Open Letters to your favorite sports teams

The Game Room
21

Dear Red Sox,

It’s fucking Tampa. Win the division, please.

…

Dear Patriots,

Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? All you had to do was win one more lousy game; you know, complete a couple of clutch passes, maybe make a tackle or two. But you didn’t. Now the golden boy’s gone, the detractor’s are rejoicing, and, as Jack Batty put so eloquently, you’re fucked. I can’t muster up much sympathy though. It looks like you’ll beat the Jets, but after that…

I have no sympathy at all.

…

Dear Celtics,

Nah. Still don’t care. Congrats, though.

…

Dear Bruins,

Wait. Is there still hockey in Boston?
Sincerely,

A transplanted New Englander.

22

Dear Bears,

Maybe you could check out the “What if an NFL team has all its quarterbacks injured at the same time?” thread for some ideas. Just pretend it’s called “What if all an NFL team’s quarterbacks really, really suck?”. Two words: Vinny Testaverde. Forte looks good, the defense and special teams look like they might actually be back to 2006 form…but you’ll just go nowhere with that gaping black hole behind center. If this is the best Orton can do, even bringing back Grossman would be an improvement.

Love,
Thing Fish

Dear Cubs,

Can I get some World Series tickets if I promise not to interfere with balls in play? I’ll leave my cat at home.

Love,
Thing Fish

23

Dear Broncos,

Please, please, please, please work on your special teams. Please. Your special teams suck. It sucked last year. It sucked the year before that. You sacrifice field position on every punt and kickoff. In fact, your suckitude and inability to field the ball beyond the ten yard line (if we’re lucky and it’s not right on the 2) is one of the biggest reasons everybody thought Plummer sucked. He was taking most of the snaps with his own goal line at his back! EVERY SINGLE TIME! San Diego is closer than they should be to winning because you gave up a touch down. So please, for the love of God, fix this fucking problem.

I love you so much. I just want to see you win.

Pepper

24

Looks like both teams got my message. Probably too late for the D-backs, but at least they changed their closer.

Cardinals are embarassing the Dolphins.

25

16 was at the Silverdome. I did not get tickets although I had season tickets.

26

Dear Vikings,

 Goddammit.

St. Urho

27

Dear Dolphins management,

So let me get this straight. Coming off an absolutely abysmal season, a season where your team didn’t just hit rock bottom, it piledrived a good five feet down, you hire a young, hungry, coach with the world to prove. A risky move, no doubt, but just what the organization needed to start rebuilidng. But then I hear you’ve pushed him down because you brought in…Bill Parcells.

Bill freaking Parcells? The man who wrote the book on egomaniacal suck-the-air-out-of-the-city head coaches? You have any idea how this guy works? Heck, all you need to do is go back to his stint with the Jets. Takes over a 1-15 team (sound familiar?) and succeeds a coach so disrespected, there were effigies of him in the lockers. Inherits the #1 overall draft pick and the easiest schedule in the league. Trades down, opens the wallet for some free agents…y’know, the usual sound, practical draft day moves…and hits a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot with the human craps table, Vinny Testaverde. Jets show marked improvement.

For that, he’s an amazing super genius. For that, the commentators say he turns lead into gold. For that, he gets a hundred laudatory articles and is completely free from any and all criticism.

And then he’s gone. He got what he wanted, and now the Jets can go to Hell. Let’s not forget, too, that the team he skipped for the Jets wasn’t exactly thrilled about his departure either. Remember “Bad tuna turns green”? (This team, BTW, won three Super Bowls after he left. Just thought you’d like to know.)

This is what you bought into. You don’t have a champion maker, you have the NFL’s Bob Knight. He’ll be an autocratic jerk every step of the way, he’ll bring you up to mediocrity, maybe one #5 or #6 playoff seed, he’ll get worshipped as a god again, and then he’s going to bail and leave you to rot. You find this preferable to a few dozen “Don’t Stop Believing” jokes?

I’d say the old saying “Good luck…you’ll need it” definitely applies here.

Dear Patriots,

Yeah, I know, I know. Sucks, doesn’t it? All this ire for about a thousandth of the crap the Cowboys did during their most recent heyday.

Speaking of which, just a fair warning that eventually a lot of fans are going to stop bleating “eighteen and one” long enough to realize how much success their own teams have had. They’re going to respond like any good, honest red-blooded fan would…by jumping on the Cowboys, Steelers, or 49ers bandwagon.

Don’t pretend that it’s not going to happen. You know what happens right here every time the issue of Duke basketball comes up.

It sucks, but nobody ever said this business was fair. (Ask the Seahawks.) You’ll manage.

Dear Cowboys, Steelers, and 49ers fans,

Please at least try to do a better job than the UCLA alumni on this board, okay? :slight_smile:

28

Dear heart:
You’re toast.

With Love,
The Dodgers

29

Dear Maple Leafs,

I’m a moron, so just like every other season I’ll be tuned into every game I can see here in the blackout zone of Eastern Ontario. So, you’re rebuilding this year I see. Thankfully due to the new CBA you’ve realized that throwing more and more money at the problem is not the answer. Perhaps good scouting and not trading away your first round pick every damned year actually could be beneficial after all: who knew?

I know you’re waiting for Brian Burke to come along after this season, but in the mean time Cliffy is doing a good job. I expect you’ll be in the lottery pick for Tavares this year. That’s a good thing actually.

I hadn’t yet immigrated to Canada when you won the last cup the last time. I really need to see this before I die. Really.

I was there in the Gardens the night Gretzky beat you in game 7 of the semifinals in 1993. I’m still too upset to talk about it.

Cheers,
Your Number One Idiot Fan

30

Dear Detroit Red Wings,

Thank you.

31

Dear Chargers,

Sorry about the dry butt-reaming you received courtesy of the officials today. Try a few cases of Tucks pads–maybe you can charge the expense to a certain whistle-happy ref and remind him to use KY next time.

32

Dear New York Football Giants:

Keep up the good work!

33

Dear Ned Yost,

Didn’t we just talk about this? Can’t you throw some bats around, go on a 32-minute, profanity-laced tirade on Sportscenter, beat a minor-leaguer to death and make the guys bury the body, anything, anything to get their attention? Seriously, the whole denial thing is not working. Yeah, yeah, you don’t watch the race. You don’t pay attention to the standings. You know who does, though? THE FUCKING PHILLIES!!

Seriously. Get your shit together.

Dear Broncos,

You got lucky this time. Don’t leave it up to luck next time.

34

Dear Royals:

Please, please, get a hitting coach who can teach our young guys how to freakin’ hit!! Alex Gordon should NOT be a .250 hitter after the kind of stuff he showed in college and the minors.

Sincerely,
CMKeller

35

Dear Chicago Cubs,

Can you please clinch your division before you come to Shea at the end of the month, and give the Mets a chance by throwing out squads of second-stringers? And maybe Carlos (“The Right”) Zambrano can have a really bad hangover? I have no shame in asking this after last year. Or, actually, after much of the 1970s.

If this is not the case, I am happy with you playing the Series with the Rays because so many heads will explode and I have a lucrative part-time business recycling cranial fragments of sports fans into decorative ashtrays. (Just got back from a great weekend in New England, by the way.)

Also, I don’t know if what I’ve asked is actually mathematically possibly because I can’t look at the standings right now.

Love,

Mets Fan Since '69 (oh, sorry about that one)

36

Dear Cubs,

Please don’t let this season be the worlds biggest set-up, wherein you crush all our hopes again. You’ve had your fun doing that before, let’s end this damn drought already.

Dear Carlos Zambrano,

I love you

37

He restores flagging franchises, and does it very well. Look at the roster he left in New York- loaded with talent. It’s not his fault that Herm sucks. Look at what he built in Dallas!

He’s talking about XL, at Ford Field.

38

Dear Vikings,
As a Packer fan living in Minneapolis you’d think I’d be estatic at the Packers success and the Vikings implosion. Alas, you are so miserable that it isn’t even fun anymore gloating to the diehard Viking fans in my office. It’s actually, well, sad.
You build them up each year promising this to be the year of divisional domination and a hard run for the title. You attempt to build a team around a star running back and a defense and then when questioned about your quaterback reply “We don’t need no stinking quarterback!” I tried to warn my co-workers in July not to be so over confident and just hope for some nice divisional competition through December. But it fell on deaf ears.
Please oh please try to make this division interesting. Being rivals just isn’t much fun when I’m poking a stick at the guys around me who all look like their dogs just got run over.

Sincerely,
Packer lifer, newborn A-Rodg fan

39

Dear Brewers,

Wow. I know I had some harsh words for Ned Yost earlier, but, uh… wow. I didn’t mean, uh… this is unexpected. I don’t know what to say. I just hope to hell you know what you’re doing.

40

Dear Mets:

I know that N.Y. Times article a few days ago that explained how you’ve been forged in the fires of disappointment and will stand tough this September was really asking for trouble. Still, it’s not like the S.I. cover jinx. You don’t have to utterly collapse again.

Have fun in your race to the bottom against the Brewers and suddenly hitless Astros.