Oblivious and self-righteous Cardinals fans vs. desperate-to-play-the-victim Red Sox fans: WHO YA GOT?

If you happen to cross paths with any media members who write about either of these teams anytime in the next few months, kick them in the crotch for me.  I'm not 100% sure which side is worse, although I am leaning strongly towards the Cardinals.  At least loudmouth moron Red Sox fans are pretty honest about themselves: they're loudmouths, they're morons, and they're OK with that.  Their other most annoying flaw is their obsession with climbing up on their crosses and portraying themselves as victims (as seen most recently in the way many of them donned tinfoil hats and briefly insisted that the NFL changed the "pushing your teammates into the line of scrimmage" rules specifically to screw them, or more generally in every tweet Simmons has ever tweeted after a Boston team loses).  And that flaw is insufferable.  HOLY SHIT, THE WORLD IS NOT AGAINST YOU, AND IT SURE AS SHIT HASN'T BEEN PARTICULARLY CRUEL TO YOU IN THE REALM OF SPORTS FANDOM FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS.  But mostly, Boston fans just love their teams, and think their teams are better than your teams, and FACK YOU if you disagree.  I have a modicum of respect for that.  Cardinals fans?  Oh boy, here's where it gets much, much uglier.

The whole "Best Fans In Baseball" thing has been a vomit-inducing and out of control myth for a long time now, perpetuated by mouth-breathing commentators (both national and regional) who bring it up EVERY FUCKING TIME you're watching/listening to a game that's taking place in Saint Louis.  The Bob Costases of the world trip over themselves to point out the fact that the fans clapped for their starting pitcher who came out of the game mid-inning after a good start, or cheered tepidly for a nice catch made by an opposing player in the bottom of the 2nd, before the game gets tense.  Essentially every example some retard might try to give of Cardinals fans being the best around can be put into one of two categories: 1) something that all fans of all teams everywhere do (classic example: cheering for former players who come back as members of other teams) or 2) things that are not true (classic example: being super "classy"--counterpoint, see the Twitter feed linked above, or the way they handled the Pujols departure).

But the real cherry on top of the shit sundae is how oblivious they are.  Most Red Sox fans, if asked to evaluate whether Red Sox fans are obnoxious, will at least consider the possibility.  Most Cardinals fans, if asked to evaluate whether Cardinals fans are obnoxious, will act like they are being asked to evaluate whether the earth is flat.  If you didn't hate Will Leitch before (and Jesus, how could you not?  Will Leitch is a huge piece of shit), you will after this.

All right, we need to get something straight, and we need to get something straight fast. I have never, ever, ever ever ever ever ever, heard a Cardinals fan refer to him or herself as "one of the best fans in baseball." I'm sure it has happened. I've just never seen it. And I hang out with a lot of Cardinals fans.

1) It happens every 15 seconds or so on that Twitter feed I've been linking 

2) As I already said, it happens every. Single. Time you listen to or watch a game that's taking place in Saint Louis, so it doesn't really matter whether they gave themselves this moniker (which I'm sure they did); it's being crammed down our throats anyways, so who gives a shit where it came from

3) It's very unlikely Leitch has any friends, so his story is dubious to begin with

This notion, that Cardinals fans are always walking around patting themselves on the back, telling everyone they run into, "Hey, did you know that I'm part of the best fans in baseball? Well, I am," appears to have secured its place in the public consciousness. 

It's laughable that a person who is smart enough to operate a computer would not understand how this works.  It's like he's never heard of the concept of smugness.

It's ridiculous. Humans don't talk like that, particularly ones as earnest and cheerfully dopey as Cardinals fans. 

He's like a lawyer, using legalese and hyper-literal interpretation of terms to try to confuse the argument.  CARDINALS FANS DO NOT SAY THIS EXACT SET OF WORDS VERY OFTEN; THEREFORE, THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT SELF-RIGHTEOUS PRICKS ABOUT THEIR BASEBALL TEAM.

The only people I've ever heard anyone refer to Cardinals fans as the best fans in baseball are:

Opposing fans or media members saying so derisively;

Opposing media members saying so derisively?  Which planet are you on?  I suppose Cubs broadcasters/reporters might do that.  Media members for the other 28 teams in the league most assuredly do not.

Players on the field describing the experience of playing in St. Louis.

Every player on every team describes his team's fans as the best in baseball.

The last 24 hours have unleashed a torrent of disdain for the Cardinals and their fans, most notably from Drew Magary at Deadspin, 

Read that if you haven't, it's great.

who does this sort of thing better than anyone on earth. (Drew's Why Your Team Sucks series is a brilliant experiment in discovering which teams' fanbases are the most sensitive about their public image. The Cardinals rank undeniably high on that last; Drew says he received more "Hate Tweets" 

Also great, read that as well.

in response to that column than any other he's ever written. He got so many that I, who am briefly mentioned in the column, got some too, caught in the Hate Tweet crossfire.) All this disdain comes with the territory: When you win as many games as the Cardinals have, 

Ah, the last refuge of the asshole fan who wants to defend the assholism displayed by him and his kind: Y'ALL JUST JEALOUS!!!!!! 

and have broken the hearts of so many teams in the postseason over the last few years, as the Cardinals have, people are going to get sick of you and thus angry at you. Over the last eight years, the Cardinals have ended the postseason dreams of the Mets, Tigers, Phillies, Brewers, Rangers, Nationals and Pirates. That's a lot of fanbases spitting in your general direction.

Hey, idiot: people aren't sick of the Cardinals because they win so much.  They're sick of the Cardinals because they have won so much that it has turned their fans into a bunch of huge fuckheads.  Is anyone, outside of fans of these teams' rivals, sick of the Spurs or the Ravens the way lots of people are sick of the Cardinals?  What's the difference?  Oh yeah, there aren't that many Spurs fans, and Ravens fans aren't as insufferable as Cardinals fans.

So Cardinals fans don't think they're the best fanbase in baseball, or at least not any more than every fan thinks they're part of the best fanbase in baseball. 

/game show buzzer

But I feel obliged, as someone for whom his Cardinals fandom is central to my life, a critical aspect of my entire existence, 

You're a gigantic fucking loser and I hope you never reproduce.

to stick up for us. If you were to try to figure out the best fanbase in baseball, you could make a case for several teams. The Yankees. The Cubs. The Phillies. The Dodgers. The Giants. The Red Sox. The Tigers. And, yeah, the Cardinals.

That's just a list of the oldest and most popular teams in the league.  There's nothing notable about any of those fan bases other than the fact that there are a lot of people among each, for historical, geographical and/or bandwagony reasons.

Because Cardinals fans could probably use an antidote to all the bile yesterday, and because Game One of the NLCS kicks off at Busch Stadium tonight, this is how one might make that case.

Holy shit.  "Clearly, us Cardinals fans don't think we're special.  Now here are ten reasons why we're special."

10 Reasons Why Cardinals Fans Might Be The Best Fanbase In Baseball

Let's test my theory from above.  I'll be shocked if there are any of these that can't go into one of my two previously stated buckets: 1) not special or 2) not true.

1) They really do cheer opposing players when they make a great play. This actually happens. You'll even see it in the NLCS. If Hanley Ramirez makes a diving stop to throw a Cardinal out, or Clayton Kershaw loses a no-hitter in the eighth inning, Cardinals fans will give them standing ovations. Now, you can mock that if you want. You can call that "fake classiness." But you cannot deny that it happens, all the time.

This is in both buckets.  First, obviously, every fanbase will cheer the opposing team's accomplishments under certain circumstances, like the no-hitter example used above.  Second, no, Cardinals fans will not do this during the playoffs.  You know how I know?  Barry Zito pitched masterfully in this game last October, and was removed mid-inning, giving those classy fans a great chance to class it up and show how classy they are by applauding his performance.  Hell, it wasn't even a backbreaker from the Cards as far as the series was going--after this game, they still held a 3 games to 2 advantage.  Did Zito get applause?  Hmmmm.  (That smattering of cheers you hear is from Giants fans behind the SF dugout.)

2) They love their players even when they leave. When Dodgers centerfielder Skip Schumaker or infielder Nick Punto are announced any time in this series, they will receive huge ovations as well, probably even if they get a base hit. Both were pivotal parts of the 2011 World Series team, and the Cardinals fans will never forget it. Eventually this is even going to happen to Albert Pujols.

First of all, 6 > 5 SO CLEVER FUCK YOU ALBERT.  Second of all, you're the dumbest sports fan on earth if you think this makes your fanbase unique.

3) Everyone just wants to be Stan Musial. Want to know where this whole notion of The Cardinal Way -- winning, and doing so with class, dignity and reserve -- came from? 

Nope, because The Cardinal Way doesn't exist!  (Unless getting DUIs, using steroids and doing all kinds of other shitty things that players on all 30 MLB team do are classy, dignified, reserved things to do.)  Thanks for offering though.  Stan Musial was great at baseball and a nice person.  There are lots of ex-players who fit that mold.  I know this is going to sound crazy, but every team has them.

4) The Winter Warm Up. Every year around MLK Day, the Cardinals have a big Winter Warm Up event at a hotel downtown. It's basically just a bunch of Cardinals signing autographs, but Cardinals fans attend this event like a dying man crawling through a desert being offered water. (You can actually buy tickets to this event three months in advance.) 

This person founded a major sports blog.  He also thinks that his team is the only team in the league that does a "FanFest"-style event.  That's incredible.

5) They always, always come out to the games. Busch Stadium is at the center of everything in St. Louis, and is always, always full. Season capacity this year was 94.6 percent, second-highest in baseball. Last year? 91.6 percent, fourth. Every person within 200 miles of Busch Stadium spent the last 48 hours -- since the end of the Pirates game -- desperately scrambling for tickets to the NLCS. (If you can help my dad, who's still searching, out, let me know.)

Someone call the NYT and WaPo and tell them to get a crack team of reporters on this story: team that won World Series in 2011/went to NLCS in 2012 sold lots of tickets in 2012/2013.

6) They travel as well as any fanbase in the country. If you've ever been to watch your team play the Cardinals in your home stadium, you know this. Cardinals fans have a way of turning whole sections of opposing stadiums bright red. It has become a tradition in September, when the Cardinals are often playing teams out of the pennant chase, that opposing stadiums because de facto home games. We sort of just cheerily invade.

They're not traveling.  They're a bunch of transplants who left Saint Louis because it's an awful city in an awful part of the country.  Some of them are bandwagoners with no ties to Saint Louis whatsoever.  They are there cheering for the Cardinals because the Cardinals are good.  If the Astros had 11 championships, there would be Astros fans all over the place too.  I'm doing my best to write this with a calm and reasonable tone, but honestly, I just want to meet Leitch in real life and punch him in the mouth.  "We just sort of cheerily invade!"  DIE.  You're the worst.

Players are family here, and they know it. In 2004, the Cardinals traded for Larry Walker late in the season. As he came to the plate for his first at-bat, he received a standing ovation. He struck out on three pitches. He then received another one. 

NO WAY.  Most fanbases would have booed him out of the stadium after one failed at bat.

There is a reason the Cardinals have been able to cultivate and keep players, have been able to trade for stars and keep them: They know it's different in St. Louis,

It's not.  

and they want to stay. 

Matt Holliday, a star traded for and then resigned, would have left in a heartbeat for another team during the 2009 offseason if anyone else had needed a LF and offered him the money the Cardinals eventually offered.  Fortunately for them, no other big spending team needed a LF that year.  Fortunately for Holliday, the Cardinals eventually caved and gave him a market value (or perhaps larger) deal.  But if not for a very unusual free agent market that year, he would have been gone.  Not even the magical wondrous mystical powers of Saint Louis, a town where fans cheer for new players, could have kept him there.

Scott Rolen, who gleefully re-upped with the Cardinals shortly after they traded for him, said, "Baseball is so special to them that as an organization, you have a lot to live up to. You feel like you owe it to the fans to put your best foot forward. They adopt you as their own. You become part of their lives." Ask any player which stadiums they love playing at: Busch Stadium is always near the top of the list. Ask them which franchise they'd love to play for: The Cardinals are always near the top of the list. The reason is not the facilities: It's the fans. We can all get online and have fights about "real" fans, but the players, they live it, they know. They know what's special about St. Louis.

This whole article seems like it could be trolling, but that last sentence especially.  I'm afraid to criticize it too sharply in case it really is trolling.  Nothing worse than getting a fast one pulled on you by someone as emptyheaded as Leitch.

The last home game of the season, when everybody sings the National Anthem. It's a tradition: The team doesn't have an anthem singer for the final home game. The whole crowd does it, and it's deeply moving, every year. Here's the last one at the old Busch Stadium.

Who gives a flying fuck?

The fans are the reason the Cardinals can compete. The Cardinals don't have a wealthy owner willing to spend billions on whatever player he wants. 

Come the fuck on.  This article is old, but the ownership structure hasn't changed significantly since it was written.  Bill DeWitt is worth a shitload of money.  That's how he can afford to field a team with the 11th highest payroll in the league in 2013.  Does he spend like George Steinbrenner did near the end of his life?  No.  Is he rich as fuck?  Yes.

They don't have a massive cable contract. 

Their current deal is awful, and doesn't expire until 2017.  At that point, they will get a new deal, and it will be comically huge.  I like how all of this is written like the Cardinals are a non-profit financed by $20 donations from generous fans.

They don't even have that sweetheart of a stadium deal. 

The owners paid for most of the stadium, this is true.  They also got a wide-reaching set of tax breaks that helps offset some of that money that they paid up front.

What they do have is a fanbase that will support them no matter what … and is willing to be patient. The Cardinals have one of the strongest farm systems in baseball, and one of the reasons they do is because they've been allowed to be smart about keeping talent around. There aren't angry calls to trade unknown prospects for veterans at the deadline, moves for the sake of making moves. The Cardinals fans, in a way that's not always healthy, trust their team. There aren't moves made to placate the fanbase because the fanbase is always placated. This is an enormous competitive advantage: The Cardinals front office can make decisions based entirely on whether or not they're good ones, rather than how it will "play" with the fanbase. 

Holy shit, what in the fucking shitfuck are you fucking talking about?  Do you have any idea how anything works?  How have you lived to this age?  Who feeds you and changes your clothes every day?

The greatest example of this, of course, is what happened with Albert Pujols. This was a man who had been compared to The Man, who seemed destined to play his entire career with the Cardinals. But when he wanted more money than was wise for the Cardinals to pay, the team walked away, in large part because it knew the fanbase would understand. And it did! There was little ill will toward the team or toward Pujols. 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Ok, I can't even finish.  You get the idea.  Will Leitch is atrocious.  Oh wait, one last thing: remember the first few paragraphs of this article?  All that stuff about how Cardinals fans don't actually think they're the best in baseball?

But this idea that there isn't anything special about Cardinals fans, that this has all just been made up as some sort of self-aggrandizing exercise, is ludicrous. The Cardinals have a loyal, devoted fanbase, and it is one that has had a direct effect in the success of their team. 

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

GO RED SOX!

(Snarky response from Jarrett, who is a non-atrocious Cardinals fan, sure to appear in the comments below)

But the Phillies Have the Grit Factor!

This article, by someone named Cormac Gordon, isn't anything interesting. It praises the quality of this year's World Series because the teams are good or something. Here's the highlight:

Charlie Manuel’s club was first in the NL in runs, home runs, RBI and slugging percentage.

Well that's nice to know.

And starters Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Pedro Martinez are as capable as any rotation in baseball of throwing back-to-back-to-back shutouts.

This is stupid. If Pedro Martinez, who averaged less than 5 innings per start this season, throws a shutout, I will.... print a retraction on this blog for calling you an idiot, Bernie Augustine.

Plus, they have the grit factor.

Who cares! Now this post has the grit factor:
“We have players who like to play, and pitchers who like to pitch,” Manuel likes to say of his group.

Job satisfaction on the Phillies is apparently 100%. Now if only the Reds would hire some players who like to play!

No wonder the Cubs lost this year. They hired Milton Bradley, who does not like to play.

For The Last Time, America: Baseball Still Isn't Dead

For those of you scoring at home, this is my record-tying third straight post about the same goddamn issue. Sports media just cannot stop themselves from writing more and more whiny claptrap about how bad this World Series was and how baseball is dying and about how cold those players looked. Gregg Doyel chimes in on the "OMG WORLD SERIES IMPLOSIONS" issue. Even more amusingly, Gregg drew an air of intelligence by citing this mind-blowingly idiotic article by a "Bill Livingston" living in "Cleveland".

Since I already hate Sportsline and Doyel has been a target here before, I'll stick to his crap. Warning: idiot typing and stale ideas ahead. The whole article is basically a rewrite of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s claim that "Baseball is dead, nobody plays it, it's too boring". It's just found a new place to spawn. And it's still the same old tripe. Let's look at some of the worst claims.

The truth of the matter is ... baseball just isn't that important anymore.

As I previously cited in this post last February, MLB's revenues indicate that quite a lot of people still care. For example, for 2007 (figures not available yet this year) MLB's revenues approach the oh-my-god-best-professional-league-ever NFL's. Besides money? I don't see appreciable decline in other metrics which might measure the lack of baseball importance. Yes - before you comment - the lousy ratings for this year's World Series are hardly a useful metric.

In 2008, MLB had its second highest attendance ever: "The total of 78,614,880 fell short of 2007's record of 79,503,175" (source).

Baseball purists and constipated gripers -- same thing, if you ask me --

Sportsline.com journalists and uninformed self-aggrandizing windsocks - same thing, if you ask me --

want to blame the 2008 World Series' tepid television ratings on the schedule and the network and the weather,

Or the one small-market team?

all of which they sum up with the words "Bud Selig." And they're complaining that next year it will get worse, what with the World Series starting in late October and ending in early November and WHIP and VORP and the world coming to an end. Not to mention on-base plus slugging.

Yes! Now we get to the real problems! WHIP and VORP and OPS! That's why baseball is too irrelevant: it has a small core of actually intelligent fans! Again with the eschatological overtones: clearly baseball stats are bringing recorded time to a standstill!

Thesis: baseball's core of intelligent fans distinguishes it from every other sport, which is comprised almost exclusively of hordes of morons. Discuss.

But the truth is, baseball just isn't that important anymore in this country,

Six billion dollars suggest otherwise. Lotta tax dollars going to lotta communities. At a fairly-conservative 5% sales tax, that's 300 million tax dollars... and that's not even counting the income tax, which probably runs about 9 million a year for Alex Rodriguez alone. *shrug*

and there's no going back. I'm not sure how many people, other than the purists and the owners and (maybe) the players, even want to go back.

Actually, as a card-carrying purist, I kind of like the present. I really do. Except for the fact that the Reds haven't had a winning season since 1999, a record or two is steroid-tainted and the American League still has the DH, I'm just about fine with the present. And I don't mean that with any sarcasm whatsoever.

We like baseball where it is, behind football and ahead of soccer and log-jammed in there with basketball, golf, auto racing and combat sports.

That must be the royal "we" of smarmy assholes who write for Sportsline and like to think baseball is doomed when it isn't. Seriously: combat sports? COMBAT SPORTS?

What an idiot.

... regarding the (obviously idiotic) idea of a neutral-site Series:

Only in football are tens of thousands of fans willing to spend a small fortune to traipse across the country to watch one winner-take-all game.

I am not sure of an exact stat here, but I once read somewhere that some huge percentage of SB tickets go to corporate sponsors and interests, with another percentage available to the public of the host city. Readers?

Oh, right, like people who "traipse" (traipse?) across the country to go to the Super Bowl go there to watch the game.

Football is passionate. Football is fun.

Apparently eighty million turnstiles clicked this past summer to go to events that were not fun. I think this is a sign of national depression. Why the hell did people go to baseball games eighty million times in order to not have fun? Put America on suicide watch.

Later:
With baseball, that means wrapping up the 162nd game and then looking back and studying the statistics, seeing which players got better or worse (or, like Adam Dunn, both).

Besides being a blatant and pointless baseball homer, you're uninformed to boot! As far as writers go, this year you got worse!

I think this is a joke? Like maybe Adam Dunn somehow got better or worse? Even though he had exactly as many homers as he's had for each of the previous three seasons, or that his OPS+ was exactly his career OPS+?

Gregg doesn't know his head from his ass. I wish Dunn would start hitting Gregg Doyel instead of 40 home runs a season or his wife after games in Chicago.

[Note: this is an inside joke between me and two other bloggers. I am not actually suggesting that Adam Dunn commits domestic violence.]

***********************

Baseball isn't dead. Baseball isn't dying. The World Series isn't dead. The World Series isn't dying. Can we all just get over the ONE RAINOUT in the ONE HUNDRED YEARS of World Series baseball and go back to debating about something useful, like how many DHs can dance on the head of a pin?

Seriously, people have been whining about how baseball is dead for the last thirty years. I once read a Charlie Brown comic strip from like 1974 or some shit where Linus declared baseball to be dead. It's not true, it hasn't been true, and no useful metric suggests that it's going to be true.

The World Series: It Isn't Broke, But Idiots Want to Fix It

So you might have heard, somewhere in between all the real sports news: the World Series was delayed by rain. First time in a hundred years.

Cue the idiot sportswriters.

WRITER #1: MIKE FREEMAN, Sportsline.com

In which Mike Freeman Complains about The Lack of Storylines

This is the 2008 version of the White Sox-Astros, Tigers-Cardinals and Marlins-Indians. In other words, gentlemen, start your Xanax.

I actually kind of liked the joke. Really, though - I think Freeman's bitching about big-market teams not being in the World Series. Which seems to me to be kind of stupid.

It's possible this could end up as the lowest-rated and least-watched World Series in modern history. Ratings gold, baby.

Who the fuck CARES if no one watches? If the millions of idiot Red Sox fans and idiot Dodgers fans and idiot Cubs fans and idiot Yankees fans aren't watching... I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

What real baseball fan cares about the ratings? In fact, what human being cares about the ratings? It's like Mike Freeman wants to turn the World Series into the goddamn Super Bowl. What I hate most about the goddamn sportswriters is that they're so goddamn phony. They talk about all the great underdog stories like they're the goddamn ducks on the pond and they finally make it to the World Series and nobody cares.

This is nothing against the two franchises themselves. There are plenty of good folks in those clubhouses and front offices. There'll also be some stars on display when the series begins this week. The Rays are a good story and the perennially losing Phillies aren't bad either. But that's it. There's absolutely nothing else compelling about this series.

There's the fact that it's the World Series. I'm sorry there aren't any steroids or Hank Steinbrenners or PettiteGH or BizzOzzie Guillen or Steve Garvey sleeping with someone's mom. It's still the WORLD SERIES.

The biggest problem is the lack of a villain. Boston would have filled that role perfectly as the Patriots did in the Super Bowl last year. But what can you hate about either of these teams?

Interesting point, Mike, suggesting that the series lacks definition because neither team takes a binary opposition. How Lacanian; non-definition breeding aimlessness, CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE AT LADIES?

Later...
You're all phonies because you know I'm right.
You're like the writer who went to Hollywood to write good sports stories and now he writes as a National Writer for Sportsline and you drive around in your sports car and nobody reads your actually good stuff about your secret goldfish.

WRITER #2: JEFF PASSAN, YAHOO! SPORTS

Here is a picture of Jeff Passan:
Critique #1: the all-caps EXCLUSIVE at the bottom which means that Yahoo! sports is the ONLY PLACE YOU CAN GO to get your JEFF PASSAN FIX.

I never worked hard enough to get me a marketing degree from one of them there universities, but it seems like "exclusive" is only a useful marketing tool if you have a brand actually worth marketing. Jeff Passan Brand Sports Journalism is like Yugo Brand Automobiles, exclusively available in the Chicagoland Area Larry B Imported Cars dealership!

Critique #2: This picture of Jeff Passan, though small and somewhat pixelated, could easily be mistaken for one of the pictures on this site.

Now: on to his actual writing: "Baseball's Crown Event is Beyond Repair

Overly hyperbolic title. The World Series once got canceled by a strike. A fucking rainout isn't going to make it beyond repair.

This World Series is beyond salvaging.

False.

It is a disaster borne of people who think cowbells and haircuts make them fans,

You're nobody to lecture on personal appearance.

owners so greedy they accept late-October baseball and late-evening start times,

A charge which you offer no solution for.

and a commissioner who unilaterally changes a rule while he’s carrying the book in his left hand.

A change which everyone in the inhabited (and uninhabited) universe recognizes as a necessary and intelligent change to make.

Game 5 is suspended. Rain washed through Citizens Bank Park from the beginning of the Philadelphia Phillies' potential championship clincher to the sixth inning, when the Tampa Bay Rays tied the score 2-2. The game is supposed to resume Wednesday night. It is on Mother Nature, which is a good thing, because if it were up to the baseball gods, they would smite the series before it could continue any longer.

Baseball gods don't exist. And if there were baseball gods, they would be more likely to listen to me than to you.

...
Re: the decision to start game 4:
The conditions were fine for playing. It’s just that the entire country was in its REM cycle, baseball hardly a competitor for sleep.

So here, Jeff Passan complains that baseball made a decision that was counter to getting higher ratings in order to complete the Series on time. This might have made sense, especially considering that the Phillies' fans might have flown halfway across the country to go to this one game. But no - the people IN the stadium don't count!

Later:
Such is the norm, too, with the 8:30 p.m. start times now typical for World Series games – and the remainder of the postponement, which will begin at 8 p.m. Thank MLB again for that. It got into bed with Fox for a long-term $3 billion deal. Fox requested a later first pitch. MLB obliged. The guys in suits win. The kids with hats and genuine interest in the game, and not the green it generates, lose.

I actually kind of like his point. Screw the networks. But here's the thing, Jeff: you can't bitch about MLB starting a game REALLY late because nobody can watch it, but then also bitch about MLB starting a little later so that people CAN watch it.

You can't have your hair-gel and eat it too, Jeff.

When two teams get together, no matter the size of the market or depth of the history, and play a to-the-max series with the requisite drama that accompanies a great matchup, it is magic. Baseball doesn’t need the Yankees or Red Sox. Minnesota and Atlanta did just fine in 1991.

Please tell this to Mike Freeman.

And that, actually, is the only thing that can turn this debacle around and help MLB avoid it being the Rain Series or the Delay Series or the Atrociously Umpired Series or the Series No One Cared About.

Every single memorable world series has to do with the spectacular plays on the field, and nothing to do with MLB decisions. 1960? Oh, that was because MLB set up the greatest and most dramatic upset ever! 2001? Oh, that must have been MLB setting the Yankees up to lose.

Series get Proper Names because of the baseball. Other than deliberately telling fans to pull Maiers or Bartmans, it's hard for the big brass to add intrigue. That's the players' jobs.

The questions crossing everyone’s mind Monday night were how to keep weather from so adversely affecting the biggest games of the year. Shorten the regular season? No chance the owners would lose the revenue.

No chance fans would want this either. What an idiotic solution, and Jeff Passan's such a two-faced moron for suggesting that only the owners' greed would shoot this down. Every respectable fan (especially the ones who recognized the endless * battle that happened LAST time they changed the length of the season) recognizes that this is not a solution. 162 is fucking sacred, man.

Do it by playing doubleheaders every other Saturday, shaving nearly two weeks from the season? Again, revenue would lag, and the players’ union almost certainly would say no.

Do we really need to reschedule the entire season just because one game - the first time in a hundred years? No... you're just a hand-wringing space-filler.

Schedule a neutral-site World Series? No thanks.

Wow, Jeff! We agree! (This, by the way, is about the stupidest solution to the "problem" I've heard).

Sometimes, nothing can save baseball from itself. Not even global warming.

Sometimes, baseball doesn't need to be saved.

But baseball journalism sure does, and that's why we're here!

Fuckity Fuckity Fuck

I know it's a huge secret around these parts which baseball team I root for. Lets just say that whichever "team" it is "lost" a huge "game" this evening. And now I'm really mad. So I'm going to take this garbage and shove it up Tim Dahlberg's anal orifice.

Cubs-Red Sox would be World Series dream
But there are some ugly possibilities for Fall Classic as well

This article just screams "pointless."

The big, bad Yankees are finally out and for that most of the country can be grateful.

I'm not sure what rock you've been hiding under for the past 8 years, but Yankee hatred has declined significantly in all non-New Yorkish non-Bostonian metropolitan areas.

Instead of constantly hearing about the ghosts of past greats at Yankee Stadium, this postseason we can focus on the present at not-so-historic Tropicana Field.

Right there with you in re: shut the fuck up about Yankee Stadium. But why is Tropicana Field even important? It's not part of your "dream" World Series anyway.

Instead of filling up seats in the Bronx, they’ll be taking them out, just in time for the holiday gift-giving season.

Okay you're paying waaaaaaay more attention to this than necessary. I'm removing whatever credit I gave you for making fun of the ESPN Yankee Stadium ZOMG Brigade.

But that’s not the only thing different about a World Series that has every chance to be truly memorable and an equal chance to be truly forgettable.

This would be a very true statement if you were arguing from the perspective of "the series itself might not be that exciting." But you're obviously gonna ramble on about how Milwaukee is boring or something.

There’s a surprise team from Florida

Who?

chances of an all-Chicago or all-LA matchup,

Both of which you are about to shit on immensely. We're talking Randy Marsh in South Park's "More Crap" episode level shitting.

OFFICIAL PUBLIC STATEMENT: I am a nerd.

and a Boston team ready to lay claim to a dynasty of its own.

Which is exciting, but when the Yankees do it, that's bad, right?

About the only certainty is that the Cubs will implode at some point because they are, after all, the Cubs.

You are an idiot who says idiotic things.

Keeping that in mind, here’s a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly matchups that could be this year’s World Series:

You forgot "the useless." Oh wait, you're not playing in the playoffs are you? Nevermind.

BOOM! Nailed that one. ::high-fives everyone in the room::

THE GOOD:

CUBS-RED SOX: This is the ultimate matchup, one that makes Bud Selig and Fox television executives drool at the mere thought.

Why should anybody fucking care about Bud Selig or Fox. Fox hired Tim McCarver for crissake. Anything that makes them happy should be deemed pure evil.

The backdrop alone would make this worth tuning in for, but this World Series would have more story lines than just the two classic ballparks. The Red Sox would be staking a claim to dominance much like their pinstriped rivals, trying for their third championship in five years, and you might have heard something by now about the Cubs trying to win their first World Series in exactly 100 years.

Sure, fine, whatever, if the Red Sox blow the Cubs out in 4 games, it still kinda sucks. A lot.

The only downside for long-suffering Cubs fans is that Boston would have the home-field advantage. But after waiting since 1908 to win the World Series, they could wait a few more days to play at home.

You had me going there. First you said something meaningful. Then you said one of the most useless sentences to ever grace the internet.

RED SOX-DODGERS: Imagine Manny Ramirez returning to Fenway Park to hit two home runs over the Green Monster in Game 1. OK, just imagine him returning to run hard all the way to first base. Either way it will be a show, made all the better should Joe Torre be able to exorcise some Fenway demons while dressed in Dodger blue.

Or, alternatively, it will be bad, because the Dodgers blow. And because Ned Coletti would have a shot at winning the World Series, a thing he deserves less than K-Rod deserves the Cy Young.

METS-ANGELS: Yankees-Dodgers would have been better, especially with Torre against his old team. But New York versus Los Angeles is never bad

New York Knicks vs Los Angeles Clippers. Boom.

Actually, let's back this up a little bit. Why is that never bad? Explain this. What if the Mets and the Angels have 2 very, very boring teams that don't have very many exciting or interesting players and are incredibly different in skill level and the good team blows out the bad team. How is that "good?" Sure, the ratings will be stellar, but who cares? That's just because a lot of people follow those teams. It doesn't make the World Series good.

THE BAD:

CUBS-WHITE SOX: Yes, we know the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 and that such a warm and fuzzy occurrence would be even more warm and fuzzy for Cub fans if they could do it against their crosstown rivals. But any magic about the Cubs and White Sox playing each other evaporated with interleague play and, outside of Chicago, who really cares if the north side is better than the south.

I'm sort of with you on this one. But I bet you were the same person who was pulling hard for Yankees-Mets in 2000.

About the only fun for the rest of the country would be watching Ozzie Guillen chase rats down the right-field line.

What?

No no no. Seriously. What?

Where the hell did you come up with this joke?

What makes a man sit down in front of his computer, think this thought, and say to himself "oh man, that's gotta go in"? Early 90's Full House Bob Saget called, he wants his sense of humor back.

DODGERS-ANGELS: Back in the day when the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees all played in New York it wasn’t a big deal when two teams from the same city met each other in the World Series because it happened quite often. It doesn’t happen that often anymore — Mets-Yankees in 2000 were the only ones in the last 50 years — but Los Angeles is the wrong city to make it happen.

Again, you pretty much ruled out the White Sox and Cubs as an interesting crosstown World Series, so which is the "right" city. Oh. New York, right? Because the rest of the country totally gives a damn about Mets/Yankees. Fuck you. Fuck you with a blowtorch.

The Cubs and White Sox at least inspire passion from their followers. In LA, fans get worked up trying to figure out the best inning to leave the ballpark so they can beat traffic.

This is a completely stupid and totally false generalization that should be swallowed up by the earth. Cub fans flock to the Cubby Bear in great numbers before the conclusion of baseball games. And did you watch the World Series in 2002? I mean I hate Eckstein and all that, but Anaheim's crowd was blanketed with thunder sticks both pounding together and making that blasted "X" formation. There was a shitload of passion in that series.

THE UGLY:

RAYS-DIAMONDBACKS: Let’s get this straight: Eva Longoria is one of the stars on “Desperate Housewives” who is married to Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. Evan Longoria is the third baseman for Tampa Bay who always seems to hit crucial home runs. That should take about 10 minutes for Tim McCarver to explain during Game 1, after which there will be little left to do other than ponder the dismal ugliness of Tropicana Field and wonder why Randy Johnson is always so surly.

I actually have to give it up here. Nice McCarver burn.

TWINS-BREWERS: The Twins are a decent enough story, a young team that wasn’t supposed to do anything this year after losing Johan Santana to the Mets. The Brewers aren’t bad, either, especially if they make the playoffs after firing their manager with just two weeks left in the season. Match them together, though, and you’ve got a dud of a World Series played out in small-market Midwestern cities that not even the
super-sized presence of Prince Fielder can save.

Everyone hates a World Series full of budding young stars, right? No, in all honesty, this paragraph is a lame copout and I'm pretty sure fuck Justin Morneau that Tim Dahlberg has some sort of financial stake in Fox's ratings or some shit like that, because that's honestly 100% of your reasoning behind each and every one of these claims. The Twins are a bunch of lucky fuckbags that admittedly play a very exciting style of baseball. I would definitely love to see the Brewers in the World Series. They're an incredibly exciting team with young talent all over the diamond. You can't see anything in them except the fact that they have a fat vegetarian slugger and fired their manager last week. Fuck you, Tim.