2010 MLB Season

[Neal Pomea]

Time for Huff to step up. Good single!

[Neal Pomea]

Thumb down for Sanchez, making a scene when Utley threw him the ball after getting plunked. Can't remember a bench clearing brawl in a championship series before, but I guess it must have happened before.

Lamest "brawl" ever, since nobody on either team wanted to get thrown out. Ups for the umpires' handling it.

[Brad]

Posey should have been ruled out: ran outside of the base line.

Re Ghost's post I just have to laugh. Greatest team of the past 50 years. Don't make me laugh. Yankee fans wherever they live are all alike, just arrogant, the expectation that they are going to or are entitled to win. Just try living with them all year around. That rant from an obviously intellectually challenged "fan" is just so typical you have to laugh. It's always fun to revel in their agony: 2004 and 2010.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Brad

[Tim McG]

Jonathan Sanchez hit a Philly batter.

Bench clearing incident.

What a bunch of whiners, Philly.

Part of the game and I am amazed.

[Chalupa]

Jonathan Sanchez hit a Philly batter.

Bench clearing incident.

What a bunch of whiners, Philly.

Part of the game and I am amazed.

Hey Goodie - FYI - it was Sanchez who did the whining when Utley tossed the ball back to the mound.

Why can't McCarver pronounce any Latino's last names correctly???

[JSngry]

Why can't McCarver pronounce any Latino's last names correctly???

For that matter, why can't hardly anybody on American television - even on cooking shoes - pronounce "jalapeno" correctly?

[ghost of miles]

Re Ghost's post I just have to laugh. Greatest team of the past 50 years. Don't make me laugh. Yankee fans wherever they live are all alike, just arrogant, the expectation that they are going to or are entitled to win. Just try living with them all year around. That rant from an obviously intellectually challenged "fan" is just so typical you have to laugh. It's always fun to revel in their agony: 2004 and 2010.

I'd put the 1996-2001 Yankees up against the 1975-76 Reds, the 1972-74 A's, and whoever else you want to throw into the mix, and say you can make a strong argument that they're the best team of the past five decades for sustained success over a multi-year period. (If you want just a barebones argument, nobody else in the past 50 years racked up 4 World Series titles and 5 appearances in a six-year period.) How that comes off as a "Don't make me laugh" statement, and how ANYTHING I've ever said in any post at any time whatsoever on this forum confirms such an ugly stereotype of Yankee fans is way, way beyond me. Any fan wants his or her team to win; why Yankee fans are demonized for doing so is beyond me too. Live and let live, and haters gonna hate for whatever reasons they hate, but that doesn't mean you have to let them define you.

Back to Jsngry's son's comment about the Rangers having "something special" this year: Lots of teams have had magical seasons throughout baseball history, and any time you see it, it's a remarkable testament to the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, to what a group of people can achieve working together. Hell, I'd go so far as to say it's something of a work of art--growing up in Indiana, that's how I felt about several of the basketball teams Bobby Knight put together (and Knight's a troubled case for sure, but boy, when he got the pieces put together the way he wanted them--as he seemed to do every several years the first two decades he was at IU--his teams were a beautiful thing to watch).

This is an excerpt from the article I wrote earlier this year to which I linked above--and you could apply it in slightly different ways to this year's Rangers (there's a redemption narrative at work in Texas' season too, what with the failed ownership/bankruptcy situation and Ron Washington's personal struggles):

Over the past few years Rodriguez has become one of the most vilified athletes in professional sports, castigated for his huge salary, his racy night life, and most especially for his stunningly mediocre playoff performances as a Yankee. He got off to a terrible start in 2009—during spring training he was forced to admit that he’d taken steroids for several years while he was playing with the Texas Rangers. Then hip surgery sidelined him for the first month of the season. What happened next sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie like The Natural. Upon his return, Rodriguez hit a home run on his very first swing. In August, he snapped the worst power slump of his career and ended a scoreless 15-inning game with a home run against Boston that dashed whatever remaining hopes the Red Sox had for overtaking the Yankees in the American League East. Going into the last game of the season, Rodriguez had 28 home runs and 93 RBI, and it appeared that his streak of reaching at least 30 homers and 100 RBI for 12 years in a row would end. What happened? In one single inning, he hit a three-run homer, came up again, and launched a grand-slam, leaving him with exactly 30 home runs and 100 RBI for the year. Finally there was his astonishing performance in the playoffs, where time after time he came through with clutch hits that kept the Yankees alive or won games for them. He seemed a new man, and throughout it all he was happily in love with actress Kate Hudson (some wags proposed that she be given the Yankees’ team Most Valuable Player award). Most of all there was the sheer joy Rodriguez took in being part of a team, of something larger than himself—larger than his impressive stats, his intense but uncertain self-regard, and his freshly-tainted reputation.

I stayed up late into the cool autumn nights to watch the playoffs, keeping the window open the whole time, drinking coffee, shutting off the TV sometimes when the opposing team was at bat and following the game on the Internet instead, nervously pacing the room, because I wanted so much for this to be one of those years that teams sometimes experience in baseball, where a certain kind of karmic alchemy seems to intervene frequently, causing the team’s players to perform extraordinary feats and provoking their opponents to drop easy pop-ups, overrun bases, or make other careless mistakes that cause managers to chomp their gum with a ferocious, overly-studied look of nonchalance. The Yankees had indeed enjoyed such a year, and fortune continued to favor them throughout the 2009 postseason.

The things that I’ll remember from that postseason: Mariano Rivera’s slow, calm walk off the mound after striking out the last Angels batter in the deciding game of the American League championship series, his right fist raised in quiet triumph, his embrace of catcher Jose Posada that followed, like two long-running characters reuniting in a buddy movie. Joe Buck’s call of Alex Rodriguez’ extra-inning home run against the Angels as rain fell late into the New York City night, his elongated delivery as he followed the fly ball’s will-it-or-won’t-it trajectory, watching it shoot into the stands just over the outstretched glove of the leaping right fielder: “In the air to right… back is Abreu, AT THE WALL! That’s gone! Game tied!” The Philadelphia Phillies and the Yankees, two old-school major-league teams arriving in each other’s city for World Series games by train. Johnny Damon’s “what-the-hell-is-he-DOING?” double-steal against the Phillies that turned Game 4—and possibly the entire series—into a Yankee victory. And what Alex Rodriguez said to a reporter as the Yankees were celebrating their series-ending triumph in Game 6: “I wish we could just continue to play. Just show up and play for no reason. We have such a good group of guys. You know. No umpires, no scores. Just show up and have fun, like a softball game.”

Baseball fairy tales always come to an end. Perhaps appropriately enough, Rodriguez and Kate Hudson broke up just a few weeks after the World Series ended, and as 2010 spring training opened Rodriguez again faced questions, this time about his association with a doctor under FBI investigation. Series heroes Damon and Hideki Matsui have gone on to other teams. Lesser players who took center stage in memorable moments, such as Melky Cabrera and Jerry Hairston Jr., are also no longer with the Yankees. This past season, this particular mix of players, was magical, never to be repeated–like all others–except in a fan’s memories. What endures is the narrative, the theater that baseball offers. Of all American sports it speaks most eloquently to history, to the things and people that have come before us. Its season spans the beginning of spring to the end of autumn with 162 games, 162 fresh starts. It invokes timelessness and the possibility of an endless game (there is no clock in baseball), and yet anybody who follows a team for a number of years is painfully aware of how mortal the players are–how somebody can’t quite make a catch he would’ve made just two years ago, or no longer can beat out an infield hit. Ultimately, baseball provides drama after drama of pitchers and hitters, fielders and base-runners, all operating alone and at the same time as a part of something much larger than themselves. It reminds us of what it is to be human, of the wondrous feeling that accompanies the overcoming of any adversity, and of the temporal nature of victory. Prisoners of the self, we attempt innumerable escapes and are inevitably returned to the house of the individual. Redemption is never guaranteed, is never necessarily permanent; on any given day we will have to earn it all over again. The reward is not in the rest but in the striving.

Play ball.

Edited October 24, 2010 by ghost of miles

[ghost of miles]

Ah yes, another arrogant a&*&(le Yankee fan, pulled off the comments page at Yahoo:

Being a life long Yankee fan, and born and raised in New York, I can honestly say that this years’ team did not deserve to beat Texas. Texas came to play, and it looked to me as if half the Yankee team was sleep walking through out the series. Our only decent starting pitcher was Andy Pettite; CC looked shaky, A.J. was typically ineffective and what Phil Hughes was doing I have no idea. Why the hell Cashman brought in Vazquez and Nick ‘I am hurt’ Johnson is beyond me! This team had holes it in on opening day, and the ea

If it was not for Cano and Granderson, we would probably have hit .120 as a team. I was really disgusted this past off season when they let Matsui go so fast, and half assed their offer to Damon (which is all fairness I also blame on Scott Boras). The Yankees suddenly all looked old, and Texas looked great. I can take any credit away from Texas, and if anyone say’s the Yankees ‘lost’ the series are wrong: Texas took it from them fair and square.

I see a big shake up coming this winter and I hope it is not based on panic but on real logical moves this time, and I don’t want to see them outspend everyone to get it done…try getting some good young, hungry and less expensive talent this time around.

2010 – Go Texas

2011 and beyond – Go NY Yankees

What a jerk.

Every single team in the MLB has classy fans and arrogant, loud-mouthed, boorish provincial fans. I'm sure you could find obnoxious comments from Yankee fans anywhere you looked online (and if you want to find really obnoxious comments, go take a look at Lonestar Ball while you're at it). You'll also find comments like the one above.

Edited October 24, 2010 by ghost of miles

[JSngry]

Not really sure how/if this has really turned into a "hate the fan" thing...it sure shouldn't...but if it turns into a "hate uber-corporate anything, including the Yankees" thing, then hey, that's ok by me.

And throw the gd f-ing Dallas Cowboys in there while you're at it.

[Matthew]

Giants ahead on Jose Uribe's homer, 3-2, and they're bringing in Lincecum to pitch the 8th. Wow...

[Chalupa]

Giants ahead on Jose Uribe's homer, 3-2, and they're bringing in Lincecum to pitch the 8th. Wow...

That's a smart move. Hopefully it backfires.

[Matthew]

Giants ahead on Jose Uribe's homer, 3-2, and they're bringing in Lincecum to pitch the 8th. Wow...

That's a smart move. Hopefully it backfires.

Timmy gone, now Brian Wilson. Torture.

[JSngry]

It did, but...I kinda had a major WTF Moment when I saw that to start the half-inning. You're 6 outs away from a World Series and you bring in an ace starter on waaaay short rest for relief work?

[ghost of miles]

Giants ahead on Jose Uribe's homer, 3-2, and they're bringing in Lincecum to pitch the 8th. Wow...

That's a smart move. Hopefully it backfires.

Nearly did, but the Giants got out of it. Jsngry, wasn't this a bullpen day for Lincecum? They probably thought he'd be good for an inning.

Edited October 24, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Chalupa]

Damn. That DP was the game right there.

[BERIGAN]

Even if it happens again (and since most things in life have a price, it might well not), it'll never happen again like it did this time. Most of these guys are so fresh (or hard body-checked by life) that their lack of (and lack of interest in) "show biz" (did you see the post-games? These guys have so NOT been coached in Media 101!) and instead just playing the game as a team becuase it's so damn fun has been a true thing of joy to watch. I'll admit it - I didn't watch them much until mid-August (been working lots of late hours). My son (24 now!) called me up and asked me if I had been watching the Rangers much. No, not really, why should I? Because they've got something special going on this year he told me. My son knows sports like some people I know know music - when they use the word "special", I pay attention. Well, I caught the tail end of a few games shortly thereafter and was hooked. I've had enough "professional sports" to last into the next several lifetimes, ya' know? But these guys... it was like Little League all over again, only...very, very much better. I wasn't around in 1950 for the Phillies Whiz Kids, but from what I've read, this might have been a lot like that...

As for the Yankees, hey, I used to be a fan, really I did.....

There is much to like about this Texas team. The manager that screwed up , tested positive for coke, but despite the pressure to fire him, the Rangers actually stuck by him. No doubt he had/has a very short rope, but he was clearly touched by them giving him another chance, and wasn't going to mess up again. It sure looked like it made the team closer to him, and Vice-versa.

Then there is the CF that had about a million chances and kept blowing them. Nearly died. Got one last chance to not waste all that talent, and finally turned a corner. Seemed to have some issues with teammates on the Reds, but is loved by his teammates now, and he loves them right back. Very classy to let him join in their celebrations with ginger ale first, then he steps out for the Champagne soaking.

And while most probably have never thought of Nolan Ryan as an underdog(though has any starting pitcher gotten less run support, ever?) I don't know if people thought he could make much of a difference with the mindset of the organization.

I'm sure there are some other lesser known , but no less interesting stories with this team. But a truly special team for sure.

Nothing like the first time a team goes deep in the playoffs. Wonderful virgin territory.

Oh yeah, I rooted for the Yankees a bit in the 70's too. Reggie was a hot dog, but he delivered...

[BERIGAN]

Every single team in the MLB has classy fans and arrogant, loud-mouthed, boorish provincial fans. I'm sure you could find obnoxious comments from Yankee fans anywhere you looked online (and if you want to find really obnoxious comments, go take a look at Lonestar Ball while you're at it). You'll also find comments like the one above.

So very true. All these mets fans came over to the Atlanta paper's baseball blog a few years ago, to laugh every time the braves lost....then of course we laughed right back when the Mets collapsed in September more than once. But I wondered, did some asshole braves fans go on Mets blogs back when the Braves won each year? Or was this just a reaction to all those Braves titles? Who knows? But, now Phillies fans are showing up to mock the Braves and I just don't get kicking some other teams fans, especially when they are down.

So of course more and more Braves fans HATE the Mets and the Phils, and while I sure don't like them, I can admire a good team, a hard playing team from our division.

Don't want to HATE any and all teams that aren't the Braves....

[ghost of miles]

Wow, congratulations to the Giants! That was quite a dramatic ending...torture indeed! Should be a fantastic World Series.

[Matthew]

Giants vs. Rangers. It's going to be a heck of a series. But, boy, following the Giants is torture, but a good torture right now.

[Chalupa]

Go Texas!!!

[BERIGAN]

Wow! Phils did not give up. Perfect pitch just barely on the outside corner. Could have been called a ball, but hell of a game! Sure thought it was going to be the Phils-Yankees, I guess that's why they play them, eh what???

[Brad]

Looks like Ryan and Carlos Beltran now have something in common. Didn't see I'd see something like that again anytime soon.

Since I'm an old NY NL fan and Mays is God, go Giants. Maybe this will be the year. They beat what I thought would be the WS winner so why not?

Edited October 24, 2010 by Brad

[Chalupa]

Congrats to SF. Your team outplayed the Phillies this week.

So long Jayson Werth.

[Tim McG]

YEAH!!!

Congrats to SF. Your team outplayed the Phillies this week.

So long Jayson Werth.

Thanks, JH.

Been a long hard road.

My hat is off to the Phillies. A job well done.

Edited October 24, 2010 by GoodSpeak

[Larry Kart]

Love that it was Juan. What a cool, funky ballplayer he is.