Thursday, October 10, 2019

Thoughts and prayers to the Dodgers and Braves, as we joyfully await tonight's bloodletting

In all of sports, nothing ruptures the human soul like a full-scale, total eclipse, Cat-5, projectile-vomit, Mentos-in-Coke baseball blowout. 

Certainly, football has its 66-0 snoozers, and it's fun when the lone question in a basketball game is whether one team can reach 120. But those wipeouts are limited by a clock, and with each ticktock, the end comes closer. Baseball has no timer, and when your team is getting emulsified, there is no guarantee that it will ever end. You might have stepped into a cosmic wormhole, and you'll be here forever. Baseball blowouts are existential crises, especially in October.

On that note, to any straggling fans of the Atlanta Braves - (God, I can't imagine the horrifying circumstances that brings you here) - I offer the rudimentary T & P, (that's "thoughts & prayers," as the human oil cans say.) Yesterday evening, I turned on the Braves game in what I figured would be the third inning. It was still the first. The fans were booing, the announcers were stuttering, and all hope had been sucked from Your Name Here Stadium like milk from a turd. 

So much for that World Series reunion of lost Yanks - Brian McCann (this morning, retired), Francisco Cervelli (the ghost of Scranton), Shane Greene (who brought us Didi), Mark Melancon (who brought us Lance Berkman) and even Adeiny Hechavarria, whose time in pinstripes may have been a fever dream... gone, vanished, disappeared, with barely a memory worth remembering.

Also, so long to the mighty Dodgers, winners of 106 regular season games, and would-be owners of the home field advantage. Sorry, LA, but that long run of division titles may be over, with nothing to show for it. (That's what you get for firing Mattingly.) Think of all those B-list celebrities, all the stars of "the current hit that everyone is talking about," who shall be denied their moment in the luxury box. So sad. To the people of California, my hope is that Pacific Gas & Electric cut your power in time to spare you from last night's meltdown. From now on, you've got Friday night pro wrestling. Cheer up. No scripted story line can be as painful as what you've already endured. 

Meanwhile, this is wonderful! Tonight, one of our Yankee nemeses - Houston or Tampa - will disappear, and one thing is certain: From the losing dugout, they'll be gushing tears like Freddie Patek. We will watch the end of 2019, which until now had been a joyful confluence of victories. Up in flames.

Tonight, we get to sit in the blood splatter section of the steel cage death match, while the Rays and Astros trade gouges. Each pitch in on the hands, each dive for a liner, each inning added to a pitcher's barking elbow... it's an ice cream sandwich, and we will be Jesus Montero. I hope it lasts well into the morning. For the Yankees, it's a cosmic freebie: Barring an alien intervention, nothing bad can happen. 

That it will take place simultaneously with a Giants-Patriots blowout - in Boston, no less - is a sign of well planned juju logistics. I have always believed, even when facts didn't support it, that the Yankees and Giants are psychically linked. The universe offers each fan a baseline level of joy, and in this case, when the Giants win, the Yankees must lose. And verse visa. We should accept this. Thus, tonight, the ridiculously inept Giants will be cat-tortured for four hours by Belichick's grease thugs. But you know what? It won't rattle me. No matter what happens, no matter how bad they beat on us, our friend Mr. Clock will be ticking, and after an hour, we shall be released. But on some other channel, for either Tampa or Houston, the Hell will never end. Howl, howl, howl.  

12 comments:

Parson Tom said...

Howie Kendrick!!!!!!!

I knew we should have picked him up all those years ago.

Could not help but laugh at memory of el duque obsessing over Howie Kendrick as a retread symbol of the wrong-headedness of Yankee management several years ago. You spent a whole winter worrying they would sign him. Well, Howie had his moment, and I'm glad it was with somebody else.

JM said...

I know a couple of Red Sox fans who were incredibly happy to see Joe Kelly go. A lot of Dodgers fans now know why.

Roberts getting pummeled in the press for his pitching decisions and non-decisions late in the game. They did seem pretty bizarre.

So one of the "sure things" isn't going to the Series. Wonder if the "unbeatable" sure thing will get taken out by the Rays?

You can't predict baseball.

Platoni said...

In some old German Pennsylvania (and surrounding areas) towns there are still restaurants and beer halls where personalized beer steins hang from the bar. One uses his while dining, preferably in his Sunday best. It is a great tradition. It is homely. It is safe. It is constancy.

Alas, and inevitably, some of these steins belong to patrons too sick, too old, too dead or, otherwise, too unable to return. They remain there until the hooks they hang from are needed for steins bearing the names of new patrons who've reached drinking age.

Adeiny Hechavarria still has such a stein in Yankeeverse ... in old Did Gregorious emoji lists:

https://bit.ly/2olTeLo

Rufus T. Firefly said...

Who had Washington and St. Louis in the office pool?

TheWinWarblist said...

Poor wee little Freddie Patek crying in the dugout.

Haa-Ha-HAHA-HAHAHAAAAHAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!





Fuck you Hal.

Anonymous said...


Here's a little managing 101...

Do or die game. 10th inning.

Your reliever walks the first guy and gives up a double to the second guy. Second and third. In the pen, and all warmed up is your Closer. A seventeen million dollar a year closer at that.

Do you take the pitcher out?

A) Of course. Your pitcher clearly has nothing and there is no tomorrow so, of course!

B) Let him intentionally walk the next batter to load the bases and then bring in your closer.

C) Go out to talk to him while your closer takes a couple of extra throws and then bring him in.

D) BRING IN YOUR CLOSER!!!!!

These are the only choices. There is no choice that says leave him out there to give up a soul crushing, season ending, Grand Slam. None. It wasn't worth putting it down as a choice because only an idiot would pick it.

Doug K.


Anonymous said...

Delicious, indeed, to enjoy the opprobrium descending upon Lil' Davy Roberts, who has been riding his fame from one lousy stolen-base for more than its worth, for way too damned many years. Boo-Effing-Hoo, Davy. LB (No J)

TheWinWarblist said...

Closer? Bah! Humbug!

JM said...

Kyra Sedgwick is the one and only closer. Should've brought her in.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Agreed, Doug K.!

I would go you one further: START THE 10TH INNING WITH YOUR CLOSER!!!

There will always be time to bring in Joe Kelly. Preferably in the 15th inning, when no one else is left. What a terrible decision!

HoraceClarke66 said...

But yes, LA's elimination—along with taking out the best team in the NL—will now spare us having to see 15 NY Times articles on Davey Roberts' miraculous 2004 dash, in the unlikely event that a certain Bronx team makes the World Series (Did I write, "unlikely"? I meant, "completely fanciful, ludicrous, not-happening, utterly impossible," ye gods of JuJu.)

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