me and sports fandom

a very important thing to me in my life is to be happy, and i’m lucky enough many of the things in my life are settled enough that it’s a goal i can pursue.

this seems kind of obvious, but the more i go through life the more i realize that a lot of people don’t have this goal, or their ways to achieve it are horribly screwed up (ie. revenge). some people’s goals in life are to be successful, or to climb to the top of whatever ladder they have, and THAT is what makes them happy, which is fine. that’s not me; i’m not a particullarly ambitious individual. for some people, working out makes them happy. also not me. something that makes me happy is not getting out of bed until 2 o’clock; i like reading about my sports teams, and watching them, and talking about them. i like looking at pictures of them being ridiculous, skilled, and sometimes a combination of both. i like drinking beer with my friends and playing video games and reading.

when my sports teams are successful and intelligent (such as making good trades, signing good contracts, well-timed call-ups), this is something that makes me really happy. this is a key point, and i guess it should also be obvious, but i find that the more time i spend in sports fandom the  more i realize that there are people who are more focused on being right (“I TOLD YOU THAT CALL-UP WOULD SUCK” “UGH I KNEW THAT WOULD BE AN AWFUL CONTRACT”) than winning. i don’t understand these people, but they’re there.

the flipside of this is that i am constantly making changes in my life to avoid things that make me sad or angry. sometimes these things can’t be avoided: i can’t not go to work when i’m hungover, and i can’t not pay my bills, for example. but in a lot of cases, i’m glad to say i can oftentimes avoid things that i realize make me upset. usually this involves not reading the news, and pretending that there aren’t crazy people out there who don’t think people who love people of the same gender shouldn’t get married or that a woman doesn’t have control over her body, etc, or avoiding shit about the protests in egypt. i don’t hate-watch. i don’t hate-read, either. i’m not interested in viewing things for the purposes of getting angry; being angry takes a lot of energy you could be using on being happy. if you want to refer to me as some kind of ignorant gen Y-er or someone who is straight out of taking the drugs in brave new world, fine, go ahead. i can handle that, and i won’t deny  you even if i think you’re wrong. but there’s too much horrible shit in this world to keep tabs on all of it and keep being happy. i know the gist of a lot of things, but i carefully compartmentalize to stay happy, and that involves not being an expert on the subject. this is why i’ve more or less given up on fighting misogyny in sports – it makes me really upset to have to deal with it, and turning off the tv/walking away/shaking my head and sighing gives me the most net happiness. if you think this makes me a coward or something, then fine. that’s okay.

here’s the key point of the blog:  being a sports fan who’s goal in life is to mostly be happy, i avoid my team/s when they are losing.

TRAITOR! you shout. BANDWAGONER! you roar. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A REAL FAN!

again, if this is an opinion you wish to hold of me, then you are more than allowed to do that.

the above part is tough for me. for a long time i’ve viewed sports and sports fandom as being a very important part of my life. certainly there’s the hours and hours and hours of WATCHING sports – let’s say baseball games are 3 hours each and i probably log about 150-200 of them every year (thanks, mlb.tv!). let’s factor in hockey games at 2 hours each and say i probably watched around 120 of them. i think it’s reasonable to say i probably watch about 800 hours of sports a year. this is ONLY watching. then you factor in the reading about sports, the tweeting about sports, post and pre-game shows, side interviews, writing about it, and so on. The point is here, a lot of my life is spent doing sports things. i consider myself – and this is a big part of my self-esteem – a pretty serious sports fan. a pretty serious yankees fan, and a pretty serious sharks fan. when people tell me i’m not a big fan, i get offended. i make strides to appear to be a big fan, to act like a big fan, and perhaps most importantly, look down on people who are less of a fan than me.

i think sports fans are very big on in/outgroup psychology. US vs THEM is a very important quality, and sports people are constantly making new us vs thems for them to feel superior to their fellow fan. AL vs NL. DH vs no DH. Team vs Team. Conference vs Conference, Division vs. Division. Pitchers Duels Likers vs Slugfest Likers.  Touch Icing vs Hybrid Icing vs Regular Icing. Trapezoid vs No Trapezoid. Roy vs Brodeur.  Steroids vs No Steroids. Non Yankees fans vs Yankees fans. Big Market vs Small Market. I can go on but I think you get the point. And the big one, of course: “True Fans” vs “Bandwagon Fans.”

there’s a thing in psychology called “cognitive dissonance.” the actual google definion is “The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, esp. as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.” basically, it means having two contradictory thoughts, or having a thought and doing a contradictory action. There’s lots of different ways people deal with this – usually with excuses and exceptions (watch any anti human rights politician grapple with having a LGBTQ child).

My cognitive dissonance: I believe that I am a “true fan” (whatever this means – the definition really isn’t important, only that is a valuable thing to be) of the yankees and the sharks. yet i also believe a “true fan’ should stick with their team even when they’re going through a rough patch. However, in my quest to be happy, sticking with a team that’s losing is something that makes me sad. and in this case, my life goal to be happy overrides my “true fan” type of urge. these games i don’t turn on, especially when there’s complaining on twitter. these games i just ignore. last year the Sharks went on a shit losing streak in which they played like complete ass. I watched the first two games and only checked the score for the last three.

do i lose my “true fan” status at this admission? am i somehow less of a fan based on the fact I’m not interested in making myself miserable by watching my team play like complete ass? is my quest to be happy as much as I can impossible to have alongside my desire to be a true fan? these are questions that bug me on a fairly regular basis, and they do sometimes make me question my self-worth as a sports person.

(it’s also why i have a lot of admiration for cubs fans, astros fans, mariners fans…etc)

“this is stupid, hannah” you say, with a dismissive roll of your eyes, “no one cares. you are getting worked up about nothing. the fact that this is what your self-worth is dependent on is kind of pathetic.”

i probably am. i know this is a dumb thing to worry about. but i can’t stop thinking about it. i don’t think the reasons people devalue themselves are rational on many, many, many occasions (hello, western cultural views of women’s bodies! hello academic struggles in a system that only values one kind of learning & skill! hello, high-standard parents!), so i can’t say i feel alone in that my self-esteem conflict seems a little ridiculous. I KNOW it’s ridiculous. but when i just check the yankees score with an eyeroll for three days in a row i feel like i haven’t passed the test to be a true fan. being a true fan requires suffering; it’s not some easy thing you just decide to be. you have to be upset over the losses and happy over the wins – and maybe upset over the wins too because maybe it was a terrible game – to be a true fan. in this definition, being a true fan doesn’t require time; it requires tears. i don’t really get angry at baseball players, and the only time i REALLY feel sad is when they get booted from the playoffs. to my ridiculous self-esteem conflict, i have not donated enough tears to become a true fan member.

but self, i say, in an effort to re-inflate my damaged ego – you’ve been a yankees fan since you were six years old! you watched paul o’neill and a younger david cone and david wells! you actually made yourself a shirt that said “yanks kick ass, red sox suck!”  you cried in 2004! have YEARS on these loser giants fans who don’t even know what’s going on in their own goddamn bullpen! and you’re WAY better than those idiot yankees fans who disdain jason giambi and jorge posada! obviously you’re the caliber of a true fan! not only that, you know about stat nerd stats! YOU’RE THE BEST HANNAH. GOLD STAR!!

but, twitches a tiny little voice in the back of my head, you haven’t watched a yankees game in four days! instead you PLAYED WORLD OF WARCRAFT. instead you WENT TO THE BAR. instead you READ A BOOK. YOU’RE NOT A TRUE FAN. YOU’RE THE WORST. BANDWAGONER.

and while this is a disheartening argument to have with myself, even moreso are the further implications. let’s say eventually the yankees aren’t good. they might not be TERRIBLE, but they can sort of be generically bad – a .500 team, maybe a few games over or a few games under. and what does that mean for me? how much will i pay attention? will i disappear like thousands of losers who never appreciated jason giambi when the yankees lose? if so, am i really any better than them? is that what will make me happy? will i be wrapped in my fandom and unable to quit, but still miserable? will i be happy thinking of brighter days of 2009 and earlier?

 

i don’t know.

realism makes you enjoy sports less.

Hockey post! Feel free not to read if you hate hockey, although this post isn’t necessarily about the game, per se. The game is just the lens through which the story is told.

So, in summation: because Gary Bettman (NHL Commissioner) & Jeremy Jacobs (Boston Bruins owner) decided to be horrible and total dickfaces, the NHL players/PA were locked out until a week or two ago. they had a weeklong training camp and then got straight into a 48-game season, where it’s normally 82 games.

obviously this changes the complexion of the season and how the teams work. Some players played overseas in european leagues to stay fresh (the KHL & SM Liiga are two of them), while others just fucked around playing pond hockey. there’s more back-to-back games, and there’s less games overall, etc etc. so the ideal team to make is a little different, and some players will play more or less.

so, even with these caveats, all teams have expectations. the NY Rangers are expected to be good. Really good, esp. with Rick Nash there. And the LA Kings won the Cup so dominantly…who knew what they could do? And so on.

So enter the San Jose Sharks. They are my hockey team and I love them very much! The Sharks suffer from something many successful sports franchises suffer from: aging. Their core of players – Thornton, Marleau on the top line, Clowe in the 2nd line, Boyle as their top D-Man – are all 30ish. So the questions are always there: Do they still have it? Can Thornton still pass the puck like he’s got a remote control attached to it? Is Ryane Clowe still as feisty? can Dan Boyle play a zillion games and be a puck-moving defenseman and a generally manly man? Ok, not those exact questions, but you get the point.

So the Sharks, coming into the season, were sort of viewed as a “Cup potential window is closing” sort of team. They’ve been to the playoffs for a few years running but they keep getting ran out because they don’t score goals.

But you know, that’s why they play the games.

Enter, our hero and protagonist, Patrick Marleau. Marleau is 33 this year and decided not to play overseas, likely enjoying his time with his family and playing pick-up hockey and going to the gym. He is also the sharks francise leader in almost every offensive category the team has, having played every second of his career as a Shark. He is a successful top-line forward. Certain parties have made their opinions known about Patrick Marleau: that he plays without heart, and his compete level is too low. This is the great insult you can lay on a hockey player. Luckily, Jeremy Roenick, noted douchebag, is there for you. So there’s doubts about him all over: he hasn’t played overseas and might be rusty. He had a disappointing postseason. He’s a year older on a team that’s a year older. and while there’s some change – brad stuart and younger third/fourth lines, a brand new defenseman named matt irwin and two new special teams coaches – these aren’t on-ice giant changes. Rick Nash hasn’t been added.

So the sharks win their first game and marleau scores two goals. This is cool. This is fun, hockey is fun, sometimes people score two goals in one game. happens plenty, especially to all-star top line forwards. and the sharks power play decimates and converts relentlessly.

so then the sharks win their second game and marleau scores two goals. and two goals in two games in a row – that’s cool. like, who does that? way fewer people. it’s a pretty sweet way to start off the season, right? hell yeah it is. and the power play crushes the opponent’s penalty kill, over and over. 2-0, baby.

so then the sharks win their third game and marleau scores two goals. and two goals in three games in a row? THAT is a good time. THAT is a good start. THAT gets talked about on the networks, even if only briefly. that brings discussion to the team, to the player, to why he looks so good. and the power play does it again, creative and beautiful and effective, this nasty thing that will punish you for bringing it out. you took a penalty? your ass is doomed and you know it.

so then the sharks win their fourth game and marleau scores two goals. two goals in all four games to start the season. 8 goals in four games. eight goals in four games to start the season, which hasn’t been done since the 1917-18 season. at this point there’s national attention. and this guy, he’s amazing. he’s perfect. EVERYTHING is working out. the hockey gods are singing in his ears and moving with his skates and ever so gently diverting pucks to him, flicking his shots on goal to give them impossible bounces, drawing him next to an open net and giving him the puck.

and the power play? it is wrath and fury unleashed. it is ultimate power and an almighty flood of goals. it will overwhelm you like a flood and you are a sad little ant. it will crush your penalty killers and your team spirit like it is nothing, like it is an army and you are a resistance with no shoes, food or guns.

so here we are. this was a team that people are saying “the window is closing” to their cup chances. the Sharks are 4-0 to start the season. Not only are they 4-0, but they have won every game with confidence. Not only did they deserve to win every game, they obviously and wholly deserved to win every game. they were easily and without question the better team in every contest. the power play is the genghis khan of hockey. the attila the hun of hockey. the hilter in poland of hockey.

patty marleau, still 33, still having not played an NHL game from nov-jan, still having been questioned by Noted Douchebag Jeremy Roenick as being heartless and gutless, has 8 goals in 4 games. he has 11 points. in every game he has played this season, he has 2 goals.

so here’s a question: when does this all make sense? when does patty marleau become a normal top line all-star center? when does the russian cold rise up and strike the sharks power play? where and when does the regression hit? how hard and how fast? will the sharks fail to score in a zillion games, at some point? will they go 0-for-39483 on the man advantage? will patty not score in 8 games in a row? 10?

how lame is this? how lame am i? here i am – my team looks UNBEATABLE, basically (with one small hiccup of their PK, which looked good in game 4) and has the potential to get better, what with some key players injured (mostly brent burns, here, though i’d be curious to see where demers fits in with irwin’s stellar play) and some actual improvement to their PK – and here i am going “well, eventually the shit they are dominating with will go away.” how fucking lame is that?

being realistic about sports really takes the fun out of them. patty marleau is GREAT at hockey, yes, but he is not THIS GREAT. this is not a sustainable performance and i know it, but i REALLY wish i didn’t. i wish i could wake up every morning the sharks play and go TODAY PATTY WILLS CORE 2 GOALS! rather than going ‘today is probably the day patty doesn’t score two goals and the sharks might lose and/or not go 3/4 on the power play.’ because YOU DON’T DO TAHT every game. you just don’t! the noise is so huge in hockey in comparison to the actual stats, especially when you consider a GRANT TOTAL OF FOUR GAMES Have been played.

(side note: I felt the same way when the a’s went to the postseason. i knew that the tigers were a horrible match up for them in a number of ways (a’s strike out a lot & can’t take advantage of bad tigers d; tigers K a lot of hitters; a’s have low BA….Justin Verlander.. etc. and had a horrible sinking feeling they couldn’t win, only briefly buoyed by their game 4 comeback that was then rewarded by Justin Verlander doing what he does.)

the only time i think patrick marleau will ACTUALLY score 2 goals in every game in the season is usually right after he scores his first and right after he scores his second (or after the a’s come back on the tigers in the 9th). in that moment of pure unadulterated joy, i believe anything is possible. there is no such thing is statistical variation and fluctuation, and 4 games is a perfectly good sample. of COURSE patrick marleau can score 2 goals in every game. but that belief doesn’t last long. usually a couple of minutes, while the goal horn is sounding and there are hockey hugs and joy and everyone is yelling (if the game is at home).

generally speaking, knowing that sports are subject to a massive attack of random variation/ ups & downs/streaks and slumps makes me a pretty even-keeled fan. it’s why i don’t really get mad when they lose. sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. that’s sports. but being even-keeled also makes me rejoice a little less outside of the actual even happening. I KNOW!! that alex rodriguez is not going to hit .400 on the season> I KNOW that derek jeter isn’t going to hit .330 this year (i don’t even know how he did it last year). i KNOW the sharks are going to lose. i KNOW patty marleau won’t score 2 goals in a game. BUT IT KEEPS HAPPENING. every time it happens i’m OVERJOYED. and then i know even MORE seriously this won’t keep happening.

but at the same time, even though 90% of me knows this is impossibly unsustainable despite how amazingly beautiful it is, there’s also a little bit of me going OF COURSE HE CAN DO IT! OF COURSE THE POWER PLAY WILL BLITZKRIEG THE WHOLE LEAGUE INTO SUBMISSION! OF COURSE THE SHARKS CAN GO 48-0! that’s the silly fan in me, always rooting for the best (or dreading the worst). that’s the part that cries when people win and stops everything to watch the “history will be made” commercials. and it’s part of me.

knowing a high level of success is unsustainable is irritating and horrible. it’s realism that sounds like negativity and ESPECIALLY frustrating because i’m directing it at my own team. i’m saying you’re worse than you look, and that’s frustrating and irritating because i want them to be the best. and i KNOW they can do really well – maybe even win the cup, who the hell knows? – but this well? i want to say yes. YOU CAN DO IT. YOU CAN SCORE 96 GOALS, PATTY MARLEAU. but the realistic part of me says come on, asshole. you know better than this stupid charade. you can celebrate this all you want because it’s going to end and potentially abruptly, not unlike a russian winter.

(the hitler metaphor is a really good one, as you can see.)

i love my sharks! they’re great! and they look AMAZING! but they can’t actually be this goo, and the power play isn’t going to convert 80% of the time, and patty marleau isn’t going to score 96 goals. i know it because stats. because numbers and statistics and charts.

….but can they, can it, and maybe the most outlandish and amazing possibility… can he?

the joy of sports

I moved to the Bay Area in May of 2010. This year is important, so remember it.

At this point I had no particular feelings about the Giants at all. I felt they were an okay team. Low-offense, definitely. Great pitching. But they were sort of a generic team to me at this point, and I’m sure to many others.

Then came 2010, which featured the 2010 Giants: Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, and Brian Wilson. Supporting cast of Barry Zito, Sergio Romo, and beards. I went down to San Jose to watch them win the World Series with the guy I was currently with, and we got drunk and screamed and cheered because Fuck Texas, seriously. Fuck Texas. Anyone but Texas. And thus, go Giants. This was convenient for me. We high-five peopled and ran out into the streets yelling and people were honking their horns. It was grand.

At that moment, I was a Giants fan. (What being a fan of a team to me is sort of a complicated manner – see below.) Lord, was I glad that team won. And so was everyone else.

I think my favorite part of almost any event is being with people who enjoy it as much as I do. This is one of the reasons that, if I am at an event where my teams, I will almost always root for the home team (unless I’m in Fenway/Texas/Vancouver). I like being surrounded by people who enjoy what’s going on. I feed off that. (Related: I also enjoy being in the mosh at a concert, and hate concerts where everyone sits.)
I was a Giants fan because everyone was a Giants fan (also, Fuck Texas). Call me a bandwagoner if you so desire. It was fun, for a week, to be a Giants fan. After all, it’d been a week or more since my team had been eliminated, so having someone to root for for real was nice. Nothing is like rooting for one’s sports team. Nothing is like rooting for something.

And then I attended the parade. Now, take what we know about how much I like being around people who are enjoying the same thing I am, and multiply it by a crazy city tripping over it’s own joy. Wanting something for so long, and so passionately, and finally getting it. And getting it in style too – with Huff’s rally thong, and Wilson’s beard, and Tim’s long hair, and everything else. It was a crazy way to win a world series, and the real Giants fans, and the whole fucking city of San Francisco – they loved it. They were nuts. It was really hot that day, and me and my then-boyfriend had walked forever, and I had work later. But we stayed as long as we could, in the packed throng that was the city. I saw Huff hoist that rally thong above his head triumphantly and, as sports fans tend to feel, like I was just as victorious as he was. Me and Aubrey Huff – together, we were Giant.

Afterwards, there was a lengthy speech in which all the keys and celebration was given. There was yelling. There was even yelling for Travis Ishikawa. It was amazing. I had to leave early because I had work (and I was even late to work), but I would have stayed there for hours if I could, soaking that up. Being with people who enjoy something so much it just leaks out in screams and through pores. You can’t be there without having a good time.

This is an important point, so just put it to the side for a while.

So, then comes that period where everyone must have a Giants hat and a Giants shirt. And everyone must be a Giants fan. Everyone must acquire and then clutch their panda hats in their brand new park with their flashy, personality-laden team. (I had a coworker even say to me “I got a Giants shirt because you know, they won, right?” and i nodded and tried not to be irritated.)

Then I started to dislike the Giants. Not hate, really.

You see, I went to A’s games. I wasn’t really an A’s fan – not in 2010 and not in 2011. I was an A’s season ticket holder, yes, but not really a fan. I don’t know if I was a fan then, but I wouldn’t say I was. Yes, I had season tickets, and yes, I scored every game I went to, and yes, I stayed to the ninth inning even if they were losing 12-0, but I didn’t really care if they won. The reason I became an A’s season ticket holder was because the tickets were extremely cheap, and it was more convenient to me than the Giants. I didn’t care what bay team was mine. the Yankees were really mine, and screw both these teams.

But anyway, after the Giants won, everyone was a Giants fan, and no one likes a bandwagoner. This was my primary impetus to not like the Giants. Additionally, I fostered a “little brother complex” towards the Giants because I liked the A’s/was an A’s fan*/went to their game. Like Mets fans to the Yankees, with the west-coast ease of it.

So, fuck the Giants. It was easy. It’s easy to not like things. (Liking things is harder, which is why I think there are so many mean people in the world). And it was easy to “fuck the Giants” all through 2011 when they got beaten into the playoffs by the Diamondbacks (ha ha, suckers, I said. Fuck the Giants.). I liked the Diamondbacks because 2001 seemed like so long ago and Mark Grace and Daron Sutton, usually both drunk, would make the games fun. Make idiots out of themselves and make everything interesting. I liked personality on my team (unless it was the Giants. Fuck the Giants.) So I liked that. But yet again, my Yankees were booted from the playoffs- this time by Justin Verlander, a Yankee Stadium Special by Delmon Young, and a Rafael Soriano blown save. (AJ Burnett won his ALDS Game.)

This lead to a STL-TEX World Series. Fuck Texas. I didn’t watch some of it. The Game 6 Nelson Cruz David Freese magic happened while I was on a date (I watched the TV instead of talked to the guy and there was no second date). I watched Game 7 with eno sarris & pat newman (also known as NPB tracker). We drank. It was fun. (You can read more about my opinions on the STL/TEX WS here). But whatever, at the baseball. Texas lost, which is always grand. FUck Texas.

So, let’s come to this year. I went to all 20ish of my A’s games. They lost, most of the year. Sometimes they won. It was a normal season until August, and I wasn’t really an A’s fan until they turned from the 100-loss Oakland Athletics into the Team Of Destiny (feel free to give me a hard time). And my Yankees of course – my real team, my heart, my yelling and screaming and frustration – they did good (until they scraped the division out by one fucking game).

The Giants could have all died at that point and I wouldn’t have cared. My A’s fandom* is post for another day. Anyway, when the playoffs show up you try to figure out what your ideal matchups would be. I actually didn’t want the Yankees to play the Giants in the World Series because then I would have to hear it from my coworkers.

I don’t know what my ideal matchup was. Anyway, I didn’t think the Giants could beat the Reds. And I definitely didn’t think they could beat the Nationals. And the Cardinals would probably whip out that shit-ass Cardinal magic they had. (Fuck the Cardinals).

But they beat the Reds in five games and Detroit was in the way of the world series.

At this point, I didn’t like the Giants or Cardinals. I would have preferred Detroit beat both of them. I could get behind cheering for Justin Verlander (for one damn series, out of three) and Max Scherzer and Miguel Cabrera. And yeah, Delmon Young is a fuckface and a half, but so is Pablo Sandoval. But fuck the Giants, and fuck the Cardinals too.

So, I’ve decided at this point I’m rooting for the Giants. For the parade, really. There’s no reason to spite myself out of something I want for essentially no reason – no one else cares if I root for the Giants or the Tigers. I want to root for the team that I will enjoy rooting for the most – that’s the best part of being on the bandwagon. no misery included! Just leave when it makes you upset. Regardless of this, I don’t like the Giants. I’ll be just as glad if they lose.

Originally, this post was going to be about how happy I became upon seeing how happy Marco Scutaro was, drinking raindrops. I don’t know what it’s about now.

Just remember everyone: Fuck Texas. Fuck the Giants. Fuck the Cardinals. But parades are awesome. And like more stuff, if you can.

How Great I Am.

I made a great joke at Joe Pawlikowski’s expense. It was a terribly sick burn.

nonbaseball post, emotions.

baseball boyfriend post

I’m gonna try to make this quick. this is how i feel about baseball boyfriend.

-the point of any corporate entity, such as cbs sports/mlb is right now, is to make money.
-baseball boyfriend MAY attract NEW fans to the game – exactly the type of people we (we being baseball chicks such as myself, emma span, amanda rykoff, caeryn rose, ec) disdain. those fans will buy jerseys and tickets.
-in cbs’ case, this makes them publicity (hits), and fans (new baseball ladies)
-both of these generate revenue.
-everyone makes money.
-the campaign is successful

how offensive it is to people who ACTUALLY play fantasy or previously liked baseball or know how many triples alex rodriguez had in 2007 is not a criteria for success. so they don’t care. and if they don’t care, meh, i don’t feel like giving a shit either.

why i don’t happen to be watching the world series (and why i don’t care)

Over five games or so I’ve managed to catch probably somewhere between an hour and two of footage of actual baseball going on. I’ve been on Twitter for about 99% of the action, but there is an obvious difference between watching the game and watching people liveblog it.

important note: the games start at 5pm PT, and i usually work till 7, sometimes later. that means by the time i can turn *on* the game, it is usually about halfway to three-quarters completed. i’m fairly sure this plays a role.

anyway, i’ve struggled with this. does this make me a bad baseball person? do i have to put back in my crazy fan card because i haven’t watched most of the world series? this is the championships of baseball, hannah! get your act together and watch it! but every time a game is on i just… i don’t care. really, i don’t. and sitting here at 1:23am pondering my potential unemployment (my employer is folding in late nov) i think i have realized the point.

i do not like these two teams. it is not because they are not the yankees. there are lots of other teams i watch on a fairly routine basis that are not the yankees that i would have watched: MIL, BOS, TBR, DET, PHI, ATL, NYM, WSH, PIT, COL, ARI are the ones i can think of off the top of my head. these are teams i like to watch even when they don’t play the yankees. either they hit/pitch well or i’m just, one for way or another, attached. i watch their meaningless september games and their exciting leads and god knows what else.

TEX/STL are two teams i would not watch in the regular season. i have no interest in these teams. it just never happened. i hate texas, which i suppose counts as an interest, but i’m not interested in actively turning a game on FOR texas. the same for the cards – if STL is playing PHI, i’m rooting for PHI. if STL is playing….PHI, WSH, PIT, COL, ARI, MIL…i’m not rooting for the redbirds.

and there is nothing special about this game independently. the game has the same rules, the same wierd shit happening, the same predictability. there is stuff on the line – the world championship – but… i don’t really think i care who wins. i mean, i want texas to win less than st. louis, but i don’t really give a shit. i’ll know, of course, for my baseball repository of knowledge, but i don’t care. unless it’s the yankees (or maybe boston, tampa or detroit), i really don’t give a shit who wins it. these are fairly evenly-matched teams. medium starting pitching. rebuilt bullpens. power hitters. overmanaging. it’s not like offense-heavy texas is vs pitching-crazed san francisco, here.

so, i don’t care who wins the world series. so what inspires me to watch the games? to see the players? you want me to watch this game so i can see lance lynn come in with two on and no out? you want me to watch mitch moreland hit a homer? this is what is supposed to be thrilling? marc rzepczynski? octavio dotel? really? there is a kind of pleasure in watching the absurd succeed, i’ll give you that. but there is really no suspense, in my opinion. watching mariano rivera face david ortiz with a man on third and two outs has a suspense: amazing pitcher, amazing hitter. watching 2011-improved lance berkman face scott feldman has no suspense. if napoli wins, i go ‘of course.’ if feldman wins, i go, ‘well, in baseball, 30% is considered successful.’ am i jaded to baseball? have i come to rely too much on the stats that the surprise no longer matters? is there something wrong with me? i am still impressed with pujols’ power. i still love how napoli screwed the angels. i love watching pitchers helplessly swing and miss, ian kinsler plays, and so forth. but to wait for those plays i have to see these pitchers i don’t care about. tony la russa overmanaging. bunts. TOOTBLANs. I have to listen to joe buck and tim mccarver. it seems like the bad outweighs the good.is there something wrong with me?

what’s the best matchup – for suspense of good player v good player factor – that you can think of in this series? hamilton vs motte? napoli vs carpenter? feliz vs pujols? wilson vs berkman? i don’t know. none of those sound like halladay vs m. stanton or m. rivera vs bautista or strasburg vs jose reyes.

what i care about is good baseball at this point. and rzepczynski and dotel and feldman… those don’t strike me as “good baseball” names. and yes, they could throw some good ball. and they have. and you can’t predict baseball. but the name factor is almost overwhelming for me, combined with how i judge samples. it’s cool that marc rzepczynski got hot at the right time. that doesn’t make him good.

i don’t need the postseason to tell me who the good ballplayers are. the regular season is there for that. and i know who they are: bautista, granderson, ellsbury, kemp, braun… halladay, rivera, hamels, kershaw, sabathia, verlander, and so forth.

and on top of that, i have to listen to this shit broadcast?

a couple of people have told me that this is a “great series.” i don’t know what that means. is it like a tv show, where you watch the first, second, or eighth episode, and then you’re hooked? i don’t have time to watch a three hour ballgame to persuade me to watch more. i watched the entire baseball season for that (assuming i watched 200 games x 3.5 hrs a pop – an extremely conservative estimate – that’s over 800 hours of baseball not counting live games). maybe there is some great baseball coming in here. but to me, arthur rhodes loading the bases in the ninth inning so neftali feliz can get albert pujols to ground into a double play is not “great baseball.” that is “dodging a bullet.”

to summarize…for me, watching the world series mean i would be:
-watching two teams (neither of which i like) win an award (that i don’t care who gets it between them) while listening a terrible broadcast (that i don’t like) and watching players (which i am not invested in) do things. and while i may miss some good baseball, i will avoid the compulsive overmanaging, awful broadcast, eye-rolling names to make the playoffs, and downright bad baseball.

maybe i am being too hard on the rangers and the cardinals. maybe i have some subliminal east coast bias. maybe i am just spoiled/blessed by the the yankees and, overall, the AL East. but that doesn’t change the fact that i certainly don’t *feel* like i’ve missed much. and this is the world fucking series. i love baseball. i should be pining for every game. why don’t i?

if you’ve read all 1100 words, feel free to tell me what you think about my conundrum in the comments.

2011 in review remix

about twitter (an angry, whining rant)

you  may think less about me after reading this but i really do not give a shit.

Jesus Montero is coming up tomorrow and I should be excited. I am excited. I guess. I shouldn’t have to kind of be excited over a top-3-in-baseball prospect. I should be pissing my pants excited. I should be jumping up in my office yelling in happiness. But you know what? I’m not. I guess I am kind of excited. My xEXC (normalized excitement excluding other emotions) is very high. but my EXC is not high at all. I’m kind of dreading it, actually. Can you believe that? A crazy Yankees fan like myself, a blogger, DREADING the calling-up of a huge prospect with a giant bat. Funny, huh?

But you know what, I’m just not looking forward to it. I”m looking forward to him PLAYING. I’m looking forward to his great career, hopefully in pinstripes. I’m looking forward to him winning awards and having bad interviews with kim jones and being pied. But I’m not excited about his call-up. i think this is twitter’s fault. it’s also a little my fault, i think. or somehow a combination of these two things.

this moment has been so yelled about and discussed and beaten so badly that i’m basically glad it’s finally HERE. FINALLY everyone will stop yelling about calling up montero. FINALLY the scranton mayor jokes can stop. FINALLY the laziness and badattitude in AAA quips by both tweets and journalists can stop. FINALLY WE ARE DONE WITH THAT. OK. MONTERO IS FUCKING CALLED UP. SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY. THANK MO JESUS CHRIST AND THE LORD.

But you know what? No matter what happens, I will be angry at someone. If he succeeds, certain parties will be absolutely INSUFFERABLE about how right they were that Montero should be called up. They will wonder why the Yankees Org in power did not call him up earlier. They will use their knowledge in knowing montero will succeed to buoy whatever other else thing they want to happen next.

Then again, if he fails, there will be endless discussion about why. Is it his bat speed? Is he still lazy even though he’s in the majors now? Is it the work ethic? Thousands of words will be donated to dissecting why this TWENTY ONE YEAR OLD KID isn’t hitting. WHEN I WAS TWENTY ONE I WAS DRUNK MOST OF THE TIME. when he is twenty one HE IS MASHING AAA LONGBALLS (at least now). Obviously, there’s no comparison between me and jesus montero, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a kid. so jesus christ quite with the judging shit already. you know what, if  i was 21 and felt i had PERFECTLY shown i was ready for an upgrade and was being ignored, i’d be pissed off too. and maybe i would be a little obnoxious about it. obviously that’s not the ideal mental space you want for your ballplayer but i certainly UNDERSTAND why he would be that way.

At his first plate appearance, if he gets on, there will be screams of joy. People will compare him to Babe Ruth or Reggie Jackson or Barry Bonds or whoever you want. if he doesn’t, everyone will yell “BUST!!” thinking they are so fucking clever and funny.

By nature, I’m a low-stress person. I don’t freak out over losses (though sometimes they are upsetting), but I do sometimes get pretty excited about wins (though I try to look at them in perspective). I guess this bleeds into my theory about prospects (and Montero in this case). I want him to succeed. I want to look back in fifteen years the same way I look back on Jeter and say, “Aww, I remember when he was so bulky and we were all begging to call him up and then he mashed all over and was World Series MVP.” I would want NOTHING more than that. But I feel like this whole thing as been so repeated and yelled and discussed by the echo chamber than is Twitter. I am tired of it. I just want it to happen. I just can’t be as excited about it anymore.

This feels a lot like the Cliff Lee offseason drama to me. At the end of that, I didn’t even care where he signed. I just wanted him to sign somewhere so I got to stop hearing about him every fucking day. My feelings about Cliff Lee are permanently scarred and I really, really hope I don’t end up the same away about Jesus Montero.

This frustrates me. I want to be excited about it. I feel a little like a bad fan that I’m not squealing in joy. But I just… I just can’t. He”ll come up. He’ll hit. Maybe he won’t hit. Either way, the Yankees will go to the postseason.

This is something else that is ragging on my nerves. There’s all this screaming JESUS WILL SAVE US!! HE WILL BE OUR SAVIOR!! and seriously, what the fuck team have you been watching? really? The Yankees have one of the best offenses in the league. Best run differential. High up there in runs, in OPS, in OBP, Walks, and so forth. The Yankees DON’T need offensive help. Sure it would be nice – can never score too many runs at all. But even with Feeble Posada and Slumping Gardner, the Yankees are a force. And if they didn’t get Montero – or if Montero presses (which still presents itself as a strong possibility), they will still be a force. Another thing I get is when Posada makes this baserunning blunders or hits into a GIDP and people are like CALL UP MONTERO and i’m like “do you really think MONTERO would have beat out that grounder? Because he is big and looks slow as fuck. Do you really think Montero does not make base-running mistakes?” he’s bound to make some. he’s a fucking rookie. he’s gonna do dumb shit. He’s gonna ground into some double plays in high leverage situations. Everyone does it. IT’S PART OF THE GAME. the game doesn’t care if you’re a hot-shot rookie, if you’re a crappy bench player, if you’re a 20-million dollar third baseman, if you’re a career minor leaguer. You will sometimes get the big hits. You will sometimes not.

This insane thought that Montero will come up and beat the snot of the ball is a pretty one but I just can’t buy into it. That would be great. I would really love it. But I do not think it will happen. Maybe he will be better than Posada. Maybe insignificantly so. maybe significantly so. who the fuck knows? but there’s no way you can just take it as AGIVEN this KID who has never really seen big league pitching will just MASH, right? Apparently there is. Maybe he’ll just be as bad as Posada.Maybe he will ground into just as many double plays and be embarrased and won’t be able to buy a hit. Maybe he’ll be cursed by BABIP. maybe he’ll mash. Maybe he will be Eric Hosmer. Maybe he will be Anthony Rizzo. maybe he will be Jeff Francoeur.

I’m excited for Montero. I think he’ll be a great baseball player. But I don’t think he’ll come up and hit .300. And if not buying into this insane hype that he will automatically be better than Posada, that he will automatically do everything we dream of, that he will suddenly wake up and be Alex Rodriguez as a 21-year-old (.300/.350./.496, 23 homers, 120 OPS+, 29 SB, 14 GIDP, in 141 PA). It just seems a bit silly to be. I don’t buy into the “must-win” hype and the “release Posada” hype and the “must get a lefty bat off the bench” hype and the “CC Sabathia can’t beat the Red Sox” hype, and I’m not buying into the “Jesus Montero will hit 1.000” hype either. And if that makes a shitty fan, then so be it. I mean, that sucks, but… that’s not who i want to be.

Go Yankees. Go Jesus.

For your perusal: For single seasons, From 1901 to 2011, For age 21, During first season , (requiring PA≥75), sorted by greatest Plate Appearances: Results – Baseball-Reference.com. (Check out Barry Bonds)

I think I’m going to take a little break from Twitter. Also, if anyone thinks I’m being a coward but not calling certain people out, please say so and I’ll do it.

Your favorite… it’s “ASK THE YANKEE FAN” time!!!

Your favorite… it’s “ASK THE YANKEE FAN” time!!!

Now asking questions….. the Generic Non-Yankees/Boston Fan!

Q: Yankees fan, it’s fucking annoying that the yankees are on ESPN all the time! Your fucking market is huge and we hate it! Can’t you stay on your own goddamn network and share the national TV time with someone else?

Yankees Fan Answer: TAKE IT, WE HATE ESPN. SERIOUSLY. WE HATE IT. WE HATE ESPN. 

Q: Yankees fan, why can’t the MSM pay as much attention to us as they pay to you? WE HATE HOW MUCH THEY TALK ABOUT YOU!!

Yankees Fan Answer: TAKE THE MSM JESUS CHRIST WE FUCKING HATE THEM SERIOUSLY LEAVE THE YANKEES ALONE. 

Q: Yankees fan, Jim Thome is 2 homers away from 600 and no one is paying attention to him. IF HE WAS A-ROD EVERYONE WOULD KNOW!!! JERK!

Yankees Fan Answer: Jim Thome is great! We love Jim Thome! We wish A-Rod got less attention and Thome got more! Honestly!

Q: Yankees Fan, A-Rod is playing poker!! IF HE WASN’T A YANKEE NO ONE WOULD CARE.

Yankees Fan Answer: WE WISH THIS SHIT DIDN’T GET REPORTED TOO, FAN OF EVERY OTHER TEAM.

 

 

Also, I have a complaint. I live in the Bay Area, which is Giants and Athletics country. I can understand why both teams would *dislike* the Yankees, but the fucking hatred people have everywhere else is absurd. I know why people don’t like the Yankees, okay. I’m not saying that’s the problem. No one likes the winner. But this is a conversation I have a lot. Let’s exclude Boston because Boston is shitty.

Person: Oh, you like baseball?

Me: Yes, I like baseball a lot.

Person: I’m a Giants/A’s/Rockies/Anyone!! fan.

Me: Oh, I’m a Yankees fan.

Person: Oh, we can’t be friends.

Me: I don’t have anything against your team. I actually like your team. Is that okay?

Person: Oh, Ok, I guess.

There’s more to this, but I have to work.