I’m a long-time Mets fan (I inherited the recessive Brooklyn Dodgers gene from my Bay Ridge-born Mom), but I stopped hating the Yankees as a team in the 90s because they seemed like a bunch of likeable, hard-playing guys, many of whom were ex-Mets anyway (Torre, Stottlemeyer, Cone, Gooden, Strawberry, etc). I didn’t begrudge them their first couple of titles, before the sense of entitlement settled in, anyway. Of course there are obnoxious Yankee fans – you know, the ones who have yet to realize that good pitching will defeat hoodoo like “the magic of pinstripes” every time – but hell, I’ve been to Shea at least once a year since 1973, generally in the cheap seats, there are plenty of obnoxious Mets fans too. And plenty of obnoxious Boston fans. I’m sure that despite their passive Southern California nature that in Anaheim there are obnoxious Angels fans (and personally I’ll take drunken Queens mockery over those damned balloon thingies they bang together any day of the week). Possibly right at this moment there is even one obnoxious Expos fan (95% confidence interval, -2 to 4.5 fans).
That having been said, I’d like Boston to win the World Series so people would stop freaking talking about it. Plenty of teams go long stretches without winning anything, but people don’t seem quite so obsessed with the Giants or the Astros droughts. You know, it would give the people who host sports talk radio shows a chance to say some different things, and how great would that be? I’ll admit it’s no problem for me avoiding New England for 12 months if they become too insufferable to live with. I’ll just mail-order my lobsters and hike in Nunavut instead of the White Mountains.
And, I must admit, the fact that the Boston players look like a travelling Museum of Seventies Hair amuses me.
Just somebody please knock out Atlanta, as per usual.
Jeter is a little bitchboy… The sight of his smirk makes me involuntarily scream at the tv.
They didn’t “crush” us. We lost in the bottom of the 11th because of a home run, had nothing to do with pitching. **Not only that, but this season we are 11-8 vs the Evil Empire. ** But somehow they are better than us? No, no…
I hope Boston wins the World Series, too. Thanks for caring. You can drop the jealous, hateful crap any time, though, you loser.
Anaheim has no starting pitching, they backed into the playoffs when Oakland imploded, and just aren’t going to be a real problem. The Twins series could be, but mainly because of the Dome factor, not their lineup (they backed in too, because of lack of opposition). If the starterless Skankees manage take them to 5, Santana won’t be a factor vs. Boston either.
Bring on the 'Stros! Raw-jaaah, Raw-jaaah, Raw-jaaah…
Have you ever read The Baseball Hall of Shame 2 by Nash and Zullo?
On Pages 94-95, under the chapter heading of “Executives Who Wheeled and Dealed Their Team to Rack and Ruin,” the first such owner is Frazee.
From the item:
"But Frazee, who had a penchant for backing Broadway flops, was always short of cash. So he turned to his players for help–by selling them or trading them. Fans were understandably outraged, especially when Frazee shipped the players to Boston’s archenemy, the formerly mediocre New York Yankees.
"In January 1920, Frazee triggered the decline and fall of the Red Sox when he sold Babe Ruth to the Yanks for $125,000 as well as a guaranteed $350,000 mortage on Fenway Park. He also promised to sell the Yankees more players if needed. …
“Frazee left the Red Sox in a shambles, mired in the bottom of the league for the next ten years. As for the Boston players he shipped to New York, they built the foundation of the Yankee dynasty.”
Do you think this makes Frazee ‘one of the Bosox’ better owners’? Just the same as Robert T. Wag was a better owner of the Cincinnati Reds in the 70s.
Did you even bother to read my link? Here’s another one.
The idea that Frazee had a penchant for backing flops is a myth. He was a hugely successful and innovative producer, and he was never short on cash. Second, nobody at the time was outraged. Every newspaper article of the time considered each one a fair trade - Boston just happened to have bad luck. Nobody knew that Babe Ruth would become Babe Ruth. Heck, even SABR said that based on normal expectations, the trades weren’t one-sided at the time of the trade, they just turned out that way. Thirdly, New York was hardly Boston’s archenemy at the time - if anyone was, it was the White Sox or the A’s.
Another load of crap. Frazee didn’t even own Fenway at the time. And he didn’t have much choice, since Ban Johnson had been trying to get rid of Frazee since he bought the club and had convinced every team except the Yankees and the White Sox to refuse to deal in any way with Frazee. As to why he had to try and trade Ruth at all, it was because Ruth had become a huge cancer in the clubhouse and had been agitating to get out of Boston.
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“Frazee left the Red Sox in a shambles, mired in the bottom of the league for the next ten years. As for the Boston players he shipped to New York, they built the foundation of the Yankee dynasty.”
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Please, it wasn’t Frazee that left the Sox in shambles - it was Quinn, the guy Frazee sold the Sox to in 1923. The Sox finished sixth in 1919, when they had Babe Ruth. They finished fifth in 1920 and 1921, then completely collapsed in 1922 and 1923. It’s telling that it wasn’t until after WWII that Frazee started getting the blame - all of the contemporary newspaper articles placed the blame for Red Sox mediocrity squarely on Quinn’s shoulders.
If Johnson hadn’t completely screwed over Frazee, the Sox would have been just fine.
I really don’t give a good rat’s ass who wins. I’m just hoping for the Yankees to get eliminated as soon as humanly possible. That way the New York sports talk radio stations will concentrate on what really matters in the autumn: Football, damnit!
I’m so damn sick of turning on WFAN for my commute to work and hearing Mike & the Mad Dog say “It’s a Football Friday! We’ll be talking football, football, football! So, how about them Yankees?” :mad:
So, please, Yanks, get knocked out in the first round. I’ll give the callers a few days to bitch about the loss, and then we can all move on to more (relatively) important things.
Y’know, I watched that ground ball pass between Bill Buckner’s feet all those years ago, and something in me just broke. As if by divine grace it dawned on me that if I allowed myself, ever again, to care as much as I did in the '86 World Series, I may as well rip my own heart out and stomp on it for all the good it would do me.
Now I just look at those who keep the dream alive and shake my head…SUCKERS.
Now I know why I get sense of deja vu whenever I watch the Red Sox. They’re trying to channel the Oakland A’s of the early 70’s. All the Bosox need now is for someone in their relief corp to start wearing a Rollie Fingers-style handlebar mustache.
“Frazee left the Red Sox in a shambles, mired in the bottom of the league for the next ten years. As for the Boston players he shipped to New York, they built the foundation of the Yankee dynasty.”
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Please, it wasn’t Frazee that left the Sox in shambles - it was Quinn, the guy Frazee sold the Sox to in 1923. The Sox finished sixth in 1919, when they had Babe Ruth. They finished fifth in 1920 and 1921, then completely collapsed in 1922 and 1923. It’s telling that it wasn’t until after WWII that Frazee started getting the blame - all of the contemporary newspaper articles placed the blame for Red Sox mediocrity squarely on Quinn’s shoulders.
If Johnson hadn’t completely screwed over Frazee, the Sox would have been just fine.
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Let me put it this way: If you disagree about my comments on Frazee, take it up with the Hall of Shame authors, Nash and Zullo.
I also noted in The American League Story, written by Lee Allen in 1961, that the AL owners had split into two factions about the time of the “Black Sox Scandal”–and that incidnent may not even have been the cause of the schism, such as it was.
Allied with Ban Johnson were James Dunn, Indians; Frank Navin, Tigers; Connie Mack, Athletics; Phil Ball, Browns; and Clark Griffith, Senators. Opposing him were Frazee, of the Red Sox; Ruppert, of the Yankees; and Comiskey (of course) of the White Sox. Between this groundswell of opposition, and the encroachment of Commissioner Landis on Johnson’s autocracy, it’s small wonder Johnson quit in 1927.
As for your assertion that the A’s and the Chisox were the Yankees’ enemies rather than the Bosox, I noted that Connie Mack’s teams were themselves mired in the second division since 1914–when they lost money despite winning the pennant and the Federal League raided Connie’s team. As for the White Sox, I sense that the “Black Sox Scandal” was orchestrated by Ruppert and Huston, among others, to remove the Yankees’ opposition. :mad:
I also understand that Navin, of the Tigers, did not want his team to be contenders–he dawdled when they needed at least one important player during the last month or so of the 1924 season. (The Senators won the pennant and Series that year.)
And the sight of all those rings, huh? Jeter, though not the best SS, is an impact player and a team player. Give the man his due.
Yes, yes. The better teams find ways to win. The Sox find new and interesting ways to lose.
Like that matters…
I would like to see the Sox win a series. I would LOVE a Sox/Astos series. More than anything, I would like to the Yankees get slapped around, like the Angels did to 'em in '02. Now I don’t believe in curses, but I think the Sox believe…
Do White Sox fans whine? I know that Cubs fans do, but I’ve never heard it with their cross-town rivals. It’s part of the reason I hate the Cubs - because all they do is whine that they’re cursed, when there are other teams with similar streaks of losing that don’t put up 1/10 the complaints.
