Friday, October 8
Well, the Angels are out of it, so this'll be my final post on baseball for a while. I'll get back to music or politics or porn later. But let me say two things before I leave my favorite sport:
1. The Angels showed a lot of heart coming back from that 6-1 deficit in Boston today. I thought the game was over, but they didn't--Vlad didn't. That was a truly amazing grand slam by MVP. It'll go a loooooooong way towards pumping him (and the team as a whole) up after a miserable series. It tied the game, sure, but its after effects will be felt into next year. It was Vlad saying, "We might lose, but we'll go down swinging. And next year, we'll be healthy again and we'll do better--I guarantee it." That's what Vlad's GS told his team and all Angels fans everywhere.
2. Bill Simmons (ESPN's "Sports Guy") wrote a column about game 2 in the series (the one I went to). In his column, he made the following statements:
"See, here's the thing: Good teams take care of business in unruly settings -- in this case, a sold-out stadium in Orange County where Kool-Aid drinkers dutifully bang plastic bats together to make noise whenever they're prompted by the scoreboard.
It's like the sports version of a cult. David Eckstein is coming up ... you will bang the Thunder Stix for him until his at-bat is over ... at the end of the inning, you will give $20 to the usher that comes around, and you will not ask any questions. Geez, what's going on with them? This is like the Tomahawk Chop crossed with "Night of the Living Dead." If the Anaheim scoreboard ever flashed, "If there's a Red Sox fan in your section, kill them immediately," we would have all been dead."
Simmons: this is so wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start. First, Angels fans only cheered when the scoreboard tells them to? I don't remember any scoreboard telling everyone to stand up and cheer when Colon had the bases loaded in the 1st, with two outs and two strikes. The fans cheered because they were watching the game. Were you?
"The sports version of a cult." You mean, like the cult that exists around a team that hasn't won a World Series since the original Armistice day? A cult that creates movies and books and commiserates aloud to anyone who will listen about the tragedy of this sad fate? Or how about a guy who moves to California to escape the bitter Boston winters yet still has to devote every second to living by Boston time and obsessing over Boston teams? That kind of cult?
If the Angels are a cult, then you're claiming that the Angels fans are as obsessive and as dedicated to their team as you and your ilk are to yours. Is that a compliment? I can't say, as I'm pretty certain most Red Sox fans have been driven mentally ill over the past 80 or so years.
Having said that, let me mention one thing: there were a bunch of Sox fans in my section during that game. Most were incredibly polite. They cheered their team on and that was that. That's fine. I've been to other stadiums in the league and have cheered on my Angels in enemy territory, too. No one bugged me then, and I didn't want to bug these people, either. And, by extension, you deserve to cheer your team on--they played incredibly well. And you won both that game and the series. And, let me add, I will be cheering you guys on when you face the Yankees (or, less likely, the Twins) in the ALCS.
What I don't get is why you would make fun of Angels fans cheering on their team in their stadium--after your team beat ours. That's just petty and stupid and rude and bitter of you. It sounds like something another group of fans might do: Yankee fans.
Ah! So that's it. You don't hate Angels fans as much as you envy us, just like you envy Yankee fans. We've not only won a World Series, but we beat the Yankees to do it. I guess that means you'll never forgive us for that until you get your own trophy. Will it be this year or 2018? Who can say? For now, though, just quit bitching about Angels fans. It's pathetic.
1. The Angels showed a lot of heart coming back from that 6-1 deficit in Boston today. I thought the game was over, but they didn't--Vlad didn't. That was a truly amazing grand slam by MVP. It'll go a loooooooong way towards pumping him (and the team as a whole) up after a miserable series. It tied the game, sure, but its after effects will be felt into next year. It was Vlad saying, "We might lose, but we'll go down swinging. And next year, we'll be healthy again and we'll do better--I guarantee it." That's what Vlad's GS told his team and all Angels fans everywhere.
2. Bill Simmons (ESPN's "Sports Guy") wrote a column about game 2 in the series (the one I went to). In his column, he made the following statements:
"See, here's the thing: Good teams take care of business in unruly settings -- in this case, a sold-out stadium in Orange County where Kool-Aid drinkers dutifully bang plastic bats together to make noise whenever they're prompted by the scoreboard.
It's like the sports version of a cult. David Eckstein is coming up ... you will bang the Thunder Stix for him until his at-bat is over ... at the end of the inning, you will give $20 to the usher that comes around, and you will not ask any questions. Geez, what's going on with them? This is like the Tomahawk Chop crossed with "Night of the Living Dead." If the Anaheim scoreboard ever flashed, "If there's a Red Sox fan in your section, kill them immediately," we would have all been dead."
Simmons: this is so wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start. First, Angels fans only cheered when the scoreboard tells them to? I don't remember any scoreboard telling everyone to stand up and cheer when Colon had the bases loaded in the 1st, with two outs and two strikes. The fans cheered because they were watching the game. Were you?
"The sports version of a cult." You mean, like the cult that exists around a team that hasn't won a World Series since the original Armistice day? A cult that creates movies and books and commiserates aloud to anyone who will listen about the tragedy of this sad fate? Or how about a guy who moves to California to escape the bitter Boston winters yet still has to devote every second to living by Boston time and obsessing over Boston teams? That kind of cult?
If the Angels are a cult, then you're claiming that the Angels fans are as obsessive and as dedicated to their team as you and your ilk are to yours. Is that a compliment? I can't say, as I'm pretty certain most Red Sox fans have been driven mentally ill over the past 80 or so years.
Having said that, let me mention one thing: there were a bunch of Sox fans in my section during that game. Most were incredibly polite. They cheered their team on and that was that. That's fine. I've been to other stadiums in the league and have cheered on my Angels in enemy territory, too. No one bugged me then, and I didn't want to bug these people, either. And, by extension, you deserve to cheer your team on--they played incredibly well. And you won both that game and the series. And, let me add, I will be cheering you guys on when you face the Yankees (or, less likely, the Twins) in the ALCS.
What I don't get is why you would make fun of Angels fans cheering on their team in their stadium--after your team beat ours. That's just petty and stupid and rude and bitter of you. It sounds like something another group of fans might do: Yankee fans.
Ah! So that's it. You don't hate Angels fans as much as you envy us, just like you envy Yankee fans. We've not only won a World Series, but we beat the Yankees to do it. I guess that means you'll never forgive us for that until you get your own trophy. Will it be this year or 2018? Who can say? For now, though, just quit bitching about Angels fans. It's pathetic.
