Holy Fucking Shit You Guys.....

Is HatGuy really NOT a Yankees fan?

Did he really just say that he wanted the Red Sox in the World Series???

It may be early, but Red Sox-Cubs is my dream
Boston, Chicago currently baseball's best — let's hope it holds

My God......the entire sports journalism world just broke down.

It's like our number system. Every complicated mathematical proof rests on a few basic axioms. What a plus sign does. What zero is.

In sports journalism, one such axiom is, "HatGuy loves the Yankees more than whipped cream and chocolate sauce."

I am not sure if this site can continue to exist.

It's dangerous and probably dumb to draw conclusions about a baseball season when barely one-third of the games are in the books.

::panting:: Whew. Sorry guys. I just ran all the way back from Mike Celizic's house. I stole his personal dictionary, and the.... ::vomits:: ...the fucking guard dogs chased me all the way back here. But I've got it, and I'm safe.

Let's see here....here's a random section of words to read!

predicament
predicant
predicate
predicatory
..
predigest
predilection
predispose

Huh? What's that? There's a word missing in there? Heh. Well, whatever it was, I can only assume it was dangerous and probably dumb.

But it’s also fun, especially this year, when it's possible to legitimately dream in June of what may be the best World Series matchup in memory.

Oh I don't know if that's safe there Hattigan. The thought police are all over this town, and if they catch you doing such a dangerous and probably dumb thing, they'll lock your brain up in brain prison.

How does Red Sox-Cubs sound to you? They’re arguably the two best teams in baseball. My colleague, Tony DeMarco, disagrees.

It actually is tough to beat Red Sox-Cubs right now in terms of team quality. Tony DeMarco, usually intelligent, is clueless. The Angels are only +11 in run differential right now, a few starting pitchers are performing over their heads, and they have a .247 team EqA. I'm convinced msnbc.com hires Angels fans deliberately, because Michael Ventre loves them too much as well.

HatGuy pauses here and actually uses stats and run differentials and the stuff that happened last year, which is more shocking than anything I'll print here. But we get down to the meat of his argument here.

So if you want to argue nothing will change this year, there are numbers to back you up. And if you want to argue that everything will change, there are numbers to back that up, too.

Damn it! Take a side for once, numbers!

But there are reasons to believe that the magical matchup between the Red Sox and Cubs is realistic.

Because they're in first place in their divisions and anyone can make the World Series once they're in the playoffs? Bold claim there Mike.

Both teams have offenses that should be pretty much recession-proof

I'm sorry....recession proof? On the Cubs, Soriano and Ramirez are famous for their month-to-month inconsistency. On the Red Sox....did you see the way Ortiz started this year? How about the way J.D. Drew was last season....that can't happen again? Don't get me wrong, they both have very good offenses, but there's really no such thing as a recession-proof offense nowadays.

The Cubbies have four guys who have scored 40 or more runs — Ryan Theriot, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Derrek Lee —

Oh goody....cherry-picking individual runs! Couldn't think of a better way to say an offense is performing.

Moving on....he's talking about how no team in the AL matches the Red Sox.

The Red Sox lead the AL in on-base percentage and are second in runs scored. They have four guys with 39 or more runs scored and six with at least 36 — remarkable balance up and down the lineup.

Whoopde fuckin' doo. They have 334 runs. That's the bottom line. Who gives a shit who scores them?

You could say the White Sox may be Boston’s match, especially with Carlos Quentin carrying the offense with his 16 homers and 53 runs batted in. Chicago leads the AL in home runs with 78, but

Whatever follows after this "but" has to be pretty good. Maybe talk about how the White Sox are 22 OBP points behind the Red Sox. Talk about Joe Crede and the chances he can keep up this power surge. Maybe something about the pitching staff being likely to regress.

Quentin is also the only player on the roster with at least 40 runs scored

Here's a fun exercise for the next Reader Extra Participation Friday. What unpleasant things would pnoles rather do than continue to read this crap?

and the next-best RBI man is Joe Crede with 39

They have 305 runs.

after him is Jim Thome with 32

Three-oh-five.

and no one else has 30.

Three hundred five runs.

Bottom line:

The Red Sox have scored 334 runs this season. The White Sox have scored 305.

Boston has more people who can hurt you — other than the Rangers, who have no pitching.

You have not proven that at all.

No team is close to Boston in slugging percentage

I know that you just mentioned the Rangers, but this is an independent thought. Boston is 2nd in the AL in slugging to the Rangers. And it's only a 15 point difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees/White Sox. Here's how you get to the White Sox from the Red Sox XBH column. Subtract 24 doubles, subtract 3 triples, add 12 homers. It honestly isn't a big enough difference to talk about.

the real mark of power, whether team or individual.

I prefer IsoP, because that doesn't let you inflate your SLG with AVG, but to each his own.

There are a lot of teams that have never met in the World Series, and plenty of teams that have either never been to the game’s biggest stage or that haven’t been there in a generation or more. Philadelphia is one of them.

Still have that dictionary open....another random excerpt.

relevant - bearing or relating to the matter in hand; pertinent; to the point.

But even with two championships in the past four seasons, the Red Sox have a unique sentimental hold on baseball fans everywhere.

We all hate them. Except Bostonians and psuedo-Bostonians who show up at all our fucking ballparks with megaphones and cowbells (well okay....that was ONE TIME).