Imperial Diamond Notes
Why is everyone so quick to write off the Astros after Monday night?
Everyone is assuming that Houston is dead after the spirit of Donny Moore temporarily possessed Brad Lidge? Sorry, but as awful as that loss was I still think Houston is going to pull it out tonight for a couple of reasons. The first is the fact that they have Oswalt going for them tonight. Oswalt has been a money postseason performer the last couple of years. The other is I've never been that impressed by Mark Mulder. He might be the most talented of the big three out of Oakland, but he's never impressed me as a bigtime clutch performer. Add to that the LaRussa factor (the ability of a manager to overmanage himself out of an orgasm if he was in bed with Jenna Jameson) and you have the recipe for a Houston World Series appearance.
The other thing is that this doesn't feel like another Angels/Yankee-esque collapse. I remember that 1986 ALCS and you felt the shovel to collective solar plexus of the team and its fans. You knew they were done. Last year ALCS, the Yankees played with a stick up their ass the second Mo gave up that single to Bill Mueller. And when they lost game 5, you didn't completely lose faith but you knew it wasn't looking good. When game 7 came around, I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but there was a sense of inevitability that this wasn't going to end well and you were planning your escape routes out of the Stadium. Monday night was different. It felt like just another bad loss. Not a bone-crushing momentum turning moment. And it wasn't as if it was a nobody like Dave Henderson who beat Lidge. It was the best young hitter in baseball, probable NL MVP and a future hall of famer.
So before everyone tells Lidge's girlfriend to hide his gun and get a restraining order for fear of Donnie the UnFriendly Ghost possessing her man again...I think we all need to take a deep breath and remember that this is 2005 not 1986.
How miserable do you think Cubs fans are going to feel about the White Sox winning the World Series? I mean real Cubs fans. Not the happy drunks who go to Wrigley once every blue moon and could care less if the team wins or loses. I'm talking about the diehards. The ones who still hate the Mets because of 1969. The ones who wanted to kill Steve Bartman and Alex Gonzalez. The ones who would be in their own personal baseball hell if they had to watch the Cardinals and White Sox in the World Series.
A buddy of mine who's a diehard was in my office on Monday. He's dreading the fact that it might happen. Just dreading it. As he should. When you're a diehard, you should be miserable when your crosstown rival and division nemesis prosper. Being a real fan is about two things, love and hate. Unconditional Love for your squad. Unconditional hate for your rivals. You're not supposed to jump on some Chicago bandwagon and say "I got love for Chi-town, man. So I'm rooting for the Sox even though I'm a Cubs fan." Screw that.
I love NYC. I'm a New Yorker born and bred. But I'm never rooting for the Mets. Ever. In 1999, when the Mets lost to Atlanta on a bases loaded walk to Andruw Jones by Kenny Rogers....I giggled my ass off. I loved the fact that there were Mets fans all over the country who dying at that moment. Old Mets fans who probably would die without seeing their team win again. Young ones who were scarred for life after watching that and the 2000 Subway Series. A thing of beauty for a Yankees fan. The only thing better is seeing New England scumbags suffer when the Red Sox lose. I read every blog, every Boston Website to revel in their misery. Even though the Yankees lost, I get a certain sense of satisfaction out of knowing that Mets fans had to stop writing about their team when the season ended. That they could only revel in the misery of others because their team won't provide them any joy of their own.
I was thinking of an analogy to describe Mets fans. With the way they dog A-Rod after salivating over him five years ago, it kind of reminds me of the guy who is love with this girl but doesn't have the balls to talk to her even though she's made it known to him that she thinks he's cute. A-Rod grew up a Mets fan and said that he'd love to play in Queens. But Steve Phillips cut any pursuit of him short by saying that he didn't want a clubhouse plus one and a bunch of other nonsense that the Mets used to cover up the fact that they were too cheap to get in the game. Now A-Rod is with the All-American football player(the Yankees) and the Mets are with the baseball equivalent of Marcie from the Peanuts (Beltran).
Mets fans are worse than Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles pining over Jake Ryan when they sweat a player. It was A-Rod a few years ago. Last year it was Beltran. Now its Manny. We should call them New York Mollies instead of the Mets. Hey, that's not a bad idea....
Everyone is assuming that Houston is dead after the spirit of Donny Moore temporarily possessed Brad Lidge? Sorry, but as awful as that loss was I still think Houston is going to pull it out tonight for a couple of reasons. The first is the fact that they have Oswalt going for them tonight. Oswalt has been a money postseason performer the last couple of years. The other is I've never been that impressed by Mark Mulder. He might be the most talented of the big three out of Oakland, but he's never impressed me as a bigtime clutch performer. Add to that the LaRussa factor (the ability of a manager to overmanage himself out of an orgasm if he was in bed with Jenna Jameson) and you have the recipe for a Houston World Series appearance.
The other thing is that this doesn't feel like another Angels/Yankee-esque collapse. I remember that 1986 ALCS and you felt the shovel to collective solar plexus of the team and its fans. You knew they were done. Last year ALCS, the Yankees played with a stick up their ass the second Mo gave up that single to Bill Mueller. And when they lost game 5, you didn't completely lose faith but you knew it wasn't looking good. When game 7 came around, I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but there was a sense of inevitability that this wasn't going to end well and you were planning your escape routes out of the Stadium. Monday night was different. It felt like just another bad loss. Not a bone-crushing momentum turning moment. And it wasn't as if it was a nobody like Dave Henderson who beat Lidge. It was the best young hitter in baseball, probable NL MVP and a future hall of famer.
So before everyone tells Lidge's girlfriend to hide his gun and get a restraining order for fear of Donnie the UnFriendly Ghost possessing her man again...I think we all need to take a deep breath and remember that this is 2005 not 1986.
How miserable do you think Cubs fans are going to feel about the White Sox winning the World Series? I mean real Cubs fans. Not the happy drunks who go to Wrigley once every blue moon and could care less if the team wins or loses. I'm talking about the diehards. The ones who still hate the Mets because of 1969. The ones who wanted to kill Steve Bartman and Alex Gonzalez. The ones who would be in their own personal baseball hell if they had to watch the Cardinals and White Sox in the World Series.
A buddy of mine who's a diehard was in my office on Monday. He's dreading the fact that it might happen. Just dreading it. As he should. When you're a diehard, you should be miserable when your crosstown rival and division nemesis prosper. Being a real fan is about two things, love and hate. Unconditional Love for your squad. Unconditional hate for your rivals. You're not supposed to jump on some Chicago bandwagon and say "I got love for Chi-town, man. So I'm rooting for the Sox even though I'm a Cubs fan." Screw that.
I love NYC. I'm a New Yorker born and bred. But I'm never rooting for the Mets. Ever. In 1999, when the Mets lost to Atlanta on a bases loaded walk to Andruw Jones by Kenny Rogers....I giggled my ass off. I loved the fact that there were Mets fans all over the country who dying at that moment. Old Mets fans who probably would die without seeing their team win again. Young ones who were scarred for life after watching that and the 2000 Subway Series. A thing of beauty for a Yankees fan. The only thing better is seeing New England scumbags suffer when the Red Sox lose. I read every blog, every Boston Website to revel in their misery. Even though the Yankees lost, I get a certain sense of satisfaction out of knowing that Mets fans had to stop writing about their team when the season ended. That they could only revel in the misery of others because their team won't provide them any joy of their own.
I was thinking of an analogy to describe Mets fans. With the way they dog A-Rod after salivating over him five years ago, it kind of reminds me of the guy who is love with this girl but doesn't have the balls to talk to her even though she's made it known to him that she thinks he's cute. A-Rod grew up a Mets fan and said that he'd love to play in Queens. But Steve Phillips cut any pursuit of him short by saying that he didn't want a clubhouse plus one and a bunch of other nonsense that the Mets used to cover up the fact that they were too cheap to get in the game. Now A-Rod is with the All-American football player(the Yankees) and the Mets are with the baseball equivalent of Marcie from the Peanuts (Beltran).
Mets fans are worse than Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles pining over Jake Ryan when they sweat a player. It was A-Rod a few years ago. Last year it was Beltran. Now its Manny. We should call them New York Mollies instead of the Mets. Hey, that's not a bad idea....
Let's go Mets Go!!!!
posted by Darth Marc at 6:49 PM
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