Seriously, the hell with baseball.
First of all, it was a Who Cares? World Series anyway. The Rockies, a team steeped in fundamentalist values who are nonetheless hypocritical enough to play on Coors Field, or the Red Sox, which...I mean, they...if you...AARRGGHH!!!
Just take a look at any of the painfully ubiquitous photos of Red Sox fans celebrating en masse. Have you ever seen such a scary sea of whiteness? Have you ever seen so many guys, whatever their age, looking like drunken frat boys? Have you ever seen so many people you just want to hit repeatedly with a shovel?
Boston fans have always been a particularly virulent lot, no matter how badly their team sucked, but now that the Sox have won their second series in four years, they've now got a sense of entitlement. I don't really care about the team one way or the other--although, Jeebus help me, if you've ever read Curt Schilling's blog, you'll never want to stop vomiting--but their fans are such an annoying bunch, they ruin the game for me.
Or ruin it further, considering the state of my beloved Yankees. Alex Rodriguez--or more precisely, his agent, and I'd just like to say FUCK AGENTS--has announced he wants out of his contract. This, after saying as recently as the play-offs that "New York feels like home."
I've got mixed feelings about Rodriguez's tenure with the Yankees. Until this season, he never really delivered, but in the past year, he was not only the team's MVP but one of the most awesome presences in the game. He also gave the team some superstar recognition, but paradoxically, that has always been a problem with the Yankees in the Steinbrenner era: the tendency to hire individual stars rather than building a functioning team.
But his departure couldn't come at a worse time, since the Yankees will certainly be wobbly following the departure of Joe Torre, one of the best managers the game has ever known. His agent didn't specify Torre's absence as figuring in Rodriguez's decision, but he did mention the uncertain future of the team, not even knowing for sure who his teammates would be.
Which is another reason for concern: Next year's Yankees will be the first mostly assembled by Steinbrenner's kids, Hal and Hank. (Even typing the words "Hal and Hank" sent cold chills down my spine.) While I'd like to believe they couldn't possibly be any more misguided than their dad, I'm afraid they'll be paralyzed by attempting to think like him, will be too intimidated to do anything to displease him.
Think bigger, guys. Time to step up to the plate.
