Well for most Yankee fans 1986 looked like the worst case scenario with Red Sox vs. Mets, but it turned out fine and I think most Yankee fans ended up celebrating the way the Mets won it.
I don’t actually hate the Mets so I was rooting for them the whole time and I really enjoyed the way the Mets won. My worst case is just the Red Sox winning, it does not matter who the NL team is. I don’t actually hate any NL teams. I guess I would dislike Red Sox vs. Phillies only as I like the long term futility of this very old team. It would be sad to see it ruined with two World Series in less than 30 years. The Phillies and futility is what gives them their oddball charm.
Your part about the Angels/Giants series isn’t quite true. We Dodger fans didn’t start disliking the Angels until the following year. Up to that point, it had been a friendly, mainly pre-season rivaly, and many people (myself included) were happy to say they were fans of, or at least liked, both teams.
After that, Angel fans seemed to get a lot more arrogant, the rivalry became more real, the fans started jawing at each other more, etc. The last couple of years that I’ve gone to the interleague games, I’ve started seeing fights break out. After the Angels went with the whole “We’re LA’s team” theme, it became the last straw for Dodger fans.
But in October 2002, I was the biggest Angels fan you could imagine. I liked the Angels OK, but it was more about doing anything at all to keep Barry from getting a ring.
The Boston Red Sox are like kryptonite to the Angels. They just can’t seem to beat the Sox in the post season, no matter how good they are.
I like that.
Of course, I would love to see the Sox win back to back. I said when they won it in 2004 that, now that the bubble was burst, they would win 2 or 3 more inside of 10 years. And to go back to back would be like a turd on top of the pissing we have laid down on The Jinx’s grave. But I digress.
So my biggest wish-list issue is: would it be a more awesome series to see Manny Ramirez back in Fenway in a Dodger’s jersey? Or would Cubs-Sox be better – old time, eh? – Eddie Shore? Tricky choice indeed.
I think I’d have to go with Cubs-Sox, 7-games, extra innings in final game. Boston down by 3, with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th … with Big Mother Effing Papi striding to the plate.
Hell, I might not even care if he struck out at that point.
When the Brewers were in the AL, I perceived the Brewers-White Sox relationship as being a microcosm of the White Sox-Cubs relationship. That is, the Brewers fans all hated the White Sox, and thought the rivalry was a big deal, and perceived themselves as underdogs up against a dominant rival, but the White Sox fans didn’t give a rip about the Brewers. Just as Cub-hatred is a big thing for White Sox fans, but at least until interleague play (and maybe still today) White Sox-hatred isn’t that big a deal for Cub fans.
Now that the Brewers are in the NL I perceive dislike at how the Cubbies take over their park nine times a year, and a bit of embryonic Cubby-hatred in the Cream City.
As soon as the game today ended, I jumped online and got my tiebreaker tickets for tonight. We want two Chicago teams in the playoffs . . . and two LA teams . . . and no New York teams.
You know what? Any Met fan that blames Scott Schoeneweis for what happened this year hasn’t been paying attention. He hasn’t exactly been lights out this year, but he’s pitched to an ERA under 3.50 and he’s appeared in 73 games. The bullpen as a whole has been godawful, but all the Mets needed to do was win two out of three in their own ballpark against a middling team with nothing to play for. Hell, they had the winning run on third base with no one out and David Wright at the plate in one of their games last week against the Cubs, and Wright struck out swinging. They could barely put a run across the plate in this Marlins series.
What an awful choke job, across the entire roster. Not one single player on that team deserves a bit of credit right now, and if Schoeneweis gets singled out because his choke happened to be the last one, that’d be a shame.
I hope they blow the team up, frankly. Not for good baseball reasons, but because from a pure emotional standpoint I’m not sure I’m up to rooting for that collection of guys again next year.
It kills me that the Mets gave Omar Minaya a contract extension before this season was over. Not “kills me” as a Met fan, because I jumped that ship long ago (I live in walking distance of Shea, and was a devoted fan for decades, but Minaya and circumstances turned me into an ardent Red Sox fan five years ago). The principle responsible for my conversion is the intelligence of the general management of the two teams. Where Theo Epstein has the guts to trade or walk away from, overpriced under-achieving elderly name players (Garciaparra, Martinez, Ramirez, Damon) this Minaya guy signs up one flopperoo after another (Martinez, Castillo, Alou) and then his team rewards him with a contract extension. Probably the worst Met signing was Randolph–anyone who sign Willie Randolph to manage the Mets should get shitcanned before he does.
BTW: I started the Playoff prediction/October Baseball thread today to cover the one game playoff and give people a chance to put up their predictions.
Worse, it was for only 1 year, and at a cut in pay. It wasn’t a sincere offer at all, just Hank trying to be like his old man by indulging in gratuitous insults. Torre showed as much grace as any gentleman can in the situation.
The Yankees were assholes. They got what they deserved. Torre is in the playoffs, the Yankees are not. Joe Girardi is no Joe Torre; hell, I’ll be surprised if he is still managing five years from now.
Cashman got a 3 year extension and BTW you’re crazy is you think Torre would have done any better with the problems this years team had.
Torre was offered a deal that left him the highest paid manager and with incentives he would have made up to $8 million. I would love to be insulted in such a fashion.
Should the Diamondbacks keep Bob Melvin as manager? The D-backs overachieved the first couple of months of the season, but underachieved at the end, missing the playoffs. I’m not enthusiastic, but I say yes for now. There are no other managers that I can think of to replace him.
The Diamondbacks should let Randy Johnson go.
I’m NOT liking the way the NL West could shape up for next year. Dodgers with Manny? Giants and the Dodgers trying to sign Sabathia. I don’t see the D-backs doing much in the free agent market. We do need a closer. Huston Street of the A’s?
Agreed. Giradi was a mixed bag, but in certain areas, like handling the bullpen, he was a substantial improvement. Torre took a team with 90+ win talent, and won 85 games and a weak division. I’m not exactly impressed by the accomplishment.
You don’t offer a manager who has won 4 world series a one year deal and a pay cut with the expectation that he will take it. Who was the last manager who’s contract was expired to sign a one year contract? I can’t think of any. I don’t have a problem with the Yankees choosing to move on, but they shouldn’t have made that offer. It was the second worst handling of a managerial change in N.Y. this year.