My Only Comment on the End of the Baseball Season Last Night
Posted on September 29, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 46 Comments
I very strongly suspect the Yankees intentionally blew a seven run lead, just to mess with the Red Sox. Because that’s how it is between them.
Discuss.
I’m actually convinced that they lost because of a disturbance in the space-time continuum – the universe simply couldn’t deal with the fundamental wrongness of thousands of Red Sox fans rooting for the Yankees.
;)
Well, my only comment on baseball (not a fan, mind you) is that I am dumbfounded to learn via the book “Moneyball” that it took the multi-billion dollar a year baseball industry all the way to the 1990s to update their statistical models that were created around the time William Sealy Gosset was publishing under the pseudonym “student”.
Actually, before the time.
Even a rivalry wouldn’t justify such a move. The players would get banned-for-life for even thinking such a thing. Just ask “Shoeless” Joe.
Clear2grey:
I don’t think they took money or fixed the game. On the other hand, look who played in the game (and who didn’t) and you’ll recognize that the Yankees, already in the playoffs, were a) not worried about the outcome of this specific game, b) aware that losing this game would quite possibly stick it to the Sox.
Two … no, it’s ONE WORD. Damnyankees.
If it’s in their interest to throw one, so what. It’s a tactical move. Screw Boston. They should have played better.
……………………………………….
Who was it the Dodger’s looked to stick it to back in Lasorda’s era? They were out of it one year but the last series of the season was against a rival and contender that needed to win to get in the playoffs. The Dodgers looked at winning their last games as ‘their World Series’, just to keep ’em out. People were upset.
Don’t you mean “You sense a Disturbance in The Force”…..
As for the Yankees. Hey, they won their Division, secured home field advantage, and were leading the game 7-0… what else did you want them to do?
Boston failed here miserably.
As a Red Sox fan I don’t blame the Yankees one bit. The Red Sox didn’t deserve to get to the playoffs. They stunk for the past month and stunk against a pretty bad team last night. If the roles were reversed I would hope the Sox would have played their starters for a few innings then put in some back ups and not used a single pitcher who might be needed in 3 days against the pretty good Tigers, just like the Yankees did last night. And I look at it this way also, they just did me a favor and didn’t string me along a couple more weeks to then lose to the Yankees in some horrible fashion. Like a band aid they just ripped it off early last night.
The Evil Empire strikes again.
Call a Mainer a ‘Yankee’ and he says “Ayuh.” Call a Massachusetts man the same and he says “$%^% you, &2^)$”
Me: Red Sox fan.
Opinion: This was sad, but hardly tragic, and not really worth the time being devoted to it. I mean, have you seen the sorry state of the Sox pitching staff in the past month?
Also Notable: 7 championships by 4 Boston sports teams in the last 10 years (including 2 by the Sox). This is not the cursed Red Sox anymore. Many of us got the angst out of our system when Keith Foulke touched first base for the final out of 2004.
Anything Else?: Yeah, I’ll laugh my ass off if the Rays beat the Yankees in the ALCS. Because I doubt the Red Sox could do it with the team they ended the season with.
As a Yankees fan: Heh. Heh. Heheheheheheheh.
I’m disturbed that any of you are treating a game in the “American” League as actual baseball. I’m sorry, I’ve played baseball before, and the “American” Leagues is NOT baseball. It is at best a semi-sorta-almost-kinda sport based on baseball. At the best.
I’m disturbed that any of you are treating a game in the “American” League as actual baseball. I’m sorry, I’ve played baseball before, and the “American” Leagues is NOT baseball. It is at best a semi-sorta-almost-kinda sport based on baseball. At the best.
“My completely artificial and arbitrary configuration of rules is superior to yours. Hah!”
Keith Foulke didn’t touch first base to end the the 2004 season. He jogged halfway towards first and lobbed the ball underhand to Mientkiewicz. I watch the Faith Rewarded DVD on opening weekend every year :)
If I’m the Yankees, I’d much rather face the Red Sox than the Rays in the ALCS. And given what the Rays pulled off last night, they might have that 2004 Red Sox sheen about them, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they roll over everybody and win it all.
In the meantime, can we interest you in an overpaid starting pitcher who just made $14 million dollars to post the highest ERA in team history? And he is divorcing his wife just months after she had a double mastectomy. The guys a winner on and off the field ;)
Why this AL bias?: all about the Red Sox collapse and none about Braves – they achieved a pretty epic collapse of their own, after all.
Nah. I’m sure the Yankees would have been happy to win the game. They just weren’t going to disrupt their playoff preparations to do it. If the Rays wanted to win the game, they were going to have to do it for real.
“My completely artificial and arbitrary configuration of rules is superior to yours. Hah!”
Touche, except for the fact that the OFFICIAL rules of baseball say that a teams consists of 9 people who take the field to defend and who also bat. Not 9 people who take the field to defend, and 8 of them plus some other arbitrary person who bat. :P
My baseball loyalties are simple: I’m for the Cincinnati Reds, along with anyone who happens to be playing the Yankees. Last night, that was Tampa Bay. Well done, Rays! Now, go TIgers!! ;-)
And sorry, Boston. But if you can’t even take 2 of 3 from the Orioles, how do you think you would have done against Texas?
Thanks, Riccardo. Following the Braves for the past four weeks has been like a month-long tooth extraction. I’m just glad it’s over at this point.
PLease as a Mets Fan and a Manchester City Fan you guys know nothing about collapses.
@Kevin
As a long time Braves fan I finally realized at some point that the Braves either reach the zenith or the nadir of baseball… and it can change in either direction at any point in the season. Heh
P.s. how many other people here have a Boston Bees t-shirt, or even know who they are? hahaha
Hey, starting this week, when I open the emails for your blog, I get a grey screen where your pithy writing used to be. I opened an earlier post to get here. Just FYI–I enjoy reading your posts, but just wanted to let you know.
BTW, I have in one of the romances I’m writing a Red Sox fan marrying into a die-hard Yankee fan family. My father was buried with his lifetime Cubs fan membership card (it worked) and I hate to say it, but I really don’t care one way or the other. Sorry.
jjohnsontate (at) aol (dot) com
Baseball, put into proper perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl9X5tNFSic&feature=player_detailpage#t=188s
;)
So what if the Yankees tanked the game (a tough call on a 1-run win in 12 innings)? The sooner that “Red Sox Nation” realizes that the past decade was an aberration and not the new norm will be the sooner they understand their place in the baseball universe right there with the Cubbies.
As a resident of Baltimore, I was just tickled to have my team playing baseball that mattered, in September.
“Hey, Hey!”: In the case of the Dodgers, they will always attempt to spoil the chances of the Giants.
Riccardo: I’d noticed a certain bias in the reportage myself; I’ve chalked it up to smaller market and karmic retribution for the Tomahawk Chop not nearly as extensive a history of swooning as Boston. The SF Chronicle ran an AP article with the high points, but most of those high points were Boston.
Since none of my teams are in it, I get to see how far Detroit and Milwaukee go. heh.
Hmmmm…<s> doesn’t work here.
In my previous comment, consider the “smaller market and karmic retribution for the Tomahawk Chop” struck through.
Thanks.
I will start with the disclaimer that I am a lifelong Yankees fan. I understand the idea, but honestly I think that 8-run implosion was that they were resting their starters AND their bullpen because that was important to them with the playoffs starting on Friday. In this totally-doesn’t-actually-matter-to-US game, they went ahead and left in a pitcher that gave up somewhere between 4-6 (ESPN was showing the Boston game in my area, so I’m fuzzy on the specifics) runs in an inning. Sure, the fact that the loss stuck it to Boston was probably a bonus, but if they were trying to throw the game they wouldn’t have had Texeira swinging away.
Also, it’s kind of a moot point because Boston did this to themselves:
http://www.sportsclubstats.com/MLB/American/ALEastern/Boston_ChanceWillMakePlayoffs.html
Touche, except for the fact that the OFFICIAL rules of baseball say that a teams consists of 9 people who take the field to defend and who also bat. Not 9 people who take the field to defend, and 8 of them plus some other arbitrary person who bat. :P
Because the OFFICIAL rules of baseball are any less arbitrary? There’s some natural law of the universe that demands 9 players? Hah. My point was that ALL rules of sports are arbitrary and artificial, and asserting the “realness” of one is just silly.
If I’m the Yankees, I’d much rather face the Red Sox than the Rays in the ALCS
As a Yankees fan, I have two overriding goals for a season: to see the Yankees win, and the Red Sox lose. Your scenario does not necessarily achieve either.
Red Sox fan here. The team was just uniformly awful throughout the entire month of September and, sadly, did not deserve to make the playoffs.
I don’t think the Yankees consciously threw the game. These guys are professionals (yes, even the hated Yanks) and I suspect that each player on the field played to the best of their abilities. However, as others have pointed out, the fact that the game was utterly unimportant to their post-season – and resting their starters *was* important – had a definite effect.
I’m a Red Sox fan married to a Yankees fan. Both of us spent a lot of time yelling at our respective teams during the final games. Suggesting to my husband that the Yankees blew their game on purpose would only result in more ranting, so I won’t go there. I will admit, as someone who’s watched the Sox get to the playoffs, only to bow out in the first round more than once, it’s probably better this way. I cheer myself up knowing Atlanta has gone down as well.
What Jim C. says. The Yankees didn’t act like any other team that had clinched and wanted to go into the playoffs with their best players at their best. If they were going to throw the game, they should have done a better job of it – why go to extra innings and stress your relief pitchers?
Besides, the way the Red Sox have been playing the Yankees might *want* them in the playoffs rather than a better team that they’d have to face later.
Don’t worry, Red Socks fans. Justin Verlander is gonna smoke the Yankees tonight.
Apparently Digital Atheist has torn rule 6.10(b) out of his/her copy of the Official Rules…
As an Orioles fan, the sting of a fourteenth straight losing drain — mor of a dull ache by now, really — was lessened by the team’s performance in September. Winning at least two games in each of the last five series of the season against teams fighting for playoff positions gives me some small hope that 2012 will be better. (Plus it was worth it to see all those sad Red Sox fans leaving Camden Yards…)
What Rivka said — well, change “Baltimore” to “the Eastern Shore.”
Also, Go Tigers!
If the Yankees really wanted to throw the game they could have just you know, not scored the 7 runs to begin with. That said, it was still super hilarious, the Braves collapse was historic for about an hour, then the Red Sox had to go and pull an even more epic fail
@Digital Atheist
Yeah, I remember the days when the Braves could have pitchers who could finish the season with an ERA under two and a losing record. When you could call Fulton County Stadium and ask what time the game started, and they’d say, “When can you get here?”
The Sox didn’t need any help. We were more than capable of blowing it on our own. It would have taken one more game, is all. I think we’re back to the old ways of hope and heartbreak.
I suppose at least we were in the race to the end, but boy was that a humiliating way to finish. Hats off to the Rays, who wouldn’t give up.
Since my two favorite teams are the Sox and the Braves…that was a very bourbon soaked night. Though as many have said, It really isn’t like we could have done much in the playoffs with our busted up pitching and 60 day DL Youk. It must be said what a fantastic job Aceves did just to get us there, and Ellsberry too. Bucholtz is pretty young to be hurt all the time…this does not bode well for his career.
As ever though, Eff the bloody Yanks. Will be rooting ever-hardcore for them all to catch fire and burn to tiny embers at some point.
As much as I enjoy watching the Red Sox play the Yankees, I can’t help think that both fan bases are starting to resemble one another in the fact that they expect to win the whole thing every year and failure to do so is a major catastrophe. That being said, as a die-hard Brewers fan, I’m hoping they get to to World Series!
This was simply a matter of the Yankees needing to get prepared to be crushed by the Tigers.
but the curse has been reversed, n’est pas?
“If I’m the Yankees, I’d much rather face the Red Sox than the Rays in the ALCS.” This. The Sox were slumping, and the Rays were surging. You want to face the team that went 5-20 in September, not the team that went, oh, however winning the Rays were. Plus, having the Rays on the ropes, being able to knock them out in *one* game, you don’t want to give them a shot to come back from the dead.
Also, as a Boston fan and lifelong New Englander, I must concede that the Red Sox really, truly deserved to lose.
This. The Sox were slumping, and the Rays were surging. You want to face the team that went 5-20 in September,
No, you want the Red Sox to LOSE. LOSE EPICALLY. LOSE IN WAYS THAT MAKE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT “WORST EVER.” LOSE! LOSE! LOSE!
Are we clear?
Wow, and here I thought only us Sox fans hated that much; sounds like the yank-me fans are even more rabid >;-)