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A case for America's Team
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Author:  Phillip Blanchard [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:02 pm ]
Post subject:  A case for America's Team
Image

The White Sox.

(Yes, I would have dropped the stuff about Ozzie Guillen's English skills.)
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
Michael Rosenberg wrote:
The other day, I was watching baseball in the late afternoon because I'm a sportswriter and I'm allowed to call that "work."

May we assume you also think you're allowed to call this a "column"?

Quote:
Even in the context of this season, the White Sox are the best story in baseball. They were supposed to be mediocre; instead, they were far and away the best team in the American League for most of the season.

Uh, no. Season-ending sweeps of Boston and Cleveland notwithstanding, the Sox after June played barely over .500 ball. Only their incredible start allowed them to be in contention.

Rosenberg offers about the lamest argument I've heard since — well, when did W last speechify?
Author:  ADKbrown [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:32 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'm rooting for 'em--even though I don't know who the hell they are.
Author:  Phillip Blanchard [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:38 pm ]
Post subject: 
An incredible start counts the same in the W-L columns as an incredible finish.

I claim no special knowledge of Major League Baseball, or even of the Sox (since I moved from Chicago and no longer had the luxury of attending 15 to 20 games a year). I would just like the White Sox to win.
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
Phillip Blanchard wrote:
An incredible start counts the same in the W-L columns as an incredible finish.

Granted, the numbers don't care about chronology, and neither, I suppose, do most fans. But Rosenberg's statement doesn't wash. The 1914 Boston Braves and the 1951 New York Giants had incredible finishes (Boston's was over the last half of the season, so I don't know if "finish" is all that apt), but those didn't make them the best teams in their leagues for "most of the season."
Author:  Phillip Blanchard [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:13 pm ]
Post subject: 
Didn't the White Sox have the best winning percentage in the American League on most days of the season?
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:19 pm ]
Post subject: 
I refuse to argue this further without a 12-pack and a platter of nachos.
Author:  Phillip Blanchard [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
I have to hunt down some decent bratwurst for the weekend games, which isn't easy in Maryland.
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:49 pm ]
Post subject: 
Couldn't you serve crab cakes instead?
Author:  ndugan1 [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Look at the rest of the playoff bracket. We have all gotten teary-eyed at the thought that the Yankees might end their four-season World Series drought, but I'm not sure we can call that a curse just yet.


Here's one person who has quite the opposite reaction.

Quote:
Anaheim won the Series in 2002. Boston won last year. The Braves won in 1995. St. Louis won in 1982, which isn't quite 300 years ago, no matter what Cardinals fans say.


Apparently, a team must have a championship drought of more than 50 years to be favored to win the World Series. Nevermind that one of them led the league in wins for the past two seasons.

Just my outspoken-Cardinals-fan's two cents.
Author:  Phillip Blanchard [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
I just want the White Sox to win because they're a Chicago team. How's that for parochialism?
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:09 pm ]
Post subject: 
Works for me, Phil. I was ambivalent to the "other" NLDS because I despise the cities of Houston and Atlanta. It has nothing to do with the personnel of their respective baseball organizations or anything else.

With the Yankees, however, it's all about George.

(I'm a hypocrite, though. I've been a Dodgers fan for 40 years, yet I absolutely freakin' despise that silicone-and-asphalt debacle known as Los Angeles. But a 9-year-old isn't hip to stuff like that, and you can't change your heart in baseball.)
Author:  Matthew Grieco [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:37 pm ]
Post subject: 
Phillip Blanchard wrote:
I just want the White Sox to win because they're a Chicago team. How's that for parochialism?


That's all I've ever felt about the Yankees and New York. I try to ignore the rhapsodizing about "26 World Championships" and "mystique" from some Yankees fans, and the complaints about the "Evil Empire" from Yankee haters.

Screw everything that happened in seasons, or eras, past. I'm just another guy who grew up in NY/NJ and has a Yankees fan for a dad.

Anyway, I am, in fact, rooting for the White Sox to win it all. When the Yankees are out of it, I root for history (except when that would mean rooting for the Boston Red Sox).
Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
Same here, Matthew. I know McCourt's as big an asshat as any of the rest of the owners, and the Dodgers are certainly no strangers to the "throw big money at big names" style of personnel management. And I know the Yankees are really no different than any other club in most aspects.

But, like I said, you can't change your heart. Baseball's like that.

My dad was a Giants fan, though. :grin:
Author:  Matthew Grieco [ Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
My father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan as a kid. Dodgers fans splintered into a lot of different groups when the Bums moved west; although some swore off baseball (either forever or until the Mets came around) or kept following the Dodgers from afar, my father was among the group who considered the move an act of treason warranting immediate defection to the Yankees.

Hence, I grew up understanding I was supposed to always root against two teams: the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. And to this day, I can enjoy watching any team win a game under certain circumstances, save those two.
Author:  ADKbrown [ Wed Oct 12, 2005 8:16 am ]
Post subject: 
I once worked with a copy editor who was a fount of baseball knowledge from the early days of the sport until the Dodgers left Brooklyn. As to what happened on the field after that black day, he knew nothing.
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