Well, this is the look you’re getting for a while. So live with it. Just a couple minor things, while we move toward the weekend and wonder:
“Why has no one, ever, begun a viable Indianapolis Colts-blog?”
Hmm. That bit of foreshadowing aside, we’d be remiss if we didn’t move on and congratulate not-mine, but your own Chicago White Sox, removed from the prison cell of bitter fandom, leaving the Chicago Cubs with no more roommates.
I’m not happy for the White Sox. I’m not annoyed with their fan base. I’m not anything. In fact, I think the best Cub fan perspective I’ve seen on the Series is here (of course), it’s Ruz’s, and it’s correct. Plus, I also hate AJ Piersdlkafj;dslafjk. What a tool. However, White Sox fans will love him forever. So, grudgingly, and perhaps in response to the litany of idiotic “Cub fans revolt, hate their lives, blah blah blah” stories around, even Mr. Faded Glory will light up a roll of ditchweed, don a wifebeater, get a snake tattoo, move into a trailer, and assault a defenseless coach — all in praise of the White Sox. Congrats!
One more final note — though I pulled for the Astros (Seriously, how bad was the NL this year? None of the playoff lineups were scary after one or two batters. No one’s lineup outside the playoffs was any better. All the more reason for Cubs fans to pound our heads against the wall.), it was fitting they were dispatched in four games. For weeks I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that Phil Garner is not a great manager, and that Brad Lidge is good, but completely hittable (Seriously, Thom Brenneman called him the best playoff closer ever. Ever! Come on, Fox, we’re already watching. Stop trying to sell it to us! If Mariano Rivera were dead, he’d be spinning in his grave.)
But I’ve also tried to reason with anyone who’ll listen — and I’m not alone here — that Roger Clemens is a horribly overrated playoff performer.
I can remember one good start — the 2001 Game 7, a game which Rivera ultimately lost. But in others (not always his fault, not always the team’s fault, but, you know) he’s never been, well, great.
Boston’s 1986 Game 6, he was good, but left early. New York’s 2003 game against Florida, he lost late on an Alex Gonzalez homer. In a 1999 LCS against Boston, he got shelled.
Jack Morris. Curt Schilling. Dave Stewart. Pedro Martinez, Orel Hershiser, Tom Glavine, Jose Rijo — these are great playoff pitchers. . But, with little time nor actual care about Roger, I never researched it to find out if my theory was actually sound.
However, Keith Olbermann has taken care of that. In a prescient and stunningly complete post, he debunks the Myth of Roger Clemens. Check out his must-read scathing indictment. Point made.
Sorry, but no anti-Clemens piece will ever beat this one.
I was less surprised that the White Sox won than I was that after Game 4 it took 15 minutes of WGN remote interviews from a bar with 5,000 southsiders in it for someone to cuss on national TV. (Dude’s “Every fucking day!” pronouncement followed an excited yell of “Westsi … SOUTHSIDE!” It’s good those dirtbags sort of know where they live.)