Pond Scum
I like New York, and on the whole I like New Yorkers; but sweet Jesus do I hate New York sports teams, and even moreso, I hate their fans.
Which is why — along with being a St. Louis Cardinals fan — I’m having so much fun watching this year’s MLB playoffs. First the Cardinals advanced from San Diego, the Padres still reaping their karmic dues from employing John Birch Society members in the 80s. Meanwhile, the stathead/robonerd darlings, the Oakland A’s, after finally winning a post-season series (against a cold Minnesota team), quickly reverted to their Big Loser status and were trounced by the Detroit Tigers, who in turn had just decisively plowed through Satanbrenner’s team, the New York Yankees, the coverage of which was completely predictable:
After humiliating the Yankees, the Tigers got to watch as the national media trained all of its focus and attention on … the Yankees. And they are acutely aware that Wednesday’s Game 2 will be shown to about five homes outside of Michigan and Northern California, Fox preferring to beam the NLCS to America.
Obviously good triumphed over evil in the American League, but in the senior circuit, evil is still very much on the prowl, what with the New York Mets easily dispatching the L.A. Dodgers in their division series.
This year, the National League’s branch of New York evil is pretty talented. Before last night the LCS was tied 2-2 between the Cardinals and the Mets; honestly, I’m surprised the Cardinals have put up this much of a fight. I still think the Cardinals will lose, even though it’s all for nought anyway, because whichever team advances is guaranteed to be annihilated by Detroit.
So, whatever. Anyway, yes, the Mets are a talented bunch this year; but more interestingly, they aren’t, for once, an obvious bunch of assholes. First Baseman Carlos Delgado is a great player, a heck of a world citizen, and is really just too good a person to be wearing orange and blue. Manager Willie Randolph has always been a class act. Etc. But whatever the decency of their players this year, it’s too little too late for the fan base and the franchise which remains, as a whole, POND SCUM.
The Fans: Last night when St. Louis took a 3-2 lead in the series, I followed the game in a POND SCUM-leaning chat thread. All the mouthy bitches did was whine about the strike zone that supposedly favored the Cardinals. Typical. No credit to the other team. But then the Fans o’ The Mess were just staying true to form, which is why Albert Pujols’s comments after Game 1 (to the effect that the Cardinals beat themselves, and Tom Glavine had little to do with it) were so great: paybacks are hell, aren’t they New Yawkers?
The obnoxious self-absorption of the New York sports press is inextricably linked to the obnoxious self-absorption of NY fans of whichever team (Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks and maybe even the nearby Nets). The NY fan base, especially of the baseball teams, is, like its local press, navel-gazing, self-aggrandizing, self-pitying, elitist and loaded with as much of a sense of entitlement as the average wingnut-welfare recipient (and whaddaya know, these are often the very same people). No fan base on earth, with the possible exception of Dallas Cowboys Nation, is more insufferably possessed of a sense of what they are “owed”. The attitude doesn’t curdle in a vaccuum; there’s a symbiotic relationship between fans’ intolerable attitude and the media’s monomanical bias.
Do you live in flyover country? Does your team play there? You don’t matter, then. Like the indigenous residents of Manhattan, you and the General Manager of your team should, according to POND SCUM, take trinkets and navel lint for your best property. Or, failing that, POND SCUM will just wait until your stars get too expensive, then take them to New York where they will be feted by a press and fan base that relishes the PR blowjob just as much as it relishes the casual and fickle backstab. New York, New York. In the heady days of the 80s, a Japanese minister snarked that in the near future, America would be Japan’s breadbasket and Western Europe its boutique. Many good (and bad) Americans were aghast. But not people who follow sports, who’d long been accustomed to exhibitions of an attitude that held that whatever good things you had were undeserved and therefore only existed to be used by your betters — that you were someone’s farm team. Except the attitude, then as now, came from other Americans: some Vinny from Queens yapping obnoxiously on NY sports radio that some star from flyover land self-evidently can’t wait to shuffle-off his yokel coil and come play in baseball-cultural heaven.
The Franchise: First, a shitty name: as the old WGN commercial had it, “What the heck is a Met, anyway?” Eh, it’s a Metropolitan, a Robert Moses-y name with an Eames motif for a new new new franchise whose founders strained to differenciate from the old old old Yankees and the gone gone gone Dodgers and Giants. The name was meant to connote Gotham-ness, but atomic-style instead of the tradition and art deco crap across town. They shouldn’t have bothered. On the other hand, I prefer to think of meaningful coincidences: the Mets’ name taken for baseball from the auto industry, the Nash Metropolitan model being such a Edsel-esque bomb that it forced a merger of the company with Hudson. New failure mirrors old; synchonicity.
And speaking of cars, blue and orange is a color scheme that’s fine on a fucking ’74 AMC Matador but is kind of garish for a baseball team.
The Mess play in — which is to say, POND SCUM congeals at — Shea Stadium, a bowl-shaped bit of concrete-not-porcelain in Flushing, New York, which doesnt mean that its designers had a sense of humor (or even a sense of expectancy), but means that, maybe, God truly exists and assists in subtle ways His followers so that they might know the sheep from the goats, or in this case, deceny in baseball as opposed to the scum of humanity in it. God says, “Here is shit!” Thy will be done. Anyway, Shea is by far the ugliest and cheesiest of the so-called cookie cutter stadia of the 60s and 70s, the baseball equivalent of Graceland’s jungle room but without the slightly-mitigating factor of all that carved furniture as well as the presence of the ghost of talent (conversely, Busch II in St. Louis was the most elegant of those parks). Naturally, if any other team had such a tacky homefield, the hipsters of NY would perpetually denounce it as indicative of typically non-NY tastelessness. But since it’s there, it’s the Coolest Dump Evar! Character! It’s Punk Rawk!
Since their inception in 1962, POND SCUM is 3408-3742 for a .477 winning percentage, though this is admittedly weighted heavily by the dismal pre-’69 teams. Not terrible for a newer franchise but still not worthy of all the ink spilled on its “merits”, nor all the obnoxiousness exuded in allegiance to it. Also, what objectivity gives objectivity takes away: while POND SCUM has done better than most expansion franchises, given the money that has always been available to its owners, it should have done better than it did.
The Rivalry: The Mess of Tom Terrific, Rusty Staub, Jerry Koosman, Doc Medich, et al — these were worthy and likable teams. Then came the POND SCUM of the 1980s, the most god-awful teams ever assembled, the most rightly hated, the ugliest, the trashiest, the whiniest, the most stupid, the fucking Townhall.com of baseball, the teams all decent people prayed would die in a mattress fire.
If MLB was the Laff-a-lympics, those Mets would have been the Really Rottens, only without the comedic value. The only likeable player on those teams was, I think, Mookie Wilson. The rest of them deserved a kick to the balls on grounds of principle. POND SCUM devotees insist that the Mess was the NL dynasty of the 80s, but if any dy-words apply, ‘dysentery’ and ‘dystopic’ are better choices. POND SCUM got one pennant, won a single WC. In contrast, the real team of the 80s, the Cardinals, won three pennants (and were it not for the strike of ’81, possibly another) and matched that championship. The Cardinals, Dodgers and, hell, even Les Expos were better teams to pick for 80s brilliance than the self-destructive and criminally overrated New York Mess.
In 1984, it was the Cubs who put a stake through the heart of the NL East’s vampire. In 1985, it was Cesar Cedeno, John Tudor and the Cardinals doing God’s work; but in 1986, no one in the East could measure up to POND SCUM; the ’86 incarnation of POND SCUM was the luckiest and whiniest and most vile ever of an already whiny and villainous though second rate (or, at least, theretofore second place) tradition.
The ’86 Mets were composed like a coral reef from the calcified detritus of other teams that, in hindsight, seem to have collectively resolved to trade all their certifiable assholes to New York as a crazy lab experiment — if only Barry Bonds had been a bit older and Richie Allen a bit younger and Ty Cobb a little less-dead, that Mets team could have been the hugest douchebag-collective of alltime. The only way POND SCUM could have been any more charmless would have been if Mrs Perez had had 22 other children besides Carlos, Melido and Pascual and they had all played in orange and blue.
What a MESS: you had mulleted white trash (Lenny Dykstra), a yuppie scumbag straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel (Ron Darling), junkies (Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez), the two biggest crybabies on the planet before the advent of Paul O’Neill (Ray Knight, Gary Carter), a bonafide cheater (Howard Johnson), hotheaded jerks (Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell). Even the resident goofball, usually the most likable character on a baseball team, was for the POND SCUM a charmless nitwit: Roger McDowell, whose schtick was as if he’d distilled the worst of Bill Lee and combined it with the general, canned-laugh-inspiring fatuousness of “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes”.
Okay, so it was the mid-80s, and everybody had mullets, the Cardinals (second baseman Tommy Herr) too. Well, yes, but you expect a curlycue mullet from a Pennsylvania hillbilly who played in St. Louis. On the other hand, since POND SCUM never tires of telling the rest of the country that it has a monopoly on fashion and good taste, one might expect a little more of Mess players. But, not only did you have Dykstra and Carter in glorious curlymullets, you had Ron Darling who added a jheri-curl aspect to said mullet. How avant garde! Anyway, apparently the Mutts thought so much of Herr that they acquired him a few years later.
The ’86 postseason was one of the best ever. It was also the one to cause Al Michaels to apologise on air for all the vulgarity and profanity the crowd mics had blasted into American living rooms, blabbering douchebags in Shea being the main culprits (though with a strong assist by denizens of Fenway). It’s really bad when goons in Texas make for a better behaved crowd than anyone else but that’s how it was as the Houston Astros took on POND SCUM in the NLCS.
While POND SCUM was advertised as the team with character, it was actually the Astros who had all the charm that year. How could you not like fat Charlie Kerfeld with his wicked slider and (before that cinematic fact) Charlie Sheen-in-Major League glasses? How could you not like Aurelio “Senor Smoke” Lopez? Nolan Ryan, 40 years old and still throwing in the high 90s and not having been in the postseason since .. the 69 Mets? Cy Young winner Mike Scott who escaped from New York with his arm intact, learning a new pitch and thoroughly dominating the league that year? How could you not indeed — only if you loved POND SCUM.
It was a close series, a nailbiting barnburner, but POND SCUM pulled it out in typical whiny-bitch style: Ray Knight and Gary Effing Carter, whose collective tempertantrums and general whining for their mothers’ teats disgraced baseball for their whole period as Mets players, reached crybaby apotheosis during the 86 NLCS when every pitch thrown by not only Mike Scott, but Nolan Ryan and Aurelio Lopez was answered with a grimace, a pigsqueal, random crazy-person-on-a-streetcorner-swearing, and a pleading look back at the umpire. They acted the same way when Bruce Hurst pitched against them in the World Series.
But Billy Buckner lost the Championship for Red Sox, giving POND SCUM an egotrip that, ever since, has resembled that of the most delusional devotee of Ayn Rand you can dig up out of a suburban basement.
In 1987, POND SCUM megalomanically assumed another title would be theirs, but Cardinals third baseman Terry Pendleton, in a glorious September game, disposed of that notion, leaving the MESS to spend their October banging Long Island groupies and snorting coke next to Patrick Bateman in the toilet of some shitty dive.
In ’88, POND SCUM won the East again, but then in the LCS were totally schooled by a dorky Mormon boy from flyover country in a blue uniform. Also, as junkies, the Mess were probably fatally distracted by the name of a certain Dodgers pitcher who no doubt advised them to turn-on, tune-in, and strike out. And that was that.
Now, they are back after being in the toilet where they belonged for so long. They have a good General Manager in Minaya and of course more money than God to spend on whatever players they want. All of which means, the insufferability is back. I say retaliate, good baseballers. “POND SCUM” was supposedly invented by a St. Louis DJ back in the day; it worked then and it works now. To those POND SCUMers who gasp in faux-outrage and say it’s a mean thing for pious midwesterners to say about another team, well, at least it can be shown on TV: the signs made by Mess fans that say something along the lines of “Go back to your haystacks, youse fucking fucks” are typically “demotic” NY sports fan elitism, yet too vulgar to be popular. Too bad!
To properly combat the vileness of POND SCUM one must, however, be a bit like POND SCUMers. Obnoxious. Pre-emptive. Merciless. Sore winners and losers. But stopping short of whining, a POND SCUM exclusive that should be kept that way. So if POND SCUM beats my Cardinals, so be it: I’ll enjoy watching Detroit obliterate them. And when POND SCUM inevitably whines that they got a raw deal, New York teams uber alles, well, then I’ll defer once again to the Superfans:
Bill Swerski: Great, Danny. Now, are you from New York?
Carl Wollarski: He lives in New York, eh, Pat?
Bill Swerski: You like it there. You can stay there, as far as I’m concerned.
Danny Sheridan: No, it’s just that.. it’s one guy, you know-
Bill Swerski: Yeah, that’s alright. Just take your crack pipe and go home! Get outta here, Danny!
Todd O’Conner: Yeah, go shoot somebody with a gun!
Well. . . , all I have to say is:
Don’t be a hatah! and
GO METS!!
My friends and I have long thought that the reason Stan Musial is one of the most underrated great players of the twentieth century is that he played his entire career in flyov-, er, St. Louis.
I leaned heavily on my posts in this thread for my insults here. I was inspired that day.
Well, shit.
Tsk. Calling Steve Gilliard “pond scum.” Really, Retardo–isn’t enough to have teh Editors gunning for you?
Nah, Steve and Roy Edroso are exceptions to the rule and aren’t included in the insult. As for Editors, though, he can continue to fuck himself.
Awesome post! I remember in that 1986 WS, when Gary Carter was at bat, my friend turned to me and said something along the lines of “That F-ing Gary Carter — he’s got something to say about everything!”. From that point on, we watched him on every pitch, and sure enough, every single time the took a pitch, swung, hit, K’d, whatever, he’d be muttering to himself like he had to get the last word in on some conversation that only he could hear. I was mortified when the Dodgers signed him, but grateful that his career was (obviously) coming to an end.
Tell us what you really think, Retardo.
My dad was born in NY, NY but lived in the Detroit area all my life. He is a die-hard Detroit sports fan (I fear for his health when he watches the Lions) and is also a lifelong Democrat, who would literally give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it. Yet, whenever he watches one of the New York teams–especially the Yankees–a frightening change comes over him. His eyes gleam with the hope not just of victory at any cost, but of humiliation of their opponent as well. What is it about those damn New York teams that so taints someone’s soul?
Oh well, with about a week of rest and home field advantage, Rogers-Bonderman-Verlander et al are set to mow down the Mets (or Cards) so thoroughly that there will be no room for complaining of any kind. Then the Democrats will retake Congress. . .
Yet, whenever he watches one of the New York teams–especially the Yankees–a frightening change comes over him. His eyes gleam with the hope not just of victory at any cost, but of humiliation of their opponent as well. What is it about those damn New York teams that so taints someone’s soul?
When you’re from New York, you’re brought up to hate everyone else in the country. In particular if it’s about sports teams. The only people that matter to a Mets fan is the Yankees. The only people who matter to Yankees fans are the Mets. And the Red Sox, now that they think they shit rose petals. If you’re a Rangers fan, you loathe the Islanders and Devils, but at least they’re teams. Everybody else in the country is a yutz. The Knicks, the Giants, the Jets… well, maybe not the Jets, everyone seems to think they blow.
Personally, I think they put something in the stadium peanuts.
Heck, my father, born in Brooklyn prior to the L.A. jump of the Dodgers, cheers for them even though they’re in L.A. and I live in Florida.
As for Editors, though, he can continue to fuck himself
I try to keep tabs of the various blog wars, but can I get a sentence or two on why you’re hatin’ on a guy who just had his beloved kitty mauled to death by a piece of shit dog? Just curious.
Nolan Ryan, 40 years old and still throwing in the high 90s and not having been in the postseason since .. the 69 Mets?
Ding! Wrong answer. Google is your friend dude: the great Ryan Express pitched in the AL playoffs in 1979 for the California Angels.
To say that the old Busch Stadium, a horrible pithole of a stadium I had the grave misfortune to visit on a baseball tour in 1993, was the best of the cookie cutter stadiums is damning with extremely faint praise. Good.
Luckily, you didn’t wait until Thursday to post this, in light of your Cards choking away 2-1 and 3-2 leads in this series; the stench of sour grapes would have been pretty strong. Oh well, David Eckstein is still way cute.
Ahh shit I forgot all about the 79 Angels.
Yes, extremely faint praise is how I meant it.
I had this planned and partially drafted for a little while now, which explains the post number.
As for your first question, start here and scroll away. Unless you’re an autodidact, in which case you’re too stupid to know what ‘scroll’ means (a lame joke the punchline of which is revealed in the link).
Damn, the most entertaining thread on Sadly, No! for months and I missed it?
Go f yourself, hater–oh, and BTW, Mike Scott’s ‘new pitch’ was a scuffed fastball…he and members of the 86 Stros admitted as much over the years. Really charming…
New York fans are the worse. No, really. It’s even worse when they come to your stadium for a game. They are the worst guests ever.
“Oh well, with about a week of rest and home field advantage, Rogers-Bonderman-Verlander et al are set to mow down the Mets (or Cards) so thoroughly that there will be no room for complaining of any kind. Then the Democrats will retake Congress. . .”
I hope you’re correct on both counts. Though the odds of the former are significantly higher than that of the latter.
but isn’t larussa the original know-it-all stat geek mangager? (that’s why he was fired in chicago, right?) and isn’t he also the original pill pusher? (see: bash brothers)
Being in 9th grade in New Jersey during the ’86 series, and one of like 3 non-Mets supporters was fucking hell. Every single bandwagon-jumping little shit, 80% of whom probably didn’t even know the rules of baseball, every day seeking out those of us who were rooting for the Sox, just to shove their fingers in our faces….the lifelong Mets contempt runs deep.
Which is why I, also, am surprised to see a non-despicable team this year.
Still, it’s only been 20 years and the taste of that shit sammich is still lingering.
Ding! Wrong answer. Google is your friend dude: the great Ryan Express pitched in the AL playoffs in 1979 for the California Angels.
And for the Astros in the ’80 LCS and ’81 Division Series.
New York fans are the worse. No, really. It’s even worse when they come to your stadium for a game. They are the worst guests ever.
Steve, let us define our terms. When you come to our house, you are our guests, not the other way around. If you don’t like the robust environment of Shea Stadium, you needn’t visit. We can pour beer on someone else.
When Notre Dame plays. I suppose their fans offer supporters of the opposing team backrubs and rides to church.
astros had all the charm that year?
Bob Knepper, the Houston Astros’ pitcher who was criticized earlier this year when he said women should not umpire men’s games, called the National Organization of Women ”a bunch of lesbians” in an article in the June 20 issue of Sports Illustrated. According to an article in the magazine, Knepper shrugged off the Houston NOW chapter’s decision to vote him ”Neanderthal of the Year” after he said women shouldn’t be umpires. ”NOW is such a blowhard organization,” Knepper said. ”They are a bunch of lesbians. Their focus has nothing to do with women’s rights. It has everything to do with women wanting to be men.” When asked about the article, Knepper told The Houston Post: ”That is probably what I said, but I was joking at the time and I didn’t mean it to be taken seriously. I don’t know any of the people in the organization, so I really couldn’t tell you what kind of people they are.” During spring training this year, Knepper made his comments about female umpires after Pam Postema was the home-plate umpire in a game he pitched. He said he didn’t think God meant for women to be umpires because women shouldn’t have authority over men.(AP)
I remember the Cardinals from that time, a grim humorless bunch. Even Ozzie Smith had a permanent frown on his face at theat time. Guys like Danny Cox, John Tudor..no fun at all. And Joaquin Andujar was a nutcase.
Also, if you’re going to play the recent-politics-of-the-franchise game — a fun game to play — the Detroit Tigers can’t come up untainted either, considering the pizza-based Christian fascism of Tom Monaghan.
And don’t forget that when he played for the Tigers, some undoubtedly-horrific trauma caused first baseman Randall Simon to acquire his sausagicidal tendencies.
I had to look it up on Google to remember his name. The teaser paragraph was titled:
“Sausage Beater Simon Booked for Battery,”
and the lead quote was “Right now it’s in the hands of the authorities.”
Tell me, was I wrong to laugh?
Well done, Retardo. Tim Teufel also raised my ire back in those days. It was probably all the ass-wiggling at the plate. Knight and Darling made me want to take a hostage … Before I read this I actually had some semblance of objectivity going into tonight’s game. Thanks for ruining that.
As far as the Tigers and Monaghan, he hasn’t been around in over a decade, and he was part of the reason for our decline. The owner now, Mike Ilitch, is a former (failed) ballplayer and owner of the Red Wings as well. Even though the Tig’s have stunk bad for over a decade, most of us here felt he really did want us to win, but all his choices (GMs, coaches, FAs) kept blowing up in his face. It took a few years to resupply the farm system, they made some good FA moves and trades, add Leyland, and stir. GO TIGERS!!
No, it isn’t fair to hold Monaghan against the Tygers still, but since we were going down the yellow brick road of ’80s memory, “Xanadu”/”The Wiz” style, I figured I’d bring it up. On the other hand, the Cards’ owners (DeWitt et al) are still major Bush boosters, no?
Damn those snooty coastal elites! They’re so arrogant!
Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty to point out that this…
“…a Robert Moses-y name with an Eames motif for a new new new franchise whose founders strained to differenciate from the old old old Yankees and the gone gone gone Dodgers and Giants. The name was meant to connote Gotham-ness, but atomic-style instead of the tradition and art deco crap across town.”
…is just wrong.
The Mets’ name comes from New York Metropolitans (née the Metropolitan Club), a 19th century American Association team notable for being the first baseball tenants of Polo Grounds. It was meant to connote the new club’s ties to New York baseball history. The founders did not strain to differentiate from the Dodgers and the Giants, but rather paid homage to them and tried to position the Mets as their successor. The club colors of blue and orange come from the Dodgers and the Giants, respectively. Over half a dozen playes on the 1962 edition had previously played for the Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees before. Hell, look at a list of early managers: Casey Stengel, Wes Westrum, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra.
I hate the mets for many reasons, but the big one today is the 2000 playoffs.
I hate the cards for many reasons including tony larussa, but the big one today is the 1987 playoffs.
I will enjoy the ultimate failure of one of them tonight, and the other at the hands of the altogether enjoyable Tigers in the course of the next week.
Giants fans. We never win, but we get our revenge eventually…
mikey
Feh. Football season, specifically SEC football, is on like a neckbone, so I say nuts to baseball. Auburb and Florida, son…that’s gonna be interesting to see. Or maybe Arkansas will throw a spanner in the works. And though I live in Athens, I have no love for the Dawgs, and though I’m from Mississippi, I have no love for those particular Bulldogs. Wish there was a way both of them could lose, and somehow involve Ole Miss, as well. Sweet, sweet tears of shame we shed mightily here in Athens after last week’s embarrasment with Vanderbuilt.
And speaking of rotten assholes that some call “fans”, SEC football has got ’em beat. I’ve known marriages to break up over Georgia-Tennessee, and the surest way to causes an all-out brawl at my high school was to insult either Ole Miss or MSU. I once saw a group of Florida fans try to overturn a bus full of Tennessee folks.* And these are all Southerners, who are, of course, much more polite and courteous than anyone else on the planet.
So, yeah, Roll Tide. Now, that all being said, my folks and my brother are all Mets fans, so by process of elimination…go Cards. Or whoever.
* They failed, for what it’s worth. Didn’t beat UT, either, that year.
As fine a piece of writing as I’ve come to expect, Retardo. Some of the best baseball bile and vitriol as I’ve seen, exhibiting a level of angst and hatred unmatched by a Mets fan’s (or Red Sox fan’s) hatred of the Yankees. And as a Mets fan, I say keep it coming! You clearly poured a vast amount of time and effort into it, and while we take such a deep level of animosity as a sign we’re doing something right out there at Shea, this piece rises to such a frenzied pitch, revealing an unfathomable well of fear and desperation, I feel almost assured that the Mets will take Game 7.
We’ve certainly had our fallow years–very long nights at Shea in the early and mid 90s comes to mind, but this year’s team is something special, not matter what the outcome of tonight’s game, or, God willing, the Series yet to come. If we get there, Detroit will certainly be very difficult: what with our patched-together starters and depleted bullpen. But, our rookie did beat your ace, so anything can happen.
When the new stadium is finished in a few years, I’ll still miss old Shea. Yeah, it’s a pit, but it’s our pit, and it has its charms (and the beer is cheaper than Yankee Stadium).
Can we help it if your players all want to come play on the big stage in the big apple?
I am torn between my dislike of the Mets and the entertainment value of Retardo in pain.
I had a couple of Mets fans sitting behind me when NYM played this summer in Toronto, and they were pretty nice guys. And, very sympathetic to my loathing of the Yankees.
While we’re on the subject of Toronto, his tenure in our town is a great contributing factor to Carlos Delgado’s respectability as not only a player but also a gentleman. The only assholes the Jays employ either came that way and are old dogs who can’t learn new tricks (Roger Clemens, David Wells) or are promptly unloaded (Shea Hillendbrand, and pretty soon, Ted Lilly).
still reaping their karmic dues from employing John Birch Society members in the 80s.
Hey, lay off Eric Show. He may have been a crazy right wing nutjob coke addict, but dammit, he was a UC Riverside alum, and that made him OUR crazy right wing nutjob coke addict!
Everything was fine with your article, everything was fine…until you got to the part about Bill Buckner “losing the championship for the Red Sox”. He didn’t. He just…didn’t. Other than that…carry on.
Ever go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York?
Go. Watch the Yankee fans walk straight past the plaques of all-time greats like Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson and Warren Spahn. Watch them beeline to Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth and say “Where’s the rest of the Yankees? Oh, man, I want to be here when Jeter gets in, that will be so awesome!”
Here’s a tip: don’t call yourself a baseball fan if all you know is one team. Learn some history. And don’t buy the hype your local radio guys spout about how you catcher is the “greatest left-handed two-strike hitters since 1995.” Bullshit stats for people with no bullshit detector.
Plus, if you live in New York, just shut up.
I hate the cards for many reasons including tony larussa, but the big one today is the 1987 playoffs.
Jose Oquendo. Gak. How that little gnome managed to hit only his second homer of the year in Game 7 of that series … I almost cried in the AV room at my high school, which I had snuck into during class to watch the game.
Meanwhile, Retardo writes:
… if only Barry Bonds had been a bit older and Richie Allen a bit younger and Ty Cobb a little less-dead, that Mets team could have been the hugest douchebag-collective of alltime. …
Now that I know this clown is a Cards fan, his Bonds hatred becomes all the more pathetic. Especially when you consider that McGwire played his entire career on ‘roids, and Bonds just the years 1999-2004 (if you buy the ‘Game of Shadows’ version of events, anyway). And Tony LaRussa, scumbag that he is, oversaw the steroidization of baseball.
Also, I should note that every single professional athlete of note to have played in the past 20 years … has been on performance enhancing drugs. In every sport. The Cards are no exception. Pujols? Please. Edmonds? Giant fucking juicer. Larry Walker only retired because he ran out of veins to pop, and drew the line at injecting into his cock. Dave Duncan’s kid grew up around McGwire and Canseco … you don’t think he knows the score?
The only exception is Eckstein. And that’s only because his ass is actually skinnier than a syringe.
Oh, and you also forgot about Cardinal Rogers Hornsby and Dave Kingman on your all-time shithead list.
Hey, lay off Eric Show.
Dravecky, too. I mean, don’t lay off him, but that he too was a Bircher. ‘Course, he literally pitched his arm off for the Giants, so I can never think too badly about him …
Jose Oquendo. Gak. How that little gnome managed to hit only his second homer of the year in Game 7 of that series … I almost cried in the AV room at my high school, which I had snuck into during class to watch the game
That was beautiful. A gigantic middle finger right in Jeffrey Leonard’s face. We were gonna let you win the series out of pity until that proto-Bonds jackass called St. Louis a cowtown. (Also notice how Will Clark was one of the whinniest bitches ever until he finally got his teams right and wore Cardinal red, whenceforth he comported himself with utmost sportsmanship)
I never took up for McGwire, but then he was a legitimate HR hitter and huge man before any steroids rumors — unless you think LaRussa was there at USC hand-delivering roids to McGwire at the frathouse. Girly-wristed Barry, however, had to suck a syringe before he could manage to gain any power-producing bulk and therefore any historic HR/AB ratios, in his late thirties, because he was characteristically jealous petulant little baby.
Sorry if your god is a cheating sack of shit — along with being a megalomanic, a race-baiter, and an all-around despicable human being.
Only an idiot would think someone could ‘naturally’ break season HR records in his late 30s after never approaching them before then.
Dravecky and Thurmond, too, I think.
Anyway no offense. I hate Bonds; you hate the Cardinals. I’m a clown; you’re an idiot. It’s all good.
As for your first question, start here and scroll away. Unless you’re an autodidact, in which case you’re too stupid to know what ’scroll’ means (a lame joke the punchline of which is revealed in the link)
Wow. Just….wow. I guess we all have our bete noirs, but mine happen to be The Ramones and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Liverpool FC, not small gradations along the political spectrum or novelists.
Oh, and Aaron Heilman is freaking gorgeous.
Woops, I just read that Aaron Heiling went to Notre Dame, a fourth bete noir, so nevermind, he’s the ugliest dude in the history of the world.
“All the mouthy bitches did was whine etc,etc,etc”
It always saddens me when an intelligent person writes such a piece of wankery. Whining and bitching about whiny bitches just don’t come off real well.
Well, McGwire was ‘roiding right out of the gate, I have no doubt. Maybe – a big maybe – he was clean during his rookie season. But I doubt it.
So, yeah – he was a “legitimate” HR hitter before any steroids rumors … which is kind of like saying Foley was a straight, upstanding guy before the page scandal broke.
Bonds had all these years before the ‘roids: 33 HR, 34, 46, 37, 33, 42, 40, 37 … so yeah, clearly he was fucking stinking up the joint before he started juicing.
Any way you cut it, pre-juicing Bonds was a better ballplayer than juiced-to-the-gills McGwire.
But … ooh! He’s a ‘despicable human being’!!! Who gives a shit? I got to watch him go on the most insanely productive four-year stretch by any hitter in baseball history. I watched tough old baseball managers become quivering little cowards when faced with a decision to try to get him out or walk him.
Those were great times, let me tell you.
As for ‘Old Penitentiary Face’ … the Hac-Man … one flap down, baby!
But … ooh! He’s a ‘despicable human being’!!! Who gives a shit?
I sure don’t! I grew up in the 60’s reading hagiographies of baseball players, that, in hindsight, are so scrubbed clean of any trace of Not The Great All-American Boy-isms as to render them lies, I kind of use to be the prototypical kid who looked to athletes to be role models.
Then I read Ball Four ca. 1973, when I was 13, and well, that was that. I much appreciated the stories of players who drilled holes in dugouts so they could spy on female fans beavers, the pill taking, the drunken players kissing each other etc.
In other words, I think that Richard Wagner is one the very greatest musicians to ever live, and the fact that he was a vile human being by every account doesn’t change that.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA DIE POND SCUM DIE!!!!!!!!
Strike 3. Who would have thought Beltran would have looked at strike 3 with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th? What a game…
OK now youy motheruckrs did it. Ypu fuckin psyched uys out whn we needed eberyone on board,. so now I;,m gonna becomie one of of those libertyatirians or something. I didn;t leave the left the flewft left ME!@ by rooting for the Cartdinal or Jesus Bush, because you maked me so mad. That;llk show youy. Coksuckers. Tortue is necesuaaruy for the War on Terrods, Oh shit, now pEggy nOonnan is suckn my coick. Damn. Why I didnlt thuibnkj oif this beforrr
Roy Rules. That is all.
What an awful pitch my ex-lust object Heiling threw to the lesser Molina brother.
Oh well, enjoy it Cards fans, your team is going to get its clocked cleaned by a much better American League team that has homefield advantage.
Why the FUCK do these idiot playoff games ALWAYS go to the full seven games? It’s practically never six or five or a blowout four. It’s almost as if it’s planned that way, so that maximum advertising can be sold, that games are thrown and only game seven really counts. Of course, you’d have to be a super-paranoid conspiracy nut to believe anything like that. And I’m also so not tuned into this shit that I have no idea how many games it took for the Tigers to finalize their spot in the World Series. And I give not a hot piss as to whom wins–I just feel that all is right in the world again since neither Chicago team even made the playoffs. Last year was just weird. So, yeah, the Bears are disturbing me with their success. Please, Cthulhu, no “Superbowl Shuffle” redux, please!
Congratulations, Retardo. Your band of mediocrities has a shot at becoming the worst team to ever win a World Series.
“the Mets’ name taken for baseball from the auto industry, the Nash Metropolitan model being such a Edsel-esque bomb that it forced a merger of the company with Hudson.”
Hey…I just found out the other day that the boarded up embroidery factory (break-ins are fun…if you have enough weed!) next door to me was a Nash dealer back in the 30’s.
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA DIE POND SCUM DIE!!!!!!!!”
That’s better. At least it ain’t whining or bitching.
Wow, does baseball bring out the inner being in the regulars. But that’s what I love about the game; baseball fans are f’ing crazy, and it’s awesome. And did I mention?
GO TIGERS!!!
[…] Above: Seconds later the Cardinals jersey — symbol of all that is decent and just in baseball — burst into flames. Fashion/Moral advice for Dear Leader: A Mets jersey is more like what you’re looking for. […]
You = John Tudor.
Mets = Fan – that’s right, the electric kind. You try to punch us, but we cut you, and you go on the 60 day DL. Deal. With. That. Sucka.
The Cardinals are pink soul-patch wearing, herpe-lipped, personally bankrupt and morbidly obese.
And Buckner didn’t lose the series for the Red Sox. The game was already tied when he made that error. So, on behalf of Bill, I’d like to say, go suck it.
[…] drunk. Drink ruined Hemingway and Faulkner. On the other hand, it invigorates the already vigorous Roy Edroso, and one is told it sustained Edmund Wilson, who ate hard candy whilst drinking and wrote like a […]
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[…] intended to detail some of their offenses in my own words, but then I found this glorious write-up (published one day before Yadier Molina put the Cards/Mets rivalry on ice indefinitely with the […]