Finally, a site on the Internet where somebody complains about things! Usually the fact that criminal justice majors make me cringe.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

I question if this actually happened.

So I'm watching the Yankees swarming their way to their first World Series title since 2000, in the process once again making their fans more insufferable than Red Sox fans, and it occurs to me that I'm having a hard time rooting for the Angels to stop them. And through absolutely no fault of their own. Who do I blame? TBS. Who broadcast the Divisional Series between the Angels and Red Sox, and have given us several poignant video packages on Nick Adenhart and the effect he has had on the Angels team.

Adenhart, if you don't know, was a promising young pitcher for the Angels who was killed, along with two others, by a drunk driver earlier in the season. He was just 22 years old. (Incidentally, a fourth passenger in Adenhart's car survived, despite suffering "internal decapitation". Which I believe is the most amazing thing anyone has ever accomplished, ever.) This obviously was a very sad and traumatic experience for the team, as described during one of the Red Sox-Angels games.

During said game, the announcers in the booth threw to one of the sideline reporters who did a quick piece on how the Angels coped with Adenhart's death. He said they came together and realized they had two options. He gave the first option they considered, then the second one. The second was that they could go out and try and win a championship in Adenhart's memory. Unsurprisingly, this was the option they selected. So what was the first option? Apparently, they could go out, "play out the rest of their games, not really caring if they won or lost" and "nobody would blame them for it." Uh, yeah? Really? I am very curious if that's how that team meeting actually went.

Torii Hunter: ....so I think we should just go out there and play, like, whatever. I don't really care if we win or lose.

Jered Weaver: I agree. And I don't think anybody will blame us if we do.

Vlad Guerrero: (something in Spanish)


I mean, yeah I am sure it was very sad and disheartening and all, but did anybody seriously entertain the notion of just packing it in for the year? Or that "nobody would blame them" if they did? A franchise worth half a billion dollars, with a payroll of $113 million, playing in one of the largest media markets in the world, for fans who pay thousands of dollars for season tickets....and nobody would blame them if they just kinda played out the string for the rest of the year?

Seriously, a couple weeks of Juan Rivera slapping listlessly at pitches and Torii Hunter sighing dejectedly and jogging slowly after another line drive into the gap and the Woody Paige's of the world would be ranting and raving about how the Angels need to "cowboy up". And they would be right. And Woody Paige is never right.

So 'eff you TBS. You've made Woody Paige look correct in some alternate baseball universe and you made it hard for me to root against the Yankees. Eff you indeed.

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Paralegal studies and a goldfish attention span are not a good mix.