Just to Freak You All Out
Posted on October 29, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 30 Comments
A comment about sports:
Is it just me, or does it seem like this year’s World Series was over in, like, a game and a half? I looked up one day, and suddenly they’d played three games, and then this morning, bam, it was done. I mean, really, totally missed it.
I realize you folks in Boston are happy about this — World Series sweeps are fun and all — but it really wasn’t enough of a series for the rest of us to settle into. Try to stretch it out a bit the next time, okay? Maybe six games. Thanks.
Gneeaaaahh!!
….
I need 10cc’s of cat picture extract, stat!
As a resident of Denver, I’d appreciate more games too, Boston. Not that I watch baseball, but it’d make people around me a little more cheerful. Thanks.
Sorry guys. We gave all of our extra games in the ALCS. We felt like getting this series to its inevitable conclusion before it started snowing.
Was it World Series time again?
I’m still wrapping my head around the idea of the Rockies in the World Series.
(The sad thing is my hometown Mariners should’ve been there by now, if not for their traditional post-All-Star-Game-break meltdowns, and it’s perhaps wise not to speak of the World Series around long-time Braves fans like myself. ::sigh::)
While I was busy not caring, it looks like the Americans were back to playing baseball. Huh.
I only have one thing to say about baseball: they kill innocent trees for that game.
Only trees that die natural deaths are used to make the bats. And all the trees are ‘free range’. Honest.
Sorry. I’ll speak to my fellow Bostonians and see if we can work out something a little more exciting next year.
Go Sox!
We’ll get right on that, John.
I just hope we don’t have to wait another three years to win it all again! :-)
A baseball fan’s perspective on the postseason just concluded:
Downside — Not an action-packed tableau overall. Boring sweeps all over the place, only one long series (Sox over Indians in 7). 1986, it weren’t.
Upside — I’ve been rooting for the Red Sox since about 2002. Oh, and now I have extra free time to surf– . . . I mean, to get my work done.
A perfect baseball game in Japan, is always played to a tie (though less so these days). Really, look it up. I think it has something to do with shame, or dishonoring your ancestors. Personally, I like this primo line from “Conan The Barbarian”
Trainer:
“Conan, what is good in life?”
Conan:
“Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of the women”.
Some of us wanted it in Six, so that the players could celebrate in Fenway. Myself, I had money riding on a sweep, and am quite content.
This entire postseason had the fewest games played since they switched to three tiers in 1995 – 28 out of a possible 41. That did suck.
I went to hear Joe Hill read in Boston tonight and he said essentially the same thing. “I’m glad the Red Sox won, but I kind of wish the Rockies had shown up.” (He is, of course, a big Sox fan.)
And then while he was signing books, someone asked him about an item he had with him, and he mentioned it was a gift for you. Or as he put it, “Scalzi will get what’s coming to him.”
RED SOX FUCKING RULE FUCKING WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! OMFG!!!!!!
Ahem. I was kind fo glad it was over. It was killing me to stay up so late all the time watching the games. Cuz you know, I had to.
Hey, when you’re outplayed, you’re outplayed.
But next year will be different. *Rubs hands together*
Go Rockies! Yankees Suck!
Not a good week for home teams to play in Denver. Brett Favre just pulled out a genius pass to quickly put an end to overtime, Packers are 6-1. I’m imagining that the Broncos aren’t.
Dr. Phil
Let it be known that this is only the second time in ~40 years that a team for which I rooted actually _won_ a Series. It’s enough to make me think that favoring one team over another isn’t an automatic kiss-of-death.
I stopped rooting for teams in general, and the Sox in particular, back in the early 60s. (Sox vs Cards?) Then again, if one grows up in L.A., one either gets a thicker skin or is driven away from “rooting” (strictly N.A. meaning here!) by the ever-wonderful and ever-spririt-breaking Dodgers.
(The only other time, post-adolescence, I dared offer an opinion on favorite teams was seconds after the Broncos – finally! – got a Super Bowl… turned to mine host the bartender, and quotha: “Wouldn’t it be really funny to all the naysayers if they did it again next year?”)
“what curse?”
All the sweeps were distressing to me. Talk about unbalanced matchups…To me, it makes for a very boring Series. That and I really wanted the Rockies to win. I guess I’ll just have to content myself with the fact that the Indians knocked the Yankees out. I love to hate the Yankees.
Mariners in 2008!
You do realize we Red Sox fans have a morbid fear of game 6’s of World Series?
*curls up in the corner, seeing the ball go through Buckner’s legs again*
Does this mean that I’ll get to see new Simpsons episodes now? Huzzah.
I’m sure the world would have been a happier place overall had the series gone to game 5. But asking for the Red Sox to preserve your city pride is like asking a road crew to kindly steer their steamroller around your flower garden. “Yeah, we’ll see what we can do.”
It’s the curse of Dan Shaughnessy. Shaughnessy is the local sportsliar who invented “The Curse of the Bambino” in 1967, and dined out on it for almost forty years. After the epic 2004 American League Championship Series against the Yankees, Shaugnessy was whining on the radio that his made-up curse wasn’t broken yet, because they hadn’t yet won the World Series. Shaughnessy’s hubris met its nemesis when the World Series that year was a quick afterthought to the LCS victory, as it has been in Red Sox baseball ever since.
This is at least as valid as any other “curse” talk you’ve ever heard about the team.
(I have an excellent comment about what the Red Sox were really afflicted with all those years, but it would be off-topic as a comment on this blog post).
I’m in Dayton. . . ugh–the Reds are the worst team in the league, the Bengals can’t stop a one-legged running back in a wheelchair, and the Blue Jackets have never been a good team. The only people who have it worse is people in places like K.C. and Seattle.
But it’s okay. . . Ohio State is No. 1!
I really thought Lester would drop a game, just so the Rockies could have some dignity. Then Beckett would come in game 5 and end the series. I get the feeling the Red Sox will win 27 World Series this century(payback for last century), barring a nuclear holocaust or an asteroid hitting our planet.
As my brother-in-law was quick to point out, my team (Cubs) got swept by a team who got swept by a team who got swept by the champs…
I was thinking the same thing. There was such a long break, they took so long to start, that it seemed like they wouldn’t get around to playing for a while. Then game 3 appeared on my TV. Game 3 already? It’s only the end of October!
Speaking as a fan of the game, and not one particular team:
Greatest end to a baseball season ever.
Worst post-season in a very, very long time.
More here.
Since baseball should not be played in November, this World Series ended just in time.
Try to stretch it out a bit the next time, okay?
I do sympathize, John. But the team is the Red Sox, not the Black Sox.
haa haa need a bir