How did I root for these guys?
Part of the joy about being home in the middle of the day is being able to watch whatever odd programming happens to be on. Today I'm enjoying a Red Sox game from 2000 when they took on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It was a fight filled game that featured seven Devil Rays players and coaches being ejected and saw Pedro Martinez take a no-hitter into the 9th while retiring 24 straight at one point. While this was one of those magical Pedro games, as I watched it I seriously wondered how I rooted for this team. At the time of this game I was just 17, nearing 18 years of agae. Maybe it was my Red Sox faith that blinded me, but this was such a team a rejects and retreads I have no idea how I put my faith behind them. Lets examine them for a moment.
The Sox line-up went as follows:
1. RF - Trot Nixon - I love Trot Nixon, always have, but why was Nixon hitting leadoff? The simple answer was there was no else qualified enough in the Sox line-up to hit leadoff. I see this and I want to cry
2. 1B - Brian Daubach - He may be my favorite streaky hitter of all time. When he was on you couldn't shoot an asprin by him using a high powered assault rifle. When he was off a blind arthritic monkey could have gotten a beach ball past him. Not a bad guy to have hitting say 6th or 7th, but in this line-up he was hitting second, yikes.
3. CF - Carl Everett - Well there is the good and bad with this one. The good being in his first year he was an All-Star, hit .300 w/ 34HR's and 108RBI's and well that's where the good ends. It wasn't to far thereafter when he was saying he didn't believe in dinosaurs, talked about beating his kids and headbutted an umpire while arguing a call during family day at Fenway Park. All this being said I try not to talk bad about Everett not only because if I do he may hut me down and hit me with his car, but he broke up Mike Mussina's perfet game in the bottom of the 9th in Fenway as the Sox season tailspinned worse than the career of Michael Keaton (Remember when Michael Keaton played Batman? Twice? What the hell happened there?) So kudos to you Jurrasic Carl, now please never come near the Red Sox again.
4. SS - Nomar Garciaparra - This was back when Nomar was an icon, back before the injuries and the public sulking. He entered this game hitting .371 and he finished the season hitting .372, yup .372 I mean holy hell, that's beyond ridiculous for a hitter and with Nomar at this point in his career it was almost expected this was going to be the norm. No one saw what was coming, how could they? As it was with Williams and Dimaggio it was going to be with Nomar and Jeter. Six years later, Nomar was playing for Red Sox Light (the Dodgers) on the west coast and Jeter was busy trying to figure out how he could get A-Rod off the Yankees so they could start winning again. Quite simply, seeing Nomar like this makes me nostalgic for a moment, but then I remember the Sox won the World Series two years ago and if they hadn't traded him away to the Cubs the Sox may never have won the whole thing. It's amazing, as dumb as I am, sports find a way to make me stupider.
5. LF - Troy O'Leary - Expecting an Irish guy with a name like that, right? Nope he was black, just a fun side note. Anyway I have a hard time talking bad about my boy Troy. Why you ask? Well in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS, Nomar homered in his first at bat of the game. Well when he came back up in the 3rd and runners on second and third, Nomar got a free pass to first and O'Leary followed with a grand slam. Later in the game, during the 7th inning with the game tied at 8 and a runner on second Nomar was again intentionally walked and O'Leary again hit a home run that put the Sox ahead for good. So with me Troy O'Leary is always good, kind of like how Brett Favre is with the rest of America.
6. DH - Scott Hatteberg - Not much against the guy but not much for him. Hit for a decent average, still does has; a nice OBP and can play 1st, catch or roam the outfield if needed, but he really doesn't have the qualities you want in a DH. I'll put it this way, Hatteberg is a lot like Saltines. Solid snack option, gets the job done, but it always seems to leave you wanting something more.
7. 3B - Lou Merloni - Local guy who was a fan favorite, even had his own chant of "Loooouuu" anytime he made a play or came to bat (eerily reminiscent of the current "Yoooouuuuk" chant for Kevin Youkilis but I digress). Never able to sustain a full season in the majors, not a bad utility guy, would have been perfect for the level of baseball between AAA and the majors, just like Jeff Suppan if such a level existed....wait a minute, you tell me Suppan won 44 games in the past three years for the Cardinals? Interesting, maybe such a baseball level does exist.
(Side note - Merloni sustained a mild concussion in this game during the first brawl and was replaced by Manny Alexander - I have neither the time or inclanation to rant about him right now, maybe another day).
8. C - Jason Varitek - O Captain My Captain. Can't talk bad about Tek. It'd be like talking bad about Jesus except blasphemus (avoiding thunderbolt thrown at me by God)
9. 2B - Mike Lansing - Where to begin with this ass-hole? Picked up in a trade about a month before this game he finished the season batting .194 w/a .230 OBP for the Sox. The kicker was he was only hitting .258 before the trade while playing for the Rockies in Coors Field. In case you didn't know a person with one arm could hit approximately .240 in Coors Field and to my knowledge Lansing had two good arms so he had no other excuse for his terrible numbers aside from the fact he was just a terrible baseball player. One of the great Dan Duquette moves of all time.
Also on the Sox roster at the time but not playing in this game:
Jose Offerman - Turned a good year with Kansas City into a 4-year deal with the Red Sox. Was actually an All-Star in his first year and then the next year he remembered he was Jose Offerman. While not horrendous at 2nd base defensively, he was pretty close and you know it's bad when you find yourself saying "Todd Walker isn't as bad at 2nd as I thought he would be," when in actuality he is pretty bad at 2nd....just not as bad as Offerman.
Dante Bichette - My friends and I used to call him Bitch-ette becauase that seemed to be all he ever did while in Boston, bitch. About his playing time, where he was being hit, on where everyone else was being hit, on why he hated puppies....ok he didn't really complain about puppies but you get the idea. This all from a guy who was brought in to provide some "veteran leadership"
Darren Lewis - His calling card was defense and I'm still convinced that if I could train enough to hit .250 then I could be the next Darren Lewis. All I need to do is win the lottery so I have enough time to concentrate on hitting .250 and not concentrate on getting a job.
Donnie Sadler - A former Sox farmhand who had blazing speed. He's one of the only people I've ever seen score or even attempt to from third base on a fly ball to left field in Fenway. Only problem was he couldn't hit (career .202 hitter) or get on base (career .262 OBP) so and he had only 25 SB's vs 12 CS's which shows he didn't know how to use his speed. For a contemporary comparison think of someone along the lines of Joey Gathright except a whole lot worse.
Israel Alcantara - Otherwise know as Izzy and actually well known for drop kicking a catcher during an at bat in the minors before charging the mound a couple of years after this game. Warrants mentioning these were the kind of guys the Sox were bringing up through their system.
Gary Gaetti - Yeah, he was on this team, for like a couple of weeks. He appeared in five games as a DH. By all accounts he was a nice guy, two time all star and somehow stuck around in the majors for nearly 20 years despite not being that good of a hitter or fielder. Just included him in this because I thought it would be fun.
The pitching staff outside of Pedro was scary to say the least. Ramon Martinez (Pedro's older brother) was the only pitcher with a record of over .500 of 10-8, but his ERA was just a shade over a touchdown, sans the extra point (6.13). The only other plus on the staff was a then failed starter working out of the bullpen named Derek Lowe who went on to lead the league in saves in 2000 with 42. In the coming years he would bring us mountains of joy and mountains of irritations and of course the irreplaceable Derek Lowe face.
Again, I look at this team and I try and figure out how the hell did I root for them? Was I secretly rooting for Pedro and he just happened to be jammed in with this collecetion of retreads? I don't think that's the case. I think once you dive in with a team, you're stuck with them through better and worse, thick and thin and believe me I've been through a lot of the thin. But I guess the bottom line is you stand by your team, if they truly are your team, even if their line-up is filled with guys you wouldn't want on your slow pitch softball team. Plus, if your team ever does get off the schnide it makes it that much more satisfying that you stuck with them. Plus, when you think things are going bad (finished 3rd in the division behind Toronto, who's closing next year? what'll happen with Manny? how are they going to get pitching help? what about the middle infield? etc. etc.) you can always look to teams and times like the one examined today and laugh and say "Well at least it's not like that anymore."
The moral of the story? Well, I don't know if there is one really. You could go with the sappy stick with your team through everything and they'll reward you eventually, but that's pretty much nullified if you're an Arizona Cardinals fan.
***Pop Quiz Question*** - How do you win a football game when your down by 20 points, turn the ball over 6 times and don't score a touchdown on offense?
***Answer*** - You make sure your opponent is the Arizona Cardinals (I watched that game last night and I still don't know how they could blow that one.)
Maybe in the end there is no moral and there is not point and maybe this is just me killing time on a rainy afternoon and I stole 5 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. But that's enough for now so until later.....
The Sox line-up went as follows:
1. RF - Trot Nixon - I love Trot Nixon, always have, but why was Nixon hitting leadoff? The simple answer was there was no else qualified enough in the Sox line-up to hit leadoff. I see this and I want to cry
2. 1B - Brian Daubach - He may be my favorite streaky hitter of all time. When he was on you couldn't shoot an asprin by him using a high powered assault rifle. When he was off a blind arthritic monkey could have gotten a beach ball past him. Not a bad guy to have hitting say 6th or 7th, but in this line-up he was hitting second, yikes.
3. CF - Carl Everett - Well there is the good and bad with this one. The good being in his first year he was an All-Star, hit .300 w/ 34HR's and 108RBI's and well that's where the good ends. It wasn't to far thereafter when he was saying he didn't believe in dinosaurs, talked about beating his kids and headbutted an umpire while arguing a call during family day at Fenway Park. All this being said I try not to talk bad about Everett not only because if I do he may hut me down and hit me with his car, but he broke up Mike Mussina's perfet game in the bottom of the 9th in Fenway as the Sox season tailspinned worse than the career of Michael Keaton (Remember when Michael Keaton played Batman? Twice? What the hell happened there?) So kudos to you Jurrasic Carl, now please never come near the Red Sox again.
4. SS - Nomar Garciaparra - This was back when Nomar was an icon, back before the injuries and the public sulking. He entered this game hitting .371 and he finished the season hitting .372, yup .372 I mean holy hell, that's beyond ridiculous for a hitter and with Nomar at this point in his career it was almost expected this was going to be the norm. No one saw what was coming, how could they? As it was with Williams and Dimaggio it was going to be with Nomar and Jeter. Six years later, Nomar was playing for Red Sox Light (the Dodgers) on the west coast and Jeter was busy trying to figure out how he could get A-Rod off the Yankees so they could start winning again. Quite simply, seeing Nomar like this makes me nostalgic for a moment, but then I remember the Sox won the World Series two years ago and if they hadn't traded him away to the Cubs the Sox may never have won the whole thing. It's amazing, as dumb as I am, sports find a way to make me stupider.
5. LF - Troy O'Leary - Expecting an Irish guy with a name like that, right? Nope he was black, just a fun side note. Anyway I have a hard time talking bad about my boy Troy. Why you ask? Well in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS, Nomar homered in his first at bat of the game. Well when he came back up in the 3rd and runners on second and third, Nomar got a free pass to first and O'Leary followed with a grand slam. Later in the game, during the 7th inning with the game tied at 8 and a runner on second Nomar was again intentionally walked and O'Leary again hit a home run that put the Sox ahead for good. So with me Troy O'Leary is always good, kind of like how Brett Favre is with the rest of America.
6. DH - Scott Hatteberg - Not much against the guy but not much for him. Hit for a decent average, still does has; a nice OBP and can play 1st, catch or roam the outfield if needed, but he really doesn't have the qualities you want in a DH. I'll put it this way, Hatteberg is a lot like Saltines. Solid snack option, gets the job done, but it always seems to leave you wanting something more.
7. 3B - Lou Merloni - Local guy who was a fan favorite, even had his own chant of "Loooouuu" anytime he made a play or came to bat (eerily reminiscent of the current "Yoooouuuuk" chant for Kevin Youkilis but I digress). Never able to sustain a full season in the majors, not a bad utility guy, would have been perfect for the level of baseball between AAA and the majors, just like Jeff Suppan if such a level existed....wait a minute, you tell me Suppan won 44 games in the past three years for the Cardinals? Interesting, maybe such a baseball level does exist.
(Side note - Merloni sustained a mild concussion in this game during the first brawl and was replaced by Manny Alexander - I have neither the time or inclanation to rant about him right now, maybe another day).
8. C - Jason Varitek - O Captain My Captain. Can't talk bad about Tek. It'd be like talking bad about Jesus except blasphemus (avoiding thunderbolt thrown at me by God)
9. 2B - Mike Lansing - Where to begin with this ass-hole? Picked up in a trade about a month before this game he finished the season batting .194 w/a .230 OBP for the Sox. The kicker was he was only hitting .258 before the trade while playing for the Rockies in Coors Field. In case you didn't know a person with one arm could hit approximately .240 in Coors Field and to my knowledge Lansing had two good arms so he had no other excuse for his terrible numbers aside from the fact he was just a terrible baseball player. One of the great Dan Duquette moves of all time.
Also on the Sox roster at the time but not playing in this game:
Jose Offerman - Turned a good year with Kansas City into a 4-year deal with the Red Sox. Was actually an All-Star in his first year and then the next year he remembered he was Jose Offerman. While not horrendous at 2nd base defensively, he was pretty close and you know it's bad when you find yourself saying "Todd Walker isn't as bad at 2nd as I thought he would be," when in actuality he is pretty bad at 2nd....just not as bad as Offerman.
Dante Bichette - My friends and I used to call him Bitch-ette becauase that seemed to be all he ever did while in Boston, bitch. About his playing time, where he was being hit, on where everyone else was being hit, on why he hated puppies....ok he didn't really complain about puppies but you get the idea. This all from a guy who was brought in to provide some "veteran leadership"
Darren Lewis - His calling card was defense and I'm still convinced that if I could train enough to hit .250 then I could be the next Darren Lewis. All I need to do is win the lottery so I have enough time to concentrate on hitting .250 and not concentrate on getting a job.
Donnie Sadler - A former Sox farmhand who had blazing speed. He's one of the only people I've ever seen score or even attempt to from third base on a fly ball to left field in Fenway. Only problem was he couldn't hit (career .202 hitter) or get on base (career .262 OBP) so and he had only 25 SB's vs 12 CS's which shows he didn't know how to use his speed. For a contemporary comparison think of someone along the lines of Joey Gathright except a whole lot worse.
Israel Alcantara - Otherwise know as Izzy and actually well known for drop kicking a catcher during an at bat in the minors before charging the mound a couple of years after this game. Warrants mentioning these were the kind of guys the Sox were bringing up through their system.
Gary Gaetti - Yeah, he was on this team, for like a couple of weeks. He appeared in five games as a DH. By all accounts he was a nice guy, two time all star and somehow stuck around in the majors for nearly 20 years despite not being that good of a hitter or fielder. Just included him in this because I thought it would be fun.
The pitching staff outside of Pedro was scary to say the least. Ramon Martinez (Pedro's older brother) was the only pitcher with a record of over .500 of 10-8, but his ERA was just a shade over a touchdown, sans the extra point (6.13). The only other plus on the staff was a then failed starter working out of the bullpen named Derek Lowe who went on to lead the league in saves in 2000 with 42. In the coming years he would bring us mountains of joy and mountains of irritations and of course the irreplaceable Derek Lowe face.
Again, I look at this team and I try and figure out how the hell did I root for them? Was I secretly rooting for Pedro and he just happened to be jammed in with this collecetion of retreads? I don't think that's the case. I think once you dive in with a team, you're stuck with them through better and worse, thick and thin and believe me I've been through a lot of the thin. But I guess the bottom line is you stand by your team, if they truly are your team, even if their line-up is filled with guys you wouldn't want on your slow pitch softball team. Plus, if your team ever does get off the schnide it makes it that much more satisfying that you stuck with them. Plus, when you think things are going bad (finished 3rd in the division behind Toronto, who's closing next year? what'll happen with Manny? how are they going to get pitching help? what about the middle infield? etc. etc.) you can always look to teams and times like the one examined today and laugh and say "Well at least it's not like that anymore."
The moral of the story? Well, I don't know if there is one really. You could go with the sappy stick with your team through everything and they'll reward you eventually, but that's pretty much nullified if you're an Arizona Cardinals fan.
***Pop Quiz Question*** - How do you win a football game when your down by 20 points, turn the ball over 6 times and don't score a touchdown on offense?
***Answer*** - You make sure your opponent is the Arizona Cardinals (I watched that game last night and I still don't know how they could blow that one.)
Maybe in the end there is no moral and there is not point and maybe this is just me killing time on a rainy afternoon and I stole 5 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. But that's enough for now so until later.....
posted by MC at 11:20 AM
1 Comments:
Corsetti... awesome, funny stuff. Keep up the good work.
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