And that’s that.

Posted on October 29, 2012 | 2 Comments

Though they had to do it in their usual fashion – namely, trying to give aneurysms to as many fans as possible – the Giants made it. It still seems like the weirdest dream that I’ve had in a while, and if someone had told me way back in March as I set out for Scottsdale that the winners of this year’s World Series would survive two drug suspensions, less-than-reliable starting pitching, the loss of their closer and the loss of a reliable outfielder, I would be amazed. Continue reading →

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Victory, maybe

Posted on October 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

My faith in random Internet people was briefly restored this morning while sorting through the digital aftermath of Game 3. I came across two comments that warmed my heart, both presented for your benefit below. You can go sifting through HardballTalk to find the originals if you so desire; I’ve made minor grammatical corrections to the first.

  • “Whose idea was it to have all the fans waving white flags in the stands?” (TheBlindUmp, original here)
  • “Not in a million years would I have guessed that the prion-vectored neurological disease that struck down the Borg during the LCS might be contagious.” (Old Gator, original here)

Unfortunately my luck ran out after that and I was left with the usual grandstanding, chest-thumping, senseless trolling, and statistical analysis in favor of or shooting down either team. Oh well. Continue reading →

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The Fine Art of the Insult

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 2 Comments

I’m always leery of diving too deeply into the comments section on any news article or forum post because I know that sooner or later I will emerge feeling shaken, disgusted, and in desperate need of a shower. It’s the same both in sports discussions and politics and since election season and baseball playoffs coincide this year, it’s especially nasty. Life would be so much easier if someone more mathematically savvy than I could develop an algorithm to determine how quickly an online conversation will devolve into outright idiocy. Granted, even I know that such a formula would be difficult to nail down to an exact science due to the highly dynamic nature of social media, but I think it’s still worth a shot.

Or I could just, you know, stop reading the comments section on any article on any controversial subject. The only issue that I can see with that is that there are occasionally some interesting, valid points raised in forums and in commentary… but based on my experience, trying to find anything worthwhile in most online forums is kind of like panning for gold in an outhouse.

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Gloating while I still can

Posted on October 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

I should be working on my homework right now, but it can wait for a little bit. For one, I want to give my brain a brief rest before plunging it back into the burning acid that is grammar practice in a language that is not your mother tongue and that you haven’t used in about a year. Two… well… I’ll relate a brief exchange that happened between me and one of the other altos at choir practice today. I strolled in wearing my World Series sweatshirt from 2010 and, after a few minutes, she gives me the stinkeye and muttered, “I don’t like your hoodie.” I shrugged and said, “I really don’t care. And you know what? If you don’t like my hoodie, you won’t like my t-shirt either.” Upon request from our director, I removed the sweatshirt to show off my Postseason 2012 shirt… and got a further expression of disgust. “Yep, I don’t like your t-shirt either.” I shrugged again and said, “And I still don’t care.”

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Calming images of unlikely heroes

Posted on October 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve found that my list of criteria for the perfect life companion has changed substantially over the years. No longer do I seek perfection; my preferences lean more towards someone who will put up with my quirks, who will not question my choice of orange polish on my toes during baseball season, who understands that sometimes all I want to do when I get home after a long day of work is to just change into yoga pants and a jersey and watch my ballgame. It also wouldn’t hurt if they can tolerate my mood swings or any of my random quasi-profane outbursts that happen while I’m following my teams. Suffice to say, I still have not found anyone like this within my immediate area – although my cat has shown a marked increase in her interest with baseball.

I guess I just need to be a little bit more specific in my prayers.

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And then the interwebs blew up.

Posted on October 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve discovered something during the course of my growing baseball fandom and it is this: I tend to gain a measure of psychic catharsis whenever one of my teams deals damage to the favored team of any of the short list of men in my life who have seriously pissed me off. I also tend to rate the teams that I hate on an equivalent scale to my exes.

On the Ex-Boyfriend Equivalency Scale of Loathing, the absolute nadir is marked by the Dodgers who rate on about the same level as the toilet bowl scum who decided to end things for no good reason a week before I was set to deploy overseas… and did so right in front of my dad. The Yankees, by comparison, are the dude with the Napoleon complex who took longer to get ready in the bathroom before going out than I did and eventually ended things because I wasn’t putting out at a frequency to his liking. There is still resentment on behalf of the latter, but not so much as the first.

That said, I was not watching last night’s Tigers-Yankees game. October is generally a crap month for me anyway; my brother died on the 16th nine years ago and the weeks before and after are usually the worst in the year. Postseason baseball is usually the only thing that makes October tolerable for me, but not even this season’s banner postseason matchups could save me from a depressive episode that left me with little other choice than to close my eyes and try to sleep it off. I fought off the lingering blahs yesterday with a marathon session of retail therapy and came home to find that the game had stretched into extra innings…

And then the interwebs blew up with Jeter. Namely, this clip of Jeter:

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October already?

Posted on October 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s hard for me to pick out any one point in the baseball season that I could call my favorite. I love all of it equally, albeit for various reasons. Spring training is the promise of a fresh start and a chance to see what new talent each team brings to the table, and for the first few months in the season standings don’t matter much. As summer wears on, the heat boils down each team to its core elements, exposes flaws and weeds out the weak. Then, before you know it, the leaves are turning, the temperature’s dropping, and the postseason has come upon us. There is always one Cinderella story, one upstart team that shouldn’t have had a chance but made it anyway, one powerhouse that everyone expects to mow down the competition like dead grass… the cliches are there every year, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting for the fans who have endured every one of 162 regular season games. Continue reading →

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