NATS RISE TO GLORY game nineteen

Nats got four hits, scored two run. Caveman Jayson Werth is in third slot batting .191. Lead-off chump Denard Span is .240. No fucking offense happening, so you could have space pitchers who dominate multiple planets but no runs means fuck yo. Other end of dugout field positions was Marlines, who smashered 14 hits in Sunday matinee, with four runs to sweep Nationals series. Lead-off dude for Marlins went 4-for-5 yesterday, yet didn't get an RBI nor score a run. So he was going apeshit, and yet had nothing to do with any runs directly, although the psychological destruction of opposing pitchers and weakening their will to resist your offensive advances as a team could certainly be construed as a direction action, no? Gio got knocked up again, and the once indomitable and futuristically inspiraing One-Two tandem of Strasburg/Gio is looking lost a little. Not necessarily shot, but psyche's questioning things, existential crisis of sorts, which affects baseballers more than most other sports because baseballers be standing around a lot of time with too much thinking and shit going on. Long DC histories of lack of run support, lack of offense can damage pitching psyche - "Am I wasting my life? Is all this physical energy being expended for anything of substance? Is this all for just simple dollar bills in form of paycheck? What am I doing here?" Another hit, as man in red hat ponders these questions, another runner in scoring position, another early exit from that little cocaine bump of a pitcher's mound. Life is temporary but god losing streaks will feel like forever.
Nats are 7-12.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game eighteen

Wow man, Stephon Cyborg is not the world dominator, is he? Against the stupid Marlins he gave up a pair of runs in the 4th, a pair in the 6th, and the Nationals have forgot how to score runs again. Then some scrub Rafael Martin got rocked to double it up to 8-0 in the 8th (gotta play 8s on the pick 3 tonight!), and fuck man, THEY GOT TO .500 AND HAD A "MOMENT" BUT HAVE NOT FUCKING WON A SINGLE GAME SINCE. THAT STUPID FUCKING HEADFIRST SLIDE BY YUNEL ESCOBAR. FUCK FUCK FUCK.
Nats are 7-11.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game seventeen

Technically, we are 10% of the way through the season, which seems a good standard checkpoint to see if this Nationals team truly is Rising to Glory. Well, thus far there is promise but not a lot of glory. But fuck man, it's only April, so all you really have to do at this point is promise to be glorious.
According to my google news reader, it looks as though the Nats opened a road series in spacious Florida against the Marlins with a 2-3 loss. I put it that way like it was a soccer score. I wish we got soccer on free TV and it was good soccer and I could go fight people over soccer. There are no baseball hooligans, not since the Baseball Furies, and they were just a gimmick in a movie anyways. Like the Nationals could lose every game forever, and I wouldn't be mad enough to fight somebody over baseball. It's just not a fight-worthy sport, which is exactly what makes bench clearing brawls so interesting. Whatever.
Nats are 7-10.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game sixteen

The Cardinals won the rubber tramp stamp game because they are the Cardinals and I hate them.
Nats were 7-9.

Blue Jays 4, Orioles 2; Blue Jays 7, Orioles 6; Rays 12, Blue Jays 3: Where Do The Days Go

The light in Tampa: arguably worse than the light in the closed dome?

Haha woah ok yeah Blue Jays baseball, right? It has been being played, certainly! These hockey playoffs show no sign of relent, though, and a man has but a finite amount of time, I am sure you will agree, to devote to sport, to sport-feeling, and, most relevant to our conversation here I am sure you will agree once more, to sport-feeling blogging. To recap in brief, then: the Blue Jays finished well against the Orioles, and then got walloped to the extremium against the Rays last night. Foremost among those walloped was surely R. A. Dickey, who stunk, which I say without animosity but instead as the barest statement of fact, of stink-fact. Poor guy. 

Let us all be enriched, however, by the R. A. Dickey Honorary Old English Word-Hoard, which visits upon us dægcandel, "day-candle," and so "sun." Isn't that a nice one? A kenning! Which is like a super-compressed metaphor, a kind of riddling circumlocution! The term derives from the Old Norse verb kenna, "to know," and it is totally a way of knowing things, so there you go.

Hey Devon Travis is hitting like .375 with 5 home runs so far. 

KS   

NATS RISE TO GLORY game fifteen

5-5 tie early on, plodding towards the end, then Cards get a pair in the last two innings to win 7-5. I hate the Cardinals, mostly because it feels like their fans are made up of two distinct groups - Bob Costas and the Ferguson Police Department. It's like the two-party system essentially, straight out the middle of America. One party is sanctimonious self-important know-it-all assholes, and the other party is xenophobic selfish racist assholes. Most good-hearted folks are not invited to either party. The Cardinals are essentially the most American set of baseball team fans you could have, so I guess it makes sense they'd win every game in DC being well you know what I'm saying. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you're one of them too. Fuck.
Nats are 7-8.

Blue Jays 13, Orioles 6: Jose Bautista vs. The Haters Still

E5 looking like a cool cool killer in this

Because the world is stupid, not everybody loves Jose Bautista openly and fearlessly, and so on occasion people are going to throw behind Jose Bautista; we know this because we have seen this. For the second time in this still-young season, though, Joseph Batstista has answered this demonstrably self-loathing hateration (in that hating in hating Jose Baustista you are obviously hating part of yourself, and probably one of the better parts of yourself, actually) by launching the shit out of a dinger in that selfsame at bat. That is how you do it, Jose Bautista; that is how you fvkkn do it.

Also Mark Buehrle, just getting out there, hucking it in, let's hear it for that guy. And E5.

KS

NATS RISE TO GLORY game fourteen

A stupidly long baseball season is full of all sorts of moments, and some of those moments are brighter than others, which accumulate into a mental checklist of "moments". Those "moments" are in turn sorted through when a team actually makes a true and living Rise to Glory, for essential Moments. Thus in all the mundane minutes, you acquire:

moments < "moments" < Moments = Glory.

Last night's game against the Cardinals ended with what I will arbitrarily and with the self-important confidence of an internet person declare the Nationals first "moment" of this season. It was about what you'd expect from a Nationals/Cardinals game - plodding, crafty, threats never being realized. Don't forget this is the Cardinals franchise that not only defeated the Nats in the playoffs two years ago but punked them psychically and broke their spirit, which honestly they've never overcome yet in playoffs. It is a psychic albatross they will still have to cleanse themselves of. But it's a tie game going into extra innings, one of those 1-1 games that to a non-fan you'd go, "One to one? Fuck that." But if you like to sit around drinking cough syrup for leisure and listening to games on internet radio, it was classic baseballing. Top of the tenth, no runs (naturally). Bottom of tenth, two outs, and on comes Yunel Escobar, Cuban emigre to the U.S. to play the baseball, not long after Cuban/U.S. relations thawed for the first time in like half a century. First pitch, Escobar jacks over the fence for walk-off HR victory. The team of course is waiting to mob him at home plate as he rounds, as Cardinals pitcher sheepishly wanders off field, and instead of traditional leaping stomp of home for bearhugs from professional friends all around, Escobar slides headfirst into home, immediately mobbed by smiling faces raining Gatorade splashes in every direction. It was a "moment". It was a very small early season slice of psychic confidence against the team that punked them previously in long-term life. It was the Nationals first time reaching .500 this season. It was hopefully the first "moment" building towards even better Moments.
Nats are 7-7.

Braves 5, Blue Jays 2: Lots of Actual Blue Jays Lately Though

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn get there

A tough start for non-actual blue jay Daniel Norris yesterday, and also a tough start to the season for actual blue jays, too: despite a truly mighty thaw the last ten days or so, there is still plenty of snow and ice on the ground here, which is less than ideal for most birds, I am sure you will agree. Birds are tough, though, like way tougher than people; for example, take the toughest human you can even think of, and then think about whether that person could survive a hard winter as well as a humble chickadee and the answer is obviously no, people are not as tough, or good, as chickadees. The last couple days I have seen several blue jays in the yard, and I am strongly in favour of actual blue jays, despite their somewhat bullying nature at the feeder, and their call that is almost completely indistinguishable from the sound of a clothesline pulley scraping against its housing or whatever (not a diss). We have a some branches down as a sort of roosting area, or something, mainly for the mourning doves, but tonight this neat little blue jay (not that little I guess) was hopping up and cracking seeds against it, and it was, in short, a delight.

The lesser human Blue Jays are now 6-7 and may never get back to .500 all year.

KS   

NATS RISE TO GLORY game thirteen

Stephon Cyborg looked good, and The Ultimate Harper got as many walks as at-bats, and though his average is lackluster thus far early in this season that doesn't really count yet, Ryan Zimmerman was clocking some RBIs this weekend against the Phillies, including 2 yesterday, which was all they needed. Top three of the line-up scored all four runs. That's good offensive foundation. I build my offensive baseball philosophy on line-up pyramid, split into thirds. Top of the line-up should score a thousand runs, because they are your fast sneaky fuckers who always get on base then when no one is looking are standing on third like "What? Can I brush the dirt off my knees ump?" Then your middle of the line-up are the brutes and psychic forces like what that Beast Mode dude was a few years ago for the Nats and The Ultimate Harper probably could be better than any other baseball dork specimen currently active. That part of the line-up should just durr-smash in half a thousand runs to complement the top of the line-up. Then your bottom third is your leftovers, but they pick scraps up because the other side's pitching is demoralized and forgets to pay attention in adderall baseball ways. So though they don't score as many runs nor run up the averages and stats as much, the bottom third is essentially the part that destroys the opponent psyche. Shit like pitchers getting stand-up doubles. So perhaps the top-third is coming on, and the pitching will have run support, and these Nats truly will Rise to Glory. Or perhaps the Phillies fucking suck. Shrug emoticon.
Nats are 6-7.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game twelve

Sigh. Saturday game was no win and Phillies broke a six-game losing streak. The Ultimate Harper smashed another HR though, obviously channeled into universal magnetics and feeling the voices of the elders advise him on what's coming from the mount. He also is starting to get walked a lot according to box scores. Mufuckas afraid of The Ultimate Harper. Too much uncontrolled raw animal manliness in there. It can be dangerous. Look at how it turned into demons that consumed Jorsh Hamilton. Look at how Barrett Bonds sacrificed his own morality to enhance his ability to achieve such a physical status upon earth. The Ultimate Harper is young. He worries me, not so much that I'm afraid he won't be a universal force in a stupid earth man game, but I don't know, he seems tailor made by the Baseball Evil Gods to end up signing a ridiculously high dollar contract to play for the Yankees, and have his universal force obscured by the glaring lights of such a thing.
Of note in this game is Jonathan Papelbon got the save for the Phillies, and I didn't see it, only read it, but I have always thought Papelbon's mouth looked like an anus, and I tend to laugh at dudes with mouths like anuses. What sort of life leads you to that look? What genetics and psychologies combine to clench lips into eternal pucker of shit existence? People are weird looking. Granted, about three times a week, I slip into brain mode of Oscar Zeta Acosta and Hunter S Thompson in the bar in Las Vegas where everybody looks like alien lizards and it's hard to handle that shit. Actually just yesterday, my family was on a short road jaunt, and I stopped at the Sheetz for a large cup of what is considered coffee (proud aficionado of gas station coffee right here, bruh), and everybody started looking like lizards and it was very unsettling and I'm not sure how people exist without freaking out to be honest. Anyways, Nats lost, with reaching .500 for the first time this season on the line.
Nats are (were) 5-7.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game eleven

This past Friday night, Max Scherzer was a beast. I was wandering around and got to catch a little of the game on AM radio in my shitty truck which has almost 200K miles & will explode any day now, which in my humble opinion is the only way to truly enjoy America's past time. In my head I started referring to him as Maximum Scherzer, so I am going to pretend that is his real name now. But Maximum Scherzer was in beast mode. Also of note is the Ultimate Harper (aka Bryce Harper), who smashed a 3-run homer in the first inning, giving Maximum Scherzer a comfortable cushion to be like, "lol lemme do pitcher shit that sportswriter assholes will say 'scattered X hits' about later." So he did.
Nats are (were) 5-6.

Braves 8, Blue Jays 7; Blue Jays 6, Braves 5 (F/10): These Really Seem Like Excellent Games I am Missing

I really think photography has finally advanced far enough to truly capture how shitty the light is in there with the roof closed

An 8-7 game with five home runs? A 6-5 extra-inning win with a walk-off home run from everybody's new buddy (in that he is not Brett Lawrie and also extra reasons) Josh Donaldson? These games sound super great! I only caught the bottom of the ninth last night after hockey, but did see Dioner Navarro for a minute and got to think about how I like that he is stout as fvkk, so it's not like I got nothing from the game, because that felt like something, but my thoughts were elsewhere throughout the evening, clearly. And then this afternoon it was really lovely out, and there was a hipster craft show nearby and the crafters are these really interesting talented stylish earnest people and it's not just the crafts (although it is the crafts) and not even snax (although it is the snax) but it is just the feeling you get in there while you're eating a cupcake and sipping a hand-pressed fizzy lemonade and maybe getting a dishtowel, you know? The university radio station has a booth there with these volunteers that could not have less information about any subject than the amount they have about the one they are ostensibly there for; it is wonderful. So I did not catch any of this game but I saw the Donaldson walk-off and it looked like a great time for everybody!

Also it is worth noting, I think, that R. A. Dickey did totally alright again today, and even if he hadn't he would still by his mere presence have provided us with an opportunity for another peek into the R. A. Dickey Honorary Old English Word-Hoard, which I am sure you will agree is more than enough, especially when you see how sikk it is to think about the word galdor, which means "sound, song, incantation, spell, enchantment" (all definitions today from J. R. Clark Hall's Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary as that is the one that is on the couch at present), and maybe just get a little quiet about the idea that song and spell are held so closely together in galdor, right? You get a bunch of really good compounds out of this one, too, like galdorcræft ("occult art, incantation, magic" and also my band name so hands off), galdorcræftiga ("wizard"), galdorcwide ("incantation"), galdorgalend ("enchanter"), galdorgalere ("wizard"), galdorleoð ("incantation"), galdorsang ("incantation"), galdorword ("magic word"), galdre ("wizard, magician"), and galdricge ("enchantress"). I mean, my god.

KS

Blue Jays 12, Rays 7; Rays 3, Blue Jays 2: It's Just That Hockey Playoffs

The light really is flat in there with the roof closed isn't it.

I am in favour of both Mark Beuhrle and games where Jose Bautista hits a dinger (or dingerz) so I find no joy in having not watched that one and not even having had it on the radio for even like a minute, but the hockey playoffs started, and we got oven-based snacks for that, and also a new kind of ginger ale that I am enjoying tremendously, so it was just extremely not a baseball night, you know? And last night I just wanted to read Chaucer (try it, you might like it!). 

Also, if I may be frank with you for a moment, even though the Rays got all interesting for a while and then receded to not being that interesting again I guess, I have never really cared about baseball games that the Rays were playing. This is nonsense, but it is how I feel about the Rays. I don't like their uniforms and their ballpark is dumb and I don't like how the Blue Jays play them a lot but never really play the Tigers and although that has nothing to do with the Rays I have always kind of held that against them? Also Jonah Keri's book about them was, on the level of the prose itself, just the absolute shits, if you will forgive my plain speaking on the matter.

Up next we have the Braves, and thoughts turn, of course, to the 1992 World Series which meant a pretty staggering amount more than the 1993 one even if the Joe Carter moment is obviously the singular moment from those years but should it be or should it be when Roberto Alomar homered off Eckersly in 92 in Oakland and put his arms up the second he hit it even though it ended up being kind of a squeaker just over the fence in right like how did Robbie know he had gotten enough of it how did he *know* and yet he *knew* and now he is in the Hall of Fame and should have gone in the first year except he spit on an umpire once which is an inappropriate thing to have done but also a fully human act that was long since forgiven by the man spat upon and so who are we to sit in judgement of Roberto Alomar who are we to deny him his propers.

In closing, if you haven't seen the Pillar catch, it was really good, and is here.  

Oh yeah also Jose Reyes got hurt lol.

KS  

NATS RISE TO GLORY game ten

Check this out - I didn't even have to look the game up because the chick from high school posted on her FB "Another curly W" with the W as the Washington hat. So I know they won. That's modern news bruh - somebody shares a dumb picture on social media & you're straight.
So Nats previously won 1 out of 3 each series, but open this what I'm assuming is a 4-game set with a win. They haven't impressed, at least not on paper (lol like I been looking at the paper), and yet they are 4-6. That's the fucked up thing nobody ever tells you openly about baseball - it's this giant long marathon of being barely better than everybody else's mediocre. That's all. Nobody wins 120 games. Barely above mediocre. Essentially it's a big long slogging heroin nod through the regular season, try to stay barely above mediocre or perhaps even slightly better, get into the playoffs, and then shift into over-thinking retard chess mode of baseball playoffs, plus get lucky, and win. Then you have achieved glory. So despite a less than impressive first two weeks, these Washington Nationals are right on schedule, if you ask me. (Fuck you if you don't ask me. Uppity fucker.)
Nats are 4-6.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game nine

Some nights, it all comes together. For the Washington Nationals, that means they were actually able to score some runs AND their defense didn't decide to bail out in celebration. They salvaged not being swept by the Red Sox, and have maintained their steady pace of winning one-game of every series so far this year. They get to return home and play the Phillies. The cherry blossoms are in bloom in DC, and there's a killer collection of Mingering Mike's artwork at the Smithsonian art museum. Mingering Mike is a dude who made imaginary album covers for imaginary music, and it's all pretty amazing stuff. One thing that sucks about professional sports is the industrialization of finding and developing talent has been built so heavily off of metrics and colonial philosophies to this point that there's little chance of weird idiot savants incubating anonymously somewhere on earth, who develop like space magnetic curveballs or weird shit like that. It's a shame. The world is too fucking small sometimes.
Nats are 3-6.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game eight

A little late but mostly because I actually barely followed this game from the other night where Stephen Cyborg was bitchy, then the Nats looked like they could win but then they forgot to play defense, which is kind of a big problem if you have trouble scoring runs. I guess they figured they had scored a bunch of runs so they didn't need to play defense, thus the Red Sox got like 3 unearned runs and ended up winning 8-7 or some shit like that I don't know, it was two days ago and I don't feel like looking it up again, and honestly the internet only gives you new shit to hijack your brain from more important deeper matters. It is superficial news constantly. I literally just clicked an article about Kelly Clarkson. Why the fuck did I do that? Why would I give a fuck about Kelly Clarkson and her weight gain? All the poetry of a couple thousand years is at my fingertips, and I just spent about 17 seconds briefly scanning a fucking Kelly Clarkson article at Huffington Post. What the fuck?
Nats are 2-6.

Rays 3, Blue Jays 2: I Stopped Watching At An Appropriate Time

Above: the entire Skydome crowd for the second home game of the season

When I put this one on, it was already 2-2, and then the stream err ahhhh I mean the signal on my errrrr cable package wuuuhhhhhh wasn't working out so well so I moved on to iller matters for the remainder of the evening (not a euphemism). Later, when I learned the Blue Jays lost 3-2, I felt very good about my decision. And tonight they are already down 5-0 in the third! This home-stand is really shaping up guys!
KS

Rays 2, Blue Jays 1: It Might Also Have Been Possible to Not Send Jose Right There

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ah, the home opener, I know it well: you get your whole squad together and show up like twelve-deep in the 500s and listen to a bunch of drunk bro assholes start chanting "Go Leafs Go" by the fifth inning while the Blue Jays blow it to, like, the Twins, or something, and then there are fights. Maybe it doesn't happen like that anymore, exactly, who knows, as I have not been to one of these in holy shit nine years, but I expect the broad lines of the occasion remain largely unchanged; the camera seemed to luxuriate in the fresh faces of whole vast crews of dewy maidens adorned in their team-apparel finery and those too of the young suitors who suit them, which is much of what I recall of these home openers d'antan. By the second game of the season, all of these youthful funseekers will be replaced by the miserabilisit horde of fierce old ladies still mad at Homer Bush for a baserunning mistake in like 1999 and deliberately unfun young men with scorekeeping books and resolute viewz on advanced metrics; both with have little radios; neither will find any real joy. A crowd of 12 000 will be announced, but it will be a damnable lie.

BUT NOT ON OPENING DAY where a cheerful crowd north of 48 000 watched R. A. Dickey walk in the two runs that were all the Rays needed because nothing else ever really got going! Hey! You don't often say this about somebody who walked in a couple runs, but Dickey was really pretty OK, and has looked fairly good in both of his starts so far, actually. Down 2-1, Jose Bautista, who I see has a bobblehead day coming up (in a way it is strange that as a people we have not wearied of the bobblehead yet), drew a walk to lead-off the bottom of the ninth and I was like OOOOOOH SHIIIIIIIIIT and I was certainly no less that way when E5 started taking these huge rips up there as though he had fully considered how raw it would be to win the home opener with a walk-off home run and had decided this was a dare-to-be-great moment (not wrongly) that he could not let pass him by without taking mammoth fvkkn rips. 

But alas, he whiffed on a what looked like a pretty decent 3-2 fastball to hit, and Bautista, who had been sent, was out by a mile at second (or at least a quarter-mile, the length at which deeply-felt lives are sometimes lived), and that was pretty much that. 

But that's baseball, friends! It is often very much like that! And yet here we remain.

Oh hey also, since we were going to do an Old English word every R. A. Dickey start, to celebrate his Beowulf enthusiasm, let's do wealcan, which is where "walk" comes from. (I am not doing this to be mean about R. A. Dickey, because whether the runs were walked in or not [they extremely were], that was not a bad start, and Dickey has been better than a guy at work and I had decided he would be this year, and so is entitled to his propers.) 

wealcan

From Proto-Germanic *walkaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wolg- < *wel- (“to bend, twist, run, roll”). Akin to Old High German walchan, Old Norse valka, Old English ġewealcan "to go, go about, walk", Old English wealcian "to roll up, curl, twist", Old English weallian "to roam about, ramble", German wallen

Verb[edit]

wealcan

1. to move around
2. to revolve
3. to roll, roll around, be rolling
4. to toss
5. to fluctuate
6. to revolve in one's mind; scheme; reflect
7. to discuss

(That's from wiktionary.)

I don't know about you but I am already kind of excited about the next R. A. Dickey start because of all that etymology! 

KS

NATS RISE TO GLORY game seven

Man, I am no traditionalist by any means, unless we are talking pre-traditional traditionalist. Like, I would appreciate naked witches in the woods like a mufucka. But unfortunately in American stuff, when you say traditionalist, you don't mean like old world ancient awesome shit but stuff from a little while back, like when they burned witches and shit. But inter-league baseball is already slightly weird to me, but for it to happen so early in the year, before baseball even starts in our real heads. This game today was apparently the Boston Red Sox home opener. How the fuck do you home opener against the other league? That's wacky.
I can imagine no more wretched place on earth than a Boston Red Sox home opener, after a long disgusting winter full of like 10 ft of snow, drunken misanthropic misfits of the rest of the earth blossoming along with the spring buds, ready to get wicked wasted & fuck shit up in a tank top, crude stick & poke tattoos exposed for all the drunk Irish cops to make note of. But that's what happened today for my barely followed but pretend beloved Washington Nationals. Apparently the Nats treated it like still spring training, as the Red Sox posted 8 runs on the big green monster scoreboard in the first 3 innings, so the rest of the game was just a reason to get even more wasted and probably yell really horrible shit to Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth. By the way, congratulation overpaid beardo fucker who seems kinda chill by athlete standards by kinda unchill by actual human standards Jayson Werth - you have already gotten off the DL for the first time this season. Again, your Rise to Glory may not be as no doubtful as one would think if already one of the top paid dudes is getting off the DL, and we haven't even gotten to May. But oh well, it is baseball. Thus it's a slow and overthought process, where I already question if somehow it is my fault they are losing because I chose the "Rise to Glory" catchphrase. Already I am thinking of changing it, and we are only seven games into this shit.
Nats are 2-5.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game six

There is a girl I used to get high with in high school who is on FB & apparently has navigated middle-age by being a baseball fan. Or maybe she gets high as fuck all the time still, and baseball is actually enjoyable in that state. But she posted a "Curly W" which apparently can be used moving forth as a signifier of a Nationals victory, thus I don't even have to look up shit. I do know, however, that the Nats have one game out of each three-game series they've played this year. I'm no rocket surgeon, but at this pace they will end up having one exactly 1/3 of 162 games, which in most normal seasons does not qualify for the playoffs. No team that has ever not qualified for the playoffs has ever ended up winning the World Series. This could be cause for early alarm, sure, an excited panic that perhaps things are not going as hoped or planned or fuck let's fire somebody but lololol this is baseball in April. Opening Day has happened but baseball season doesn't really start until what, like mid-May? Maybe Memorial Day. The World Series finishes in October, which is six months away. The world could end by then. There may be no America, no baseball by October. It could be chaos in the streets and a multi-ethnic primitive war for survival happening by then. Everything we consider safe and civilized could become completely unraveled in 30 days. And we're going to worry about something that doesn't happen until six months from now? Lolol, no. Not yet.
Nats are 2-4.

Orioles 7, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 10, Orioles 7: The Blue Jays' Weekend That Was While I Did Some Other Stuff Actually But I Thought Of Them

Above: the sport of baseball

After getting one-hit by Ubaldo Jimenez on Saturday, the Blue Jays skreeeeeed back (I had "roar" there for a sec but that would not be an appropriate metaphor) with like a million runs today to take the series in Baltimore as well they should. Jose Bautista hit a home run late, which is cheering, because he has been off to a pretty slow first week, and while I am not overly concerned by this I think we would all agree it would own much harder if he began to rake at once? Not to be a Debbie Downer of things but Drew Hutchison seems to have pitched at least somewhat shittily today, with the seven earned runs in less than five innings of work, but let us place this series win squarely in our back pocket and let it dangle out a little like a batting glove and move on, shalllll we.

KS

NATS RISE TO GLORY game five

It was an extra innings affair yesterday apparently as the Phillies needed a 10th inning to beat the Nats. Doing simple math by reading the boxscore this morning, I can see the Nats were up 2-0 before giving up the go-ahead run in the bottom of 10th. Doug Fister was the starting pitcher and I always want to make jokes about "coconut oil or vegetable oil" with regards to his last name, but I'm not sure the four people who read this blog (lol if that) would get fisting jokes. Anyways, it looks like the Nats have built the greatest rotation in the history of organized or unorganized sports, but forgot that people still need to score runs, even though that's sort of been the problem all along. Then again, ultimately the scoring of "runs" in meaningless multi-billion dollar sports spectacles seems pointless what with the decline of human civilization under the oppressive boot of forever capital. But we had a fire in the backyard last night, and I was discussing with my 16-year-old offspring about sure, "what's the point?" but that should be motivation for good not bad. Like it's stupid to be like, "What's the point? I'm going to sulk." If there's no point to all this (there's probably not), might as well enjoy it, like, "What's the point? Let's have a cookout!" or "What's the fucking point? Let's go throw rocks into the creek all day. Fuck it."
Nats are 1-4.

Blue Jays 12, Orioles 5: Just doubles, bro; just, like fvkkn DOUBLES, bro

that's a double

Of the many things Joe Morgan has said over the years that infuriated stats doodz (no diss), the one that comes first to mind is his thing about how home runs are rally-killers; what you really want is doubles. This is of course of absurd: you want home runs; there is no better outcome than a home run; what even is this. HOWEVER, emotionally, I get it: once you chain a couple doubles together, it feels like they might never stop, just doubles doubling around like Abner Doubleday spending doublouns in Dublin, or whatever (shut up). And so they did. 

Also, god bless Mark Buehrle, who does not make people wait around between pitches to find out whether or not there will be further pitches; "there will be," he assures you through action.  

KS

NATS RISE TO GLORY game four

Nationals went to Philadelphia last night and apparently according to a quick google search done just now they lost 4-1. Me & my ol' lady went to Philadelphia one time (they call it "Philly" lolol) & she's also been to Senegal and she was like, "damn, Philadelphia is dirtier than Senegal." Understand, Senegal is dirty probably due to the negative effects of colonialism pillaging value from a place & its people & then "freeing" them to leave them behind to figure shit out for themselves after being de-valued for generations, so I guess it's dirty, but I don't know. Perhaps it could be said Philadelphia is dirty for the same reasons, as the American collapses in on itself, leaving the immense sprawling bureaucratic nonsense struggling to maintain budgets, thus garbage dudes all get laid off as do teachers (but not cops no not no fuckin cops) & you have a city with dirty ass streets & kids not getting schooled in the ways of school but schooled in the ways of harsh survival of the fittest which unfortunately also means the most de-sensitized of emotions, which is why when I am like "lolol Philly dirty" some Philadelphia-ite will be like, "OH YEAH FUCK YOU RANDOM BASEBALL BLOGGER" when in actuality if we were to stand there on a corner & discuss this as rational IRL ppl, we'd probably laugh & go "Filthydelphia" & realize we both love the same things probably.
Nats are 1-3.

Blue Jays 6, Yankees 3: BRETT CECIL REDEEMED ALREADY

good game bro; bro good game; good game bro; bro good game

Brett Cecil's tenure as closer apparently came to an abrupt and shitty end after Wednesday night's soggy buttfest (in that it was raining, and was a buttfest, but I think it works either way); new in that role is this mere babe in arms, Miguel Castro, who appears to be a babe in arms who throws wispiest smoke, so don't be stuck up; this is going to be great. The starting pitching was once again totally good enough, E5 homered again, and then Brett Cecil pitched a nice little eighth inning, too, so all is well on that front also! I will note that I didn't catch any of this game as it happened and am not going to misrepresent that aspect of this to you. 

At the time of this writing the Blue Jays are up 10-1 on the Orioles in the fifth and just hitting a tonne of doubles, which is a sweet way to do it, because of the inherent excellence of doubles, in my view. 

Maybe this is gonna be great? 

KS

NATS RISE TO GLORY game three

They had a day game & I'm at work during week days which is mostly my prime wasting-time parts of the day (lol because fuck work, forever) so I put the little background gamecast-y thing on from ESPN but it kept crapping out, but I wouldn't notice for like an hour because it was in the background of not just computer screen but life itself, like way in the background. But I switched to the MLB gamecast-y thing & that seemed to work except the Nationals still lost but luckily they did it early enough in the day I was still at work so I could do this post while also still at work which like I said is the best time of day for me to dumb shit like this.
Nats are 1-2.

Yankees 4, Blue Jays 3: I Know This is a Team Game but Brett Cecil Blew It Let's Blame Him Forever

R. A. Dickey: Not the Problem?

Despite me and a guy at work denouncing the hell out of R. A. Dickey earlier in the day, Dickey pitched totally well last night, whilst dudes such as Devon Travis hustled around in crafty (or, if you prefer, cræftig) fashion, putting the Blue Jays modestly but securely, it seemed, in the lead while I folded the laundry (not a euphemism; I was doing chores). But then the bullpen blew it, which bullpens are going to do sometimes, and they themselves are going to mind it more than I do, so why get too upset about? Brett Cecil had zero fun in the cold rain last night, whereas I was hanging out on the couch in my warm house with a cat and books and stuff, you know? It's alright. I mean, it was stupid and bad, but it's alright. 

Oh hey, on the broadcast: I have a television, in the sense that there is one in my house, but I don't have television, in the sense that it gets any channels other than the CBC, but I do very much have the internet and decided to have the game actually on in non-radio form for the first time in a couple seasons, and it was all very pleasant, but it is wild that this is the broadcast team. I don't know how to express this without recourse to theology so I am gonna say god bless them both but jesus christ how the helllll are Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler the TV guys in this the year of our lord 2015? It was all very upbeat and pleasant, but my god. At least neither of them are the manager, I guess? 

Hey maybe every R. A. Dickey start, I will drop an appropriate Old English word out of the ol' word hoard in tribute to his extremely sensible enthusiasm for Beowulf, an enthusiasm which I share? 

WON'T THAT BE FUN  

KS  

NATS RISE TO GLORY game two

For whatever reason, they played the Mets on Monday for an elaborate opening day ceremony, but then not on Tuesday. I guess MLB be trying to drag out opening days (as if baseball didn't drag out enough... sometimes pretending to care about baseball feels like watching a universal sized slow bunt laid down the line and the 3B and C are backing off hoping it goes foul instead of stays fair and it rolls slowly and the P and ump get there and everybody's just standing there waiting to see what happens - that is the essence of baseball imo).
Anyways they played again last night & it looks like Ryan Zimmerman hit a 2-run homer in the first and then the Mets got a run in the 2nd's top and then it was just SLOW ROLLING PITCH FEST FOR THREE HOURS WITH SCATTERED HITS & SCATTERED SHOWERS & THERE YOU HAVE IT NATS FANS THE FIRST WIN OF zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Nats are 1-1.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game one

The Nats is a short term of affection for Washington Nationals & I guess they are supposed to win the World Series or some shit (though how can you ever predict that?). I have pretended to be a casual fan of the Nats ever since they were exiled from Montreal into DC to hold the city hostage for sweet ass stadium deal. I mean America's passed time, right? Anyways they played their first game & I guess I read they have some dude who is even more ace than much ballyhooed ace Stephon Strazborg, & he pitched the first game yesterday, but they lost. I briefly thought I should know more about it to pretend to care on this revitalized resurrected baseball blog, but then the first paragraph was like "THE NEW SCHERZER GUY WAS AMAZING BUT SOMEHOW THEY STILL LOST WTF?" or at least that's basically what it said. Also a friend of mine posted a seductive pic of herself on social media in a Mets cut-off top with a tattoo from her midriff exposed & it was seductive but I know her too well to be like "AWW YEAH" plus she is my good homey's cousin, so really the whole thing left me feeling conflicted.
Nats are 0-1.

Blue Jays 6, Yankees 1: I Don't Know Who Like Any of These Bros Are

Sweet bunt bro

A few weeks ago at work, one of my work pals with all earnestness was like, "Hey, spring training is only a few days away!" and my response was literally "What's the point." It was a dark moment. I have attended to neither the Blue Jays in particular nor baseball more broadly in some time; I totally opted out of 2013 after the Blue Jays hellstart, and for whatever reason had nothing to do with 2014 either (more than this than you might even think has to do with the absence of Alan Ashby on the radio; I really can't overstate the significance of this). It is entirely possible that I only took notice of today's games because of how seemingly everybody on twitter is either totally into opening day or totally into denouncing everybody who is into opening day (I respect both positions tremendously), and no less possible that like a week into the season I will have no interest in any of this at all again, but for today let me say that I took a look at the box score and found that I really don't know a bunch of these bros, which feels super weird, but I am ready to learn, especially if the Yankees are going to be soundly beaten in their contemptible home. 

Go Team.

KS

baseball metaphysics for 2013 playoffs

[Hi, I am Raven Mack, and I am an amazing longform philosopher, and perhaps the last real man left inside this entered net of artifice, though I do hope my ride shows up here in the next couple months. You can learn more about what it is to be me at www.ravenmcmillian.com]

Look, I am going to be honest here and admit I’ve barely paid attention for most of the year. My kinda loved but in a generally disinterested way – sort of like your second favorite cousin – Nationals stumbled and fell this season, after pre-season ballyhoo about ticker tape parades through the streets of Washington being inevitable. Now Washington might not even exist as the GOVERNMENT OF AMERICA IS GOING TO SHUT DOWN and we will resort to anarchy and these millionaire baseball players should all be thankful they live in the suburbs because even the gentrified parts of D.C. are going to turn into roving packs of nomadic viking drug gang thugs establishing the identity of enemies by chopping off certain fingers.

But I am also a life scientist, which is not nerd number crunching like pretend real scientists which are more common than Dominicans in the modern American dugout. As a life scientist, I trust gut intuition and metaphysical advancements made in our Universal Auras to decide things. This is often mistakenly confused in baseball world as old school ways of grizzled veterans. Those guys are assholes though, just trying to hold on to their bullshit drunken racialist world view. A true metaphysician is always open to the lessons of the Universe, with every step of every day. One can never truly understand the world in a scientific way, having numbers add everything up, because the world alters itself constantly. Yesterday’s numbers may not apply. Last year’s definitely don’t. Each trend is a brushstroke in the overall big picture painting of Truth, and beyond noticing trends you have sense the trend in trends in order to trend upward, psychically.

So with that in mind, please allow me to jaunt you through this year’s baseball playoffs. I have taken exactly thirteen drops of wild dagga tincture to my tongue, put four drops of yarrow tincture in a diamond pattern upon my forehead where the opening to the traditional pineal gland would be, and meditated on this shit heavily while riding the bus loop all around town two times this morning, while blasting the instrumental version to Killa Army’s Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars in my headphones. I will always wonder if there has been a Fifth Disciple yet.

Anyways, let’s begin with the play-off play-in game, as we work our way through Baseball Metaphysics for Enlightened Degenerates.

PLAY-IN GAME: TAMPA BAY RAYS vs. TEXAS RANGERS – BEST OF ONE

In a psychic sense, this Tampa team has always struggled for identity of self. They were the Tampa Devil Rays, then Tampa Rays, then Tampa Bay Rays, and maybe mixed and matched those things a few other times as well. Even geographically they struggle with identity as they play in St. Petersburg, not Tampa, and the majority of people in that area are Yankees fans, due to the Yankees high profile preseason training facility which is actually in Tampa proper. So naturally, they’d normally just be a bastard step-child of a team, which is what they were at first, but somebody accidentally kept getting good young players and they became a consistently good team that nobody really cares about a lot, including the people of Tampa or St. Petersburg or anywhere.

The Rangers are the opposite end of the spectrum, as controlled psychically by the most drunken racialist old world of baseball curmudgeon of them all in Nolan Ryan. And yet the Rangers have not enjoyed tremendous success in their long history, so they are sort of the bastard step-child of traditional powers. Obviously the Rangers having home field gives them an alleged advantage, but also fuck that because basically the Rays play every game on the road, outside of Tampa, outside of being loved, outsiders of baseball.

Essentially, there are two old world fuckers battling wills here in Joe Maddon – the Ray’s manager – vs. Nolan Ryan. And while Ryan is more well-known and infamous for taking players who don’t perform well behind the dugout to throw fireballs at them for two hours into the early morning as punishment, Joe Maddon is generally loved by his players, because he often buys rounds of drinks at Florida strip clubs, but only beer, no champagne. “Champagne is not bought in the back room at a 300% mark-up, boys, it’s earned on the field of play, and some other motherfucker pays for it,” he often says to them. This type of alcohol-and-tattooed titty fueled motivational technique works well with today’s generation, much better than throwing old man fastballs at their naked bodies in some old American militaristic hazing ritual. Rays will advance.

NL WILD CARD: CINCINNATI REDS vs. PITTSBURGH PIRATES – BEST OF ONE

An NL Central showdown, by default, as nobody else in the National League decided to be worth a shit. There’s something very 1970s feeling about this game, I mean obviously because the Pirates haven’t been good in forever, and Dave Parker wearing the pimp old school Pirates style is so fresh to death it’s pretty easy to completely forget that Barry Bonds actually played as a Pirate (in baseball, not in R. Kelly-style home movies). But here are the Pirates, as well as the Reds, who have dabbled in early postseason rounds in recent years but still make me think of Dr. Johnny Fever and Pete Rose being the real Mike Trout/Bryce Harper argument wrapped up in one red-ass white guy.

That being said, baseball’s magic like the Pirates returning to glory usually come unraveled in the slow painful narratives of playoff series. Hence, the beauty of this one-and-done wild card game, being set in Pittsburgh. The magic can live on for another round, and the Iron City beer will flow happily, and children will be doodling Dock Ellis-style visions in chalk on bricks throughout the city. Though the Pirates have long-shed that glorious look and that glorious period from their franchise, through Andrew McCutchen’s natural born gamecock spirit, which they somehow tricked the corporate baseball demigods into letting them keep in Pittsburgh, they’ve snuck through the cracks in the spreadsheets and sponsorship deals. So let’s enjoy it. Organized baseball will unravel it pretty quickly in an off-season or two.

AL WILD CARD: TAMPA BAY RAYS vs. CLEVELAND INDIANS – BEST OF ONE

The Indians are the false hipster sports love affair of all-time, where we pretend it’s good to wish luck on these sad sacks of a franchise, and make joking references to Major League, probably with a Pedro Serrano obscurity. But let’s think about that: they made a black Latin player portray a racialist character who was brought Kentucky Fried Chicken at one point, and gave him the last name of a hot pepper. Fuck Major League. Fuck the 1980s. Fuck Reagan. Fuck the racialist logo of the Cleveland Indians, and fuck Cleveland. In some instances, there is sadness and economic despair because large swaths of people have been wrongly sacrificed to the evil gods of capital. But in Cleveland’s case, and perhaps large chunks of Ohio, this is not the case. These are spiritless people, who have long ago succumbed to the domestication of their wild thoughts. The Indians are just lucky we all have the Cubs to more easily mock than them. But make no mistake, they are cut from the same self-righteous cloth of proud indignation.

The Rays, as I said earlier, are a born road team, who understand champagne is earned, not bought in the VIP room. And while Cleveland also understands this, as that city is no bastion of high life, the Rays have a destiny this year. And that road does not stop but for a moment in Cleveland.

NL DIVISIONAL SERIES: LOS ANGELES DODGERS vs. ATLANTA BRAVES – BEST OF FIVE

I grew up a Giants fan, so these are my two most hated teams. My dad was a Braves fan, like every casual baseball Southerner who cared more about football was from Virginia to Mississippi at one point. There are thousands of these men, who switch out their Braves hat with their favorite Nascar driver’s number hat, depending on mood. And often times I feel as if MLB is a cartel of corporations where the ones who generate the most interest reap dividends on that throughout the coming years. How else do we explain the Braves continual success? TBS airing Braves game was a big part of the sport’s growth on cable television as that became a thing in our public mass consciousness, and of course now TBS airs playoff baseball. And of course, the Braves have always been a top-shelf team in terms of W/L record. And here they are again. Why is that? Because they scout and build better than anybody?

Hahaha, of course not. America is not a meritocracy; it is an elaborate system of rewards for aiding and abetting the grand conspiracy of fairplay in the name of freedom. The Braves (this is their home, America; they are America’s Team) are more this than anybody not named the Yankees.

So where do the Dodgers stand? I don’t know. They are a premier brand for baseball’s evil gods of capital, and the infusion of Magic Johnson was supposed to impregnate them within our collective consciousness. That has not quite happened yet. And perhaps this series will be that playing out, to an extent, further planting Los Angeles Dodgers long history into our brains, but the Braves will prevail, in five.

AL DIVISIONAL SERIES: DETROIT TIGERS vs. OAKLAND ATHLETICS – BEST OF FIVE

The A’s have yet again built something from nothing. They make a habit of it. There should be some lesson as to how America rights itself and makes itself more like the public relations it pushes off on the world in how the A’s beat out the Angels – who have made two of the highest of high profile signings the past two years – to conquer the AL West. There should be a lesson about what we do to make ourselves great, individually as well as collectively. But that won’t happen. Sports Illustrated will dedicate a sidebar to them, and then talk about how amazing Mike Trout is in the off-season. The A’s, much like Oakland itself, is a stubborn relic to a dead age, that somehow refuses to die off because it only understands survival. But baseball is not evolution, not a triumph of human spirit over the mechanisms of industry. Baseball is an industry. And Oakland and its Athletics are too thrift store-y.

Okay, I know you think to yourself, “But Raven Mack, Detroit is as fucked as anywhere in America. Why wouldn’t it be abandoned by baseball?” That’s easy, bitch. Because Detroit has tapped into the two opposing mentalities of baseball’s most glorious glories, in one team. On one side, you have the white privilege of hard-nosed pitching as represented by Justin Verlander, as well as the unearthing of this Max Scherzer dude. White privilege from the pitching mound means a lot in baseball – look at all those Braves teams. This time of year, you always hear announcers talk about a solid core of starting pitching, which invariably – though they are not obvious about it – comes down to “what team has two white dudes who will pitch a lot of good shit?” That is the one essence of baseball, and the Tigers have that shit locked down.

The other glorious glory is the cocksure strut of lesser people being big with their bats, in a thinly-veiled parable for penis envy. What pair of men have better represented that in recent years than Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder? You have a Hispanic man who has become the first to win a Triple Crown in I don’t know like 300 years, and you have a crazy black guy named Prince who is chubby and smiley and just generally not a threat to your well-being it seems. I don’t think any team before this Tigers team has better combined the two glories of baseball of white privilege and white cuckoldry through offensive firepower. The Indians don’t stand a chance, even holding home field advantage. The Tigers in four.

NL DIVISIONAL SERIES: PITTSBURGH PIRATES vs. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS – BEST OF FIVE

Here is where baseball’s evil gods of capital get heavy-handed on the magic of Piracy of Spirit. There is nothing more painfully baseball than the Cardinals. Just reading the name of the team conjures up old white men sitting on front porches smacking at no-see-ums while AM radio crackles out the ball game. Sure, nowadays it’s old men smacking NSA Nanobots while listening to the game on internet radio, but it is that same fucking boring tradition that baseball markets so well to old and overthinking white people. This is why academics have written more books about baseball than any other sport in America, perhaps combined. There is nothing magic about academia – it is a systematic re-analysis and presentation of our collectively bargained notions of what constitutes high civilization. This collective bargaining is often done behind ivy walls the large majority of us do not know how to get through the gate to, but hey, that’s just how shit is. The magic will come unraveled, forcefully at times when in whatever they are saying is Busch Stadium now, and this will not be as fun as we all would like. Save your acid for the off-season, as this is going to be a bad trip. The Cardinals in four.

AL DIVISIONAL SERIES: TAMPA BAY RAYS vs. BOSTON RED SOX – BEST OF FIVE

And here is the Rays destiny, to play road dog foil to the mighty and pretentious Boston Red Sox. This will be the best dogfight of the divisional round, and the Rays will scrap and fight every inning in Boston. But again, the Rays weakness will be their lack of a spiritually powerful aura at home. In Boston, you are playing in a fire trap where thousands upon thousands of wretched souls whose only spark in life is the fucking piece of shit baseball team they’ve rooted for over three or four generations. In Tampa, you have smatterings of people who care because they feel like it’d be the polite thing to do being the team has been pretty good and hanging around for so long. That is weakness of possession of home, which gives the dastardly Red Sox an opportunity to slip a knife into all of our hearts.

And let’s make no mistake – with no Yankees to portray the Evil Empire in this year’s post-season, the Red Sox more than make a good Plan B. They are just as Evil although a far less successful Empire over history. Unfortunately, our hate will do no good, as hate never does, and the Red Sox will triumph in a full scrap of five games.

NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ATLANTA BRAVES vs. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS – BEST OF SEVEN

God, what to root for here? The Southern insurance salesman or the Midwestern psychology professor? As noted, the Braves embody that corporate spirit, which is a signature trait of every New South success story, like Atlanta or Charlotte, NC, or wherever the old ways of the South have been replaced by big business and endless sprawling box stores. But the Cardinals, they represent that as well, and they also represent something more.

In America, we have often confused ourselves with black-or-white dichotomies, when actually our hearts are grey. This is true of the political argument of Religion vs. Science, which runs as a thread throughout so many of our modern arguments. However, the truly successful American bastards who run everything are a greying of the two – accepting the benefits of science but also trusting in an unseen Christian God that guided us with his blessings into World dominance. The St. Louis Cardinals are the living, breathing, 40-man roster example of that grey heart of Christian science. You can embrace your beneficial corporate citizens all you want, but none of those big box stores are gonna have potato salad on a Sunday morning. The Christian scientist grey heart secret backbone rulers of America and manipulators of even the evil gods of capital understand this. This is why the Cardinals are known to always find a way, while the Braves are always known to be runners-up. Atlanta has the capital spirit of baseball, but not the holy spirit, which is kind of hard to even pinpoint to be honest. It’s some sketchy, awful shit, that doesn’t feel good, especially if you don’t find personal salvation in it. But that’s the Cardinals, and that’s what they bring. Cardinals in six.

AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DETROIT TIGERS vs. BOSTON RED SOX – BEST OF SEVEN

And here is your moment of glory, folks, for those that enjoy the triumph of human spirit over the industrial cogs of capital, although a common misconception that somehow Red Sox Nation represents human spirit does exist. And it’s not like you have roving packs of Tigers fans roaming opposing stadiums, not nearly as likely as you are to see roving packs of wild dogs wandering the abandoned parts of Detroit. But there is beauty in neglect, which is why we all love pictures of dilapidated shit so much. Something has to exist in a strong manner in order to even achieve dilapidation. Castles made of plastic get busted up and fall apart and end up as part of the floating detritus island in the middle of the Pacific where birds ingest it to die but perhaps revived post-Fukushima into mutant plasticized condordactyls to breath plastic fumes over our cities and snuff us in some post-modern dragon fantasy come to life. Thus, the beautiful abandonment of past glory like seen in abundance in Detroit IS beautiful because it reminds us of the greatness of our humanity. Our greatness is recessing though.

That’s why this series will be beautiful. The Red Sox are the Red Sox – some of the names will be familiar, some will be new, but there are no names on the backs of the jerseys – it’s just shitty Red Sox. But the Tigers will be this glorious parade of misfits and outcasts at the plate, of aw shucks pitchers on the mound, and that grand cavalcade of minor figures that have big momentary roles here or there on the long narrative stage of the long baseball playoff series. And this one will be long too. You’re gonna get the full seven, and it will bounce a couple of different ways, but in the end – for the moment – the triumph of human spirit will prevail, characters will win over a faceless blob of Red Soxery, and perhaps we can stop pretending Red Sox fans are America’s version of soccer hooligans (not even close, in terms of twisted beauty nor in terms of needing to fear them, even slightly), and we can settle down to enjoy a World Series sans Yankees or Red Sox, which actually is most years, isn’t it? Hahaha, fuck you ESPN.

WORLD SERIES – ST. LOUIS CARDINALS vs. DETROIT TIGERS – BEST OF SEVEN

Tigers have the home field advantage because of the All-Star game, and it’s last year’s World Series losers in the Tigers vs. the year before that’s winners in the Cardinals. The World Series is a mass media manipulated barrage of American car commercials and the beautiful long narrative of postseason baseball turns into you wanting to stab Joe Buck and Tim McCarver with Ronald Reagan’s shin bone. The triumph of human spirit is always – ALWAYS – completely commandeered at this stage by those Evil Gods of Capital, as sacrificed to continuously by one Budweiser Hale Selig, the commish of baseballs. Calling the Yankees the Evil Empire sort of clouds the fact that MLB is a more likely beneficiary of such a title, as they more than enable the Yankees to be the Yankees. And how baseball remains relevant is something of a mystery to me, as it gets predictable and unexciting at this final stage. This is where the magic has been drained already, and there are no real heroes, just some guy who gets a Cadillac on the field and talks to Tim McCarver about the Cadillac he just got while champagne drips from his pre-minted World Series Champions 2013 hat.

A large part of what is wrong with America is that this is no longer where dreams are made; it is a place where we pretend dream narratives are being acted out by scripted performances. We are a Duck Dynasty DVD in a Wal-Mart Supercenter country now, no longer the land of Andy Griffith. And you might say, “Well good, fuck Andy Griffith,” and though I don’t disagree with that I also have to ask you, have we progressed? I mean, fuckin’ Duck Dynasty man. That shit ain’t real. None of this shit is real any more. It’s just people pretending and calling it real. People pretending to work, pretending to innovate, pretending to create, pretending pretending pretending.

There is no American Dream, thus is there is no hope for a sober Miggy Cabrera to triumph over the fucking white bread ass Cardinals. There is no hope for a happy-go-lucky, chunky-but-funky Prince Fielder and his beautiful bi-racial family to stand on a pedestal and be accepted as pure Americana. Nope. This is not the land of that. This is a land of Bob Costas taking up 12-minutes of our time for a sanctimonious media reprimanding about how we’re all on his polysyllabic lawn of yore, and how we should get off, and learn some respect. This is a land where the Tigers and the Detroits and the wildlings of spirit and the warriors of the human condition have the big corporate paw of oppression push their head down into beta position, and assholes like the St. Louis Cardinals win another World Series, in six games, but maybe five. It’s a sad fucking state of affairs, but that’s the World we live in.

Blue Jays at the Break: Contemptible Jerksquad, or Sorry Sack of Butts?

This improbably horrendous Blue Jays season is really heating up!

Let us be frank with one another, as we are all of us friends here, and owe each other at least that much: this has been awful, and probably shameful. The only thing truly rad that has happened thus far in this utter butt ( butter utt?) of a Blue Jays season is, of course, the franchise-record tying eleven-game winning streak, but in truth that only truly served to remind us of two grim realities. The first of these is the still harrowing fact that Tony Fernandez no longer plays for the Toronto Blue Jays (he did, you will recall, in  the 1987 and 1998 seasons which also saw eleven-game streaks). The second is that the Blue Jays are so damn far behind that they both began and ended an eleven-game streak in last place. They are beyond done, and I hate it.

Perhaps the only true good to come out of this hideous maelstrom of the worst butts ever imagined in the darkest mind of a season is that we have, together, discovered Munenori Kawasaki, who we have all of of course seen be amazing in this interview at least a couple of times, but why not enjoy it anew? Why wouldn't you do that? You are not a busy person, not like a nurse or a person who is on call a lot or anything like that.

Of course I am pleased that Jose Bautista, E5, and Brett Cecil (!) have all been in All-Star fettle, but on the whole I simply cannot escape the feeling that all is blasted. 

(FUN FACT: if you Google the phrase "all is blasted," the first page of results shows Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, of course, and also a Baseball Feeling I wrote following an eleven-inning Blue Jays loss to Cleveland in which I explain my policy of never staying up for extra-inning games.)  

Anyway, doom. 

KS

Sock The Dingers & Dent the Scoreboard, That's What Freddy Wilpon Hates

Welcome All-Star Game $$$

After a thorough, and well-deserved shaming on Twitter overnight, I finally am addressing head-on an issue that has been internalized for all of this baseball season, namely, that Baseball Feelings is a worthy endeavor and I have to do my part to make it whole again.  A first quarter of mostly abhorrent baseball, saved only by the appearance of Matt Harvey every fifth day and the emergence of Marlon Byrd, Marlon Byrd of all people! as a legitimate offensive threat, has made my baseball feelings seem mostly unimportant.  However, there are tales to tell, and I will in a first-half recap to follow this post, but first, onto more pressing matters.  

As the only person unfortunate enough to have Mets allegiances on Baseball Feelings Dot Com, it seems that it falls to me to welcome all of the other teams to Citi Field for the 2013 All-Star Game.  Hello.  Come in. Please wipe your feet and don't touch anything.  

In all seriousness, there are few things quite as awesome as your home team hosting the All-Star Game, not the least of which is Kevin James playing in the celebrity softball game and Ashanti, Ashanti, on our own field!

In the time since it was announced that Citi Field would host the 2013 All-Star Game, the enthusiasm it created came with a fair share of naysaying, namely, that the Wilpons were being thrown a bone by friend Bud Selig, it was a blatant attempt to generate revenue for the broke-as-fuck Mets and boost season ticket sales for a year.  That's fine.  I get that. However, that doesn't mean that I get to enjoy this for the following reasons:  

I Am Predicting a Good-Ass Home Run Derby

And not just because Pitbull is doing a pre-Derby concert or whatever.

I remember back in the late 90's, Coors Field got the ASG and everyone was like "OMGGGGG YOU GUYS, THERE ARE GONNA BE SO MANY DINGERS" and, as it turns out, the Derby was mostly forgettable for the one reason that "Yup, home runs are prominent in Colorado, and, look at that, the Home Run Derby had many homers."  It was expected.  However, think back on the great Derbies and its like, balls ricocheting off of rock sculptures and fountains and stuff, and we come to realize that we appreciate it when there is more bonkers stuff to hit in the Derby than the possibility of the ball leaving the stadium. Enter Citi Field, with the Pepsi Porch in right field, the Shea Bridge in left, and the Home Run Apple Hat in dead center, and this is gonna be like a real-life version of The Bigs Pinball Edition and oh man you guys it is gonna own so hard.    

Throw in like, 50 Chris Berman chop shop jokes, and trying to make Corona jokes and Dutch Kills and shit, and we are going to be in heaven.  Loud cheers as David Wright deserves will be pretty sweet as well. 

Matt Harvey Is The Hero The Mets Deserve

As referenced earlier, one of the only sources of enjoyment in the first half of a woeful (and yet improving!) Mets season was the emergence of Matt Harvey as just the best.  In my humble opinion, there's nothing better in baseball when a pitcher on your team can just straight up blow a fastball by basically everyone on someone else's team, and that's what Harvey's been doing for most of the season (save for a couple of hiccups against the Marlins and Diamondbacks of all teams) and since Bruce Bochy is not a jerk like Tony LaRussa, it's a pretty safe bet that Harvey will get the start in the ASG at his home field.  

And that'll be a lot of fun, and it will give him the audience that I feel he deserves.  If he had any kind of run support at all, its possible that he could be 12-1, 13-1 by now, and it will be cool to see this start as a potential peek into a future when the Mets might again be somewhat relevant. 

More National Shake Shack Exposure

Sportswriters be eatin', so check Twitter searches for Shake Shack beginning tonight and you will all see what I mean.  

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the All-Star Game and that seeing Citi Field in primetime makes you want to hop on a plane or bus or something to go and see it, because it is a really nice place to watch baseball games.  Please pick up at least 10 pieces of trash on your way out.