AWWW SHIT!!
"This is war. And every line is about who I don't want to write about anymore."
- Brand New
Warning: From now on until, oh, mid to late October, this blog may get really, really baseball heavy at times. As I type this, it is the bottom of the 8th inning, and the Yankees are winning 9-1. Johnson looked sharp, Wells did not, it's early, doesn't really mean anything-- but baseball is back. It's good to know that it's back, for real. And maybe it was just opening day and everyone was hyped, but it was a little more charged than just a normal regular season game (of course, with the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry the way it is, every game they play is probably going to fall somewhere between "a little more hype for this one" and "seventh game of the ALCS" on the intensity meter).
To all the people that tought the Red Sox finally winning a World Series would quiet down this rivalry: Uh-uh. If anything, the Red Sox taking the title last year has only pushed baseball's version of the Cold War ever closer to nuclear winter. The Sox winning a title has only pushed things to the limit more-- Yankee fans can't chant "1918," Red Sox fans can chant "Year 2000" if they want, the 2004 Sox victory has attempted to slightly balance out the ledger (notice I said slightly). It's almost as if the Yankees and their fans, who consider the World Series their birthright, conveniently forgot or refused to think about the Diamondbacks, Angels, and Marlins. However, the Yankees can't ignore the Sox, can't pretend it's nothing major (because in the Yankee universe it is), so now it's like "Fuckers, yo'uve taken our birthright, and we're getting it back. It's war now." This is the most riveting spectacle in sports right now, ahead of Michigan-Ohio State in football, Duke-UNC in basketball, or Kobe-Shaq in the NBA.
One thing I've said before, and I'll say it again: I can't imagine the kind of pressure that the Yankees are under every day from now until the end of October. Unfortunately, I had to watch the game on the YES Network rather than ESPN, but watching their atrocious coverage pointed out one thing that I found interesting: At the start of the game, a taped A-Rod came on and said something like "The journey to the 27th World Championship starts now." That is the Yankee mindset-- not that we're gonna compete, not that we're gonna be good, but that the World Series is ours. From now until October, it's war. Can you imagine the kind of pressure that is? I mean, the Yankees make no bones about it from the beginning: It's World Series or bust. No other team makes that kind of admission, no other team operates like that, and no other team aspires to such a level of coldbloodness. If anything, it's kind of refreshing, in a way, that the Yankee players make no bones about the fact that they are Steinbrenner's mercenaries sent to bring home the Grail. In no other city does that kind of thinking-- win the World Series or everything you guys have done for the past six months is a complete waste of time and several hundred million dollars-- pervail. It's not the kind of environment I'd want to play in, were I a professional ball player.
And that's got to come into play at some point. You think the Red Sox could have come back from that 3-0 hole in the ALCS if they had that mindset? Probably not. The whole genius of the 2004 Red Sox was that they weren't that mercenary, that even though they deserved to feel more pressure (from not winning the World Series in 86 years, from facing another humiliating, crushing loss to the Yankees), they didn't. Part of what allowed them to finally end the drought was that these guys were "idiots"-- loose guys who didn't let alot of external stuff affect them. Would the Yankees have been able to do what the Sox did? Probably not, and that's cuz of the mindset of the franchise and the clubhouse. Instead, in the Boston clubhouse, those guys were just like "Whatever, dogg. Roberts is gonna steal this base, Papi's gonna rope another one into the night, Schilling's gonna play Willis Reed, it's all good. " I just don't know if thats possible in the Yankee culture, where everyone it seems is waiting on bated breath every day for George Steinbrenner to explode and go off into one of his famous half cocked rants, firing everyone and preaching fire and brimstone.
Man, oh man, it's gonna be a good season. Hot shit, baseball is back!
And you know what? I don't care about the steroid scandal (Alex Sanchez, you're an idiot). I care about the fact that at 2 PM tomorrow, I'll be sitting at a desk at work, bored out of my mind, feverishly checking ESPN.com for score updates, rather than sitting in a seat at Shea or in front of the TV to watch the Mets open up in Cincinnati.
Note: this does not mean that Mental Sword Fighting will become strictly a baseball blog. You will still get my ramblings and weird thoughts (which I haven't really posted any of yet, but they're coming-- all three people who used to read my Collegian column at Kenyon should have an idea of what I'm talking about) as well as music and movie reviews, and other random shit. But if a major trade happens, or the Mets go on a prolonged losing streak, or the Yankees go on a prolonged winning streak and there fans get unbearably smug, you'll hear about it from me here.
Anywho, just wanted to quickly jot down my thoughts of joy about opening day (I'm trying to get better with this whole blogging/posting content thing, seriously), but I would like to give a special shout out to Christie at All Things Christie for being the first person to put me on their blogroll-- I appreciate it! That, along with Jane from firedoglake leaving me a comment on an earlier post (I swear to God, the Bloc Party review is coming, honest)-- it's good to know that people who have blogs that you enjoy reading are at least reading yours and maybe possibly care about your opinion. Good to know the message is getting out there and the gospil is being spread.
That's dope.
- Brand New
Warning: From now on until, oh, mid to late October, this blog may get really, really baseball heavy at times. As I type this, it is the bottom of the 8th inning, and the Yankees are winning 9-1. Johnson looked sharp, Wells did not, it's early, doesn't really mean anything-- but baseball is back. It's good to know that it's back, for real. And maybe it was just opening day and everyone was hyped, but it was a little more charged than just a normal regular season game (of course, with the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry the way it is, every game they play is probably going to fall somewhere between "a little more hype for this one" and "seventh game of the ALCS" on the intensity meter).
To all the people that tought the Red Sox finally winning a World Series would quiet down this rivalry: Uh-uh. If anything, the Red Sox taking the title last year has only pushed baseball's version of the Cold War ever closer to nuclear winter. The Sox winning a title has only pushed things to the limit more-- Yankee fans can't chant "1918," Red Sox fans can chant "Year 2000" if they want, the 2004 Sox victory has attempted to slightly balance out the ledger (notice I said slightly). It's almost as if the Yankees and their fans, who consider the World Series their birthright, conveniently forgot or refused to think about the Diamondbacks, Angels, and Marlins. However, the Yankees can't ignore the Sox, can't pretend it's nothing major (because in the Yankee universe it is), so now it's like "Fuckers, yo'uve taken our birthright, and we're getting it back. It's war now." This is the most riveting spectacle in sports right now, ahead of Michigan-Ohio State in football, Duke-UNC in basketball, or Kobe-Shaq in the NBA.
One thing I've said before, and I'll say it again: I can't imagine the kind of pressure that the Yankees are under every day from now until the end of October. Unfortunately, I had to watch the game on the YES Network rather than ESPN, but watching their atrocious coverage pointed out one thing that I found interesting: At the start of the game, a taped A-Rod came on and said something like "The journey to the 27th World Championship starts now." That is the Yankee mindset-- not that we're gonna compete, not that we're gonna be good, but that the World Series is ours. From now until October, it's war. Can you imagine the kind of pressure that is? I mean, the Yankees make no bones about it from the beginning: It's World Series or bust. No other team makes that kind of admission, no other team operates like that, and no other team aspires to such a level of coldbloodness. If anything, it's kind of refreshing, in a way, that the Yankee players make no bones about the fact that they are Steinbrenner's mercenaries sent to bring home the Grail. In no other city does that kind of thinking-- win the World Series or everything you guys have done for the past six months is a complete waste of time and several hundred million dollars-- pervail. It's not the kind of environment I'd want to play in, were I a professional ball player.
And that's got to come into play at some point. You think the Red Sox could have come back from that 3-0 hole in the ALCS if they had that mindset? Probably not. The whole genius of the 2004 Red Sox was that they weren't that mercenary, that even though they deserved to feel more pressure (from not winning the World Series in 86 years, from facing another humiliating, crushing loss to the Yankees), they didn't. Part of what allowed them to finally end the drought was that these guys were "idiots"-- loose guys who didn't let alot of external stuff affect them. Would the Yankees have been able to do what the Sox did? Probably not, and that's cuz of the mindset of the franchise and the clubhouse. Instead, in the Boston clubhouse, those guys were just like "Whatever, dogg. Roberts is gonna steal this base, Papi's gonna rope another one into the night, Schilling's gonna play Willis Reed, it's all good. " I just don't know if thats possible in the Yankee culture, where everyone it seems is waiting on bated breath every day for George Steinbrenner to explode and go off into one of his famous half cocked rants, firing everyone and preaching fire and brimstone.
Man, oh man, it's gonna be a good season. Hot shit, baseball is back!
And you know what? I don't care about the steroid scandal (Alex Sanchez, you're an idiot). I care about the fact that at 2 PM tomorrow, I'll be sitting at a desk at work, bored out of my mind, feverishly checking ESPN.com for score updates, rather than sitting in a seat at Shea or in front of the TV to watch the Mets open up in Cincinnati.
Note: this does not mean that Mental Sword Fighting will become strictly a baseball blog. You will still get my ramblings and weird thoughts (which I haven't really posted any of yet, but they're coming-- all three people who used to read my Collegian column at Kenyon should have an idea of what I'm talking about) as well as music and movie reviews, and other random shit. But if a major trade happens, or the Mets go on a prolonged losing streak, or the Yankees go on a prolonged winning streak and there fans get unbearably smug, you'll hear about it from me here.
Anywho, just wanted to quickly jot down my thoughts of joy about opening day (I'm trying to get better with this whole blogging/posting content thing, seriously), but I would like to give a special shout out to Christie at All Things Christie for being the first person to put me on their blogroll-- I appreciate it! That, along with Jane from firedoglake leaving me a comment on an earlier post (I swear to God, the Bloc Party review is coming, honest)-- it's good to know that people who have blogs that you enjoy reading are at least reading yours and maybe possibly care about your opinion. Good to know the message is getting out there and the gospil is being spread.
That's dope.
posted by Black Charles at 11:15 PM
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