It isn’t like a Boston-New York game is less entertaining for Boston fans now, either. It’s just as much fun to boo the greedy traitor as it was to cheer for the hometown hero. It’s about as deeply meaningful an emotion, too.
I used to scorn Jerry Seinfeld’s observation that “so basically, you’re cheering for laundry”, but he does have a point. If the guys wearing your town’s name on their shirts are doing well, it does feel good, and if they aren’t, it doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter what sort of persons they are, either. But you know what? That’s enough. It’s just the entertainment business.
Exactly, and as fans we probably take extra joy in the long term player. Varitek, Wakefield and Nixon for Red Sox. Jeter, Bernie, Jorge & Mo for the Yanks.
How happy were the fans to see Mirabelli get traded back? I know as a Yankee fan I was disappointed, because it was such a good and smart move and I was happy the made the mistake of trading him.
Mirabelli? The main sentiment is relief, that we won’t have 6 passed balls every game Wakefield pitches anymore, and that we have some power off the bench again. Mirabelli himself isn’t nearly as part of the community as many other athletes, though - other than the abouve, he’s mostly just a guy wearing our laundry.
Having already attended a handful of Yankee games, and with many more on the horizon this season, I can vouch for the Bernie-love. The fans appreciate what he has been for the Yankees, and recognize that this may be his final season. Right now, if he doesn anything but strike-out or HIDP, he’s being serenaded with cheers to make a curtain call.
Likewise, Posada, Jeter and Rivera are more revered than Giambi, Sheffield and A-Rod, regardless of relative production.
The last couple of nights i’ve watched Yankees games on ESPN (on Sunday against the Mets, and last night against Boston). Yankees lost both games, which always makes me happy.
Anyway, the ESPN commentators were alleging that the amount of love you get as a Yankee is directly related to whether or not you have contributed to the team winning the World Series. If you have, then the fans are much more willing to forgive a slump, but if you haven 't they will ride your ass pretty quickly when you don’t perform.
The example they gave involved Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. They said that early in A-Rod’s first season in the Bronx, Jeter was hitting about .190, but wasn’t getting booed because of his previous service to the team. A-Rod, on the other hand, will never have that sort of love—no matter what sort of numbers he puts up—as long as they haven’t won a World Series with him on the team.
I’ve also heard quite a few commentators over the past week or so arguing that A-Rod would have been much better off, in the long run, if he had gone to Boston instead of New York. In Boston, they say, he would have been able to play his preferred position, and would also have been more of a presence on the team.
Not sure what to make of all this. Just thought i’d mention it.
If I’m crying (more like wisfully reminiscing), it’s for the appealing yet unrealistic fantasy of the “team”, not the accurate reality of the business arrangement, where “loyalty” simply isn’t a factor. You’ll hopefully re-read my “no kidding, idiot” acknowledgement, as well as the fact that doping/cheating makes up a far greater proportion of my discontent with pro sports. Damon is a good example simply because, as Elvis pointed out, he’s the clean-shaven object of derision now, rather than the belovedly scruffy Idiot. These are, of course, paper-thin costumes the entertainer/athelete wears when it suits him, but, believe it or not, young sports fans aren’t always aware of the act (hell, lots of old ones aren’t either, or the crowd wouldn’t be booing…or taking extra-devilish pleasure in a Yankee defeat). I personally don’t find the whoring and venality terribly entertaining anymore, and “loving to hate” some players lacks long-term appeal.
Meh. Rodriguez has always been about money first. That’s why he left Seattle for Texas, remember? He was never coming to Boston as long as he was going to get more outside money in New York. Not that that makes him anything special, of course, he’s just been more blatant about being a mercenary than most guys ever get a chance to be. Don’t shed any tears for him. BTW, it would be very difficult for him to be accepted in Boston after his slap move in the ‘04 playoffs - there were immediately Photoshopped pix on the Web showing him swinging a ladies’ purse at Arroyo. Also BTW, Seattle played better as soon as he left, so did Texas, and the Yankees haven’t done as well with him as without him, either. FWIW, of course.
Bernie Williams’ example of taking a lower offer from the Yankees than the Red Sox had offered during his free agency is an exception. But if his total compensation, endorsements included, working in a much larger media market, made up for it, not even then. Some players are said to be willing to accept a “hometown discount”, but not many, and even they may not really be taking an overall financial hit anyway.
Loopy, you may be mis-remembering a bygone era. Prior to free agency, the players had little-to-no say for whom they played, and the terms of the deals. Players were truly owned by the owners, the same way a desk is owned by someone, to be traded or discarded at a whim. The ‘loyalty’ was simply that the owner would not let a player go elsewhere. Babe Ruth wasn’t lured to NY with a bigger contract. Boston made a bone-headed trade. And who knows what great small market players might have done if the Dodgers / Giants / Yankees were allowed to lure them into the baseball spotlight.
There has always been a few players in the Free-agency era that stay hometown over big bucks, but they are rare. Bronson Arroyo basically gave Boston a discount and they rewarded him by trading him. So other players see this and go why bother.
Bernie’s last minute decision to stay a Yank actually involved a media member talking nostalgically of how great it was to be in the center field tradition of the Yanks. Earl Combes, Joe D, Mickey Mantle and Bernie. Pretty nice company. He didn’t suffer for it either. He still got close to the Boston contract and probably better endorsements.
I know Paul O’Neil really took a below market contract and the fans rewarded that and his gritty play with unadulterated love. Bernie just took a below market contract to finish up a Yankee. Every team has a few examples. Pudge did so for Texas back around 1997.
This all sounds like rationalization to me. “Accepted” cheating is OK. Steroid use (even when it wasn’t against the rules) isn’t because of some arbitrary “line” that has been drawn.
I’m well aware of the history of the game. I’m not all that “worried” about GP’s doctoring of the ball. I’m just pointing out the double standard that allows that sort of cheating as acceptable while using steroids is considered such an evil thing. It’s quite possible that doctoring a baseball gives a pitcher an even bigger unfair advantage and is more dangerous to other players (which is why the spitball was banned in the first place) than steroid use. But it’s OK because it was “accepted”. :rolleyes:
Doctoring the ball and using the doctored ball to your advantage and hiding the fact you have done so is actually a highly refined skill. From what I have read using the spitball or cutball or scruffball is almost as hard as learning to throw a good and effective knuckleball. If you don’t see this as different from Steroid use, we’ll have to agree that we will continue to disagree.
How do you feel about sign stealing?
BTW: Doctoring balls is unlikely to have any long term health effects comparable to using steroids. Another good reason to treat Steroids differently.
Jim
Gotta call BS on that one. I understand that its the popular opinion due to the fact that Ray Chapman was killed by an alleged spitball and it was banned the following off-season. However, there was already a ground swell movement before that incident.
Think about it. If it was so dangerous to hitters, why did baseball grandfather in certain pitchers so that they could continue throwing a spitter for the rest of their career? Wouldn’t baseball want to protect its players immediately?
Besides, spitters break down and away from hitters typically and based on the data from known spitballers, there was no difference in their walk totals as compared to other pitchers.
The reason the spitter was banned was because it was A) unsighty and seemingly unfair to use a foreign substance to get an advantage and B)because it was harder to hit and back then, as it is now, homeruns put the butts in the seat. Its the same reason they lowered the pitching mound and started replacing baseballs more often during a game.
So? This makes it OK to cheat? You keep looking for ways to justify one form of cheating over another, but it’s still sounding like rationalization.
Sign stealing isn’t against the rules.
Fair point. But I suspect that the health of the players isn’t what’s driving the demonization of steroids (since when do team owners in any sport give a damn about the long term health of their players?). And I’m generally of the opinion that players should make their own choices when it comes to their health. And I’m not seeing much concern for Bonds’ health out there. It all seems to be over his cheating and asterisks and “suspect” records (which ignores that fact that there might be plenty of pitchers who were using).
Aphetamines can also have long term health effects. Nobody’s all in a tizzy over them.
But how should it be treated differently? And what would the point be?
Seriously, this whole issue comes off more of looking for a way to nail a hated player than a rational look at the issue. It’s not very SDMB-like.
MLB did finally make a rule against them with some actual penalties, effective this year, basically as blowback from the steroid hearings. No telling yet if many more players are now “going naked”, as they say.
I just saw something on ESPN that shows how little many people in the sports world think about race issues.
It commerical for Sportscenter. One of the hosts is siting at table. He is a white guy. A black man (I don’t know who) trys to sit down and the white says no I am saving it for Stewart Scott (a black man). But then that hot tennis woman tennis player (who is white) asks if anyone is sitting there. The white guy says no. So she sits down. Then Scott walks by and just shakes his head.
Now, I know the creators of the commerical were not thinking about race or trying to make a statement.
But that is the problem.
There is a long history of blacks being denied the right to eat with white people (lunch counters). The simple fact is that this commerical could have been done in a way that would not bring up this painful issue to black America. Why did the “hot” tennis player have to be white? How come beautiful woman like the Williams sisters are never seen as hot tennis players? Why is it always some white blonde woman? Why did both men denied a seat have to be black? Wouldn’t the joke work with a white man being denied a seat by a black man?
Does this commerical prove that there is racism in sports coverage? No, but further shows the mindset. In making their joke they didn’t even consider the race issue.
Right. They didn’t even consider it. Meaning, race didn’t even enter their heads. They just picked some gorgeous woman.
Tell me. (And I realize this is opening a hornet’s nest, but I cannot help myself.) Are Hispanic/Black/Japanese/Pink with green polka dot men who exclusively date hot blond skanky women with breast implants racist?