Thursday, September 20, 2007
Who Cares?
If you didn't know already, there are only two teams in baseball: The Yankees and the Red Sox. I happen to root for one of those teams (the Yankees) and lived amongst the opposition's fan-base for many years. There is nothing more I enjoy than seeing some part of the Red Sox fail: J.D. Drew signing, Schilling as the closer, etc. And I'm not going to stop perpetuating that notion so we'll really only talk about those two teams here...
But as I look at this picture (from the Boston Dirt Dogs website, by the way) and take in all the craziness surrounding the last two weeks of the regular season, I have but one very important and interesting question to ask...
Who cares?
Now don't all call me at once and find out what happened to me or see if I'm all right. But who really cares? It would be one thing if the loser of this race might fall out of the playoffs completely (see Mets/Phillies, Brewers/Cubs, and possibly the NL West). It would be yet another if home field advantage really meant something anymore and it would be yet another if being a wildcard was really, truly a disadvantage.
But none of them are true. The Sox are 7 up in the loss column on Detroit and could be up 8 in the loss column if the Mariners game holds. So the Sox miss the playoffs if they go 1-8...and if the Mariners/Tigers win every game the rest of the season. Yeah, right. Almost the same goes for the Yankees in that regard.
And for all those who advocate for the wild card to really be punished by this playoff system, maybe it's time to get a little louder. We had a string of wildcard teams winning the World Series. There is truly no home park that you can't win in anymore. The Red Sox won Game 7 in Yankee Stadium 2004 and the Marlins clinched on that same field. The opposition has had quite a bit of success in Fenway in October since 1998 as the Red Sox are only 11-8 (if I factored that correctly) at home.
And there is incentive to resting players, getting your pitching staff in order and auditioning guys for the last bullpen/bench spots on the postseason roster. The Red Sox got killed game 1 of the 2005 playoffs because they had Matt Clement start Game 1 and never recovered. The Yankees won 103 games in 2002 but their bullpen was never rested and got killed by the Angels.
But both teams are trying to win the division (even though the Red Sox would make it seem like they're not). The Yankees are certainly making no qualms about their task at hand, and while thou Red Sox dost protest much, they did try to bring in Papelbon for a 4 out save against the Jays and if you read some of the player quotes...they're worried...
So there's really only one motivation for winning the division: humiliation of the other team and their fan base. The Yankees would not be the Evil Empire, we're better than you always Yankees without the Red Sox and the Red Sox would never have had a curse or an attitude or be the Red Sox without the Yankees. Ditto for the fans. I was at Yankee Stadium last night and there were four things that got big cheers. Here they are in their order of volume:
1) Rivera getting the final out
2) The posting of the 6-1 score of the Red Sox game
3) Joba entering the game/striking out Mora
4) Hideki Matsui's monster blast
Who cares? The Tri-State area and New England...that's who...
Although I get the feeling that the Angels and the Indians are really the two best teams going into October, I think it would be fun to see Red Sox/Yankees again...it's been a while ;)
-Andrew "Cookie" Katz (for some reason my handle below shows up as my old work one no matter how much I try to change it...oh well)
PS. For those who hate Yanks/Sox, with Joba/Kennedy/Hughes/Wang vs. Papelbon/Beckett/Buchholz/Lester for the future, this ain't over this year or anytime soon
But as I look at this picture (from the Boston Dirt Dogs website, by the way) and take in all the craziness surrounding the last two weeks of the regular season, I have but one very important and interesting question to ask...Who cares?
Now don't all call me at once and find out what happened to me or see if I'm all right. But who really cares? It would be one thing if the loser of this race might fall out of the playoffs completely (see Mets/Phillies, Brewers/Cubs, and possibly the NL West). It would be yet another if home field advantage really meant something anymore and it would be yet another if being a wildcard was really, truly a disadvantage.
But none of them are true. The Sox are 7 up in the loss column on Detroit and could be up 8 in the loss column if the Mariners game holds. So the Sox miss the playoffs if they go 1-8...and if the Mariners/Tigers win every game the rest of the season. Yeah, right. Almost the same goes for the Yankees in that regard.
And for all those who advocate for the wild card to really be punished by this playoff system, maybe it's time to get a little louder. We had a string of wildcard teams winning the World Series. There is truly no home park that you can't win in anymore. The Red Sox won Game 7 in Yankee Stadium 2004 and the Marlins clinched on that same field. The opposition has had quite a bit of success in Fenway in October since 1998 as the Red Sox are only 11-8 (if I factored that correctly) at home.
And there is incentive to resting players, getting your pitching staff in order and auditioning guys for the last bullpen/bench spots on the postseason roster. The Red Sox got killed game 1 of the 2005 playoffs because they had Matt Clement start Game 1 and never recovered. The Yankees won 103 games in 2002 but their bullpen was never rested and got killed by the Angels.
But both teams are trying to win the division (even though the Red Sox would make it seem like they're not). The Yankees are certainly making no qualms about their task at hand, and while thou Red Sox dost protest much, they did try to bring in Papelbon for a 4 out save against the Jays and if you read some of the player quotes...they're worried...
So there's really only one motivation for winning the division: humiliation of the other team and their fan base. The Yankees would not be the Evil Empire, we're better than you always Yankees without the Red Sox and the Red Sox would never have had a curse or an attitude or be the Red Sox without the Yankees. Ditto for the fans. I was at Yankee Stadium last night and there were four things that got big cheers. Here they are in their order of volume:
1) Rivera getting the final out
2) The posting of the 6-1 score of the Red Sox game
3) Joba entering the game/striking out Mora
4) Hideki Matsui's monster blast
Who cares? The Tri-State area and New England...that's who...
Although I get the feeling that the Angels and the Indians are really the two best teams going into October, I think it would be fun to see Red Sox/Yankees again...it's been a while ;)
-Andrew "Cookie" Katz (for some reason my handle below shows up as my old work one no matter how much I try to change it...oh well)
PS. For those who hate Yanks/Sox, with Joba/Kennedy/Hughes/Wang vs. Papelbon/Beckett/Buchholz/Lester for the future, this ain't over this year or anytime soon
6 Comments:
I have added your site to my blogroll, please add my site.
http://topsportingnews.com/blogs/
Thanks,
As far as the JD Drew failing is concerned, weren't you thinking the same thing about the Josh Beckett deal when he had a 5.05 ERA? It's a transitional year. The NL sucks and it seems to take a year to adjust to the AL and the Boston atmosphere. Not to mention JD's son is like dying.
#1 Rabi stop being a homer, it is quite pathetic. You can't compare the experience of a pitcher and a hitter, it is rediculous.
#2 Go back to the old formatting, the site looks really bad.
Learn to spell, then tell us how to run our website.
What are ya'lls thoughts on the Joba rule? That might come into play this postseason. Mussina seems pretty pissed about it.
Well, I definitely think that the organization needs to keep this player's best interests in mind. I think in the playoffs there may be slight changes to the Joba rules. Perhaps if he throws 12 pitches one night, he might pitch the next day. Who knows, maybe they won't even be a factor (blowout wins, or losses).
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