red Sox that are nowhere to be found. It's the Game 1 Indians. Like good teams do, they learned from their loss and got better.

Which means, unless the Sox can do the same thing, we're looking at a Cleveland/Colorado World Series.

Joy in Mudville

I was in an upper west side bar Sunday night trying to have a conversation while the Yankees were playing the Indians, and the way the knot of Yankee fans around the TV were cheering every time a Yankee pitcher threw a strike or a Yankee batter got a hit, you'd think they had all just won the lottery.

A Cleveland pop fly? "Yankee baseball, Yankee baseball!" A called strike against Sizemore? "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, YEAH!" An actual single by Damon? One woman starts screaming like she's delivering twins. "Imagine what she'll sound like when they actually score a run," I said to Ava. Five minutes later, I didn't have to.


Now I'm a Red Sox fan. This means that, while I am only casually acquainted with winning, I am intimately acquainted with losing. And one of the things that losers habitually do is cheer every little minor victory they see, because the big one is always out of their grasp. I know this because I've done it myself, for years. And I can see it in other fans. I can see it in Yankee fans. They haven't won the big one in so long, they go bazoo when they win the little one. (And for Yankee fans? "So long" is less than a year.) It's like your grandmother doing an end-zone dance when she wins two bucks on an instant Lottery ticket. It's kind of sad and nutty at the same time. You watch her and think, "Wow, you really don't know what winning is like, do you?"

Except that it's about losing. About knowing what losing is like. And that is something which is not in the Yankee Fan genetic code.

Back when I was turning 50, I started writing myself a birthday play, and as usual it turned into about fifteen different things at once, and maybe someday (not today) I'll turn it into a novel; but one of the things I did was give myself five monologues, one to start each act of the play. The third act monologue was about the Red Sox and the Yankees. Bear in mind that this was written in 2002, before the Sox beat the Yankees (cough) greatest comeback of all time (cough) on the way to winning it all.

ACT THREE, Scene 1

[Spotlight on Max. He puts on a Red Sox baseball cap and stares out at the audience.]

MAX: There are two kinds of people in the world. Yankee fans and Red Sox fans. A Yankee fan is a cocky, arrogant pretty boy who walks into a party expecting to be the center of attention; and if he doesn't go to the party, then it isn't really a party –- and don’t you forget it. Yankee fans never lose; they have victory taken away from them. They never say that the other guy won because he played the game better; they say things like, "We had a bad day," or "We made some mistakes," or "We didn't play up to our potential." If they were a bank, they would only give credit to themselves. And when they don't win like they're supposed to, then there has to be something wrong with the world -- not them. The Red Sox fan knows exactly the opposite. The Red Sox fan knows that the world, like baseball, is not about winning, it's about losing. The Red Sox fan knows that the world, like baseball, is a beautiful place where horrible things happen for no good reason under the wide-open eyes of God. It's a hard place, with hard rules, and one of the hardest rules of all is that the longer you play, the more you lose; but by losing, you know more about the game. And you appreciate not only victory, but the skill and courage it takes to continue playing. And you develop something that winners, and people who think they deserve to be winners, never have. Compassion -- for everyone except those fucking Yankees.

That was then. Now? Now I have total compassion for Yankee fans. It can't be easy, walking around like you're King Of The Mountain when you can't even make it past the foothills. It can't be easy, walking around like you're cock of the walk when you can't even get it up. It can't be easy, when the label you print out and wear, the one that says WINNER, ends up crossed out or covered with graffiti. My God, it's like you're a walking metaphor for America's place in the world. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Even a Yankee fan.

But I do want to point something out to all you brand new citizens of the real world.

When you lose in the first round of the playoffs three years in a row? It’s not stunning, crushing, anguishing, staggering, frustrating or tragic. When you do the same thing three years in a row? It’s typical.