Back in March and April of this year I was counting up my favorite baseball teams on Facebook in anticipation of The Real National Hot Dog Day. I thought that it might be a good idea to keep them here for posterity. Here are the fifth group of teams along with the FB introductions.
6.
You can't honestly say that you hate the Padres, just like you can't honestly say that you hate hot dogs. Kids, the Real National Hot Dog Day is happening one week from this afternoon.
We talk a little about Ray Kroc (not about the time he got on the stadium's PA and apologized to the crowd for the Padres playing so poorly) and while he's a hamburger magnate (and a prick!) he was known to enjoy a hot dog or two.
Be like Kroc in that way (not the prick part) and enjoy a hot dog sandwich with some potato chips, ice cream and beers. Then watch the Padres pummel someone. They're going to be as fun as the Real National Hot Dog Day this year.
For a kid growing up in New England, there were two baseball outposts: Seattle (which we'll get to later) and San Diego. The latter seemed even more remote because the M's were in the American League and the Red Sox would play them a handful of times each year, so you were at least semi-familiar with the players.
The Padres? They weren't on national TV very much and no one really talked about them. Every once in awhile Sports Illustrated would write something about the Pads or Peter Gammons would jot down some notes in the Boston Globe about San Diego and you got the gist. There was a team near Mexico that was playing ball and they had a player or two worth keeping an eye on. The patron saint of San Diego was Tony Gwynn who hit like no one else. Not only did he star for the Padres, but he played hoops and baseball in San Diego State. And there were some former Yankee castoffs in Goose Gossage and Graig Nettles, but being a Padre was like being in the witness relocation program.
The only time that I remember getting annoyed at the Padres was when they signed Bruce Hurst to a big free agent contract in late 1988. Him and fellow free agent signee Jack Clark were going to lead San Diego to the promised land with Tony Gwynn.
They didn't.
The only times the Pads went to the World Series was in 1984 and they were hammered by the Tigers. They went in 1998 and were slaughtered by the Yankees. That's it. Any other time they made the post season, they'd get brushed off by the Dodgers or the Cards or the Mets or some other more "deserving" team. Some team that wasn't once owned by the guy who started* McDonalds and then sold to the people who produced "The Cosby Show" and "Roseanne".
* Turns out Ray Kroc was a bit of a thief. He didn't come up with McDonald's he just stole the name, the recipe for their food and how they served their burgers so efficiently. The only thing that he really figured out was how to franchise the restaurants. And how to be an asshole and bully the McDonald brothers into selling their name and revealing their secrets. So he's basically a regular rich guy, someone who made hundreds of millions off an idea that wasn't his to begin with and considers himself a genius. Awesome dude.
Anyway, whenever the Pads would leave the national stage in October, the undercurrent was that the fans would have to console themselves with living in the most temperate place in the country. Forget Philadelphia, it's always sunny in San Diego. And 80 degrees. And with low humidity. You can literally do whatever you want outdoors and not really worry about weather cancelling your plans.
While unfair, maybe there's a bit of truth to that. I can tell you that whenever the Red Sox play into October, it always feels like us New Englanders are getting bonus summer. Every day that the playoffs extends, that's one less day of winter. Even if you love winter, you want that bonus summer.
So you cheer a little harder, because you're not just rooting against the team on the other side of the diamond, you're rooting against old man winter. You're rooting against blizzards and spending 20 extra minutes warming up the car. You're pushing back on school closings and slush storms and dark, frigid mornings where you want to stay ensconced in your warm, comfy bed, but you have to go to work.
San Diego doesn't have to deal with any of that shit. It's the same on November 15 as it is on February 15 as it is on May 15. Fucking beautiful. Go for a run! Have a picnic in the park! Go surfing! Walk to the most kick-ass taqueria or the second most kick-ass taqueria that's literally right next door! San Diego is practically paradise, who gives a shit if the Pads (or the now departed Chargers) lose? The sun is shining and how can you be angry about that?
For a long time, I think that was the Padres' mantra: win or lose, the sun still shines here. But in the last year or two, the Pads have hit on something: they're the only game in town now. The Chargers are gone to LA (fucking LA?). The Rockets left decades ago. The Sails and Conquistadors folded with the ABA. I think even their minor league hockey club packed their bags.
So instead of doing what the Pittsburghs and the Cincinnatis and the Baltimores of the league have done, which is cut costs, cry poverty and understand that fans will still flood into the stadium because what else are you going to do in those cities in August, the Padres have flexed their financial muscles a bit. They're signing free agents to big contracts. They're cashing in their prospect chips and making the big trades (who gives a shit what Baseball America thinks about their minor league system looks like) and they're going for it.
They're giving the finger to their big brothers in the north (the Dodgers and Giants) and telling their younger siblings (the Rockies and D'Backs) to get the hell out of the way. Padres games are going to be great this year. Watch as many as you can because they're going to be entertaining as hell with that lineup and pitching staff.
Will they win the World Series this year? I don't know, who cares? That's not the point. A lot of times, the best team doesn't bring home the championship but San Diego is going to have six months of former Sox broadcaster Don Orsillo describe a fun ass team every single night.
The other rad-ass thing the Padres did is bring back the brown and gold as well as the swinging Padre. I'm not sure why, or who, thought it was good idea to name a team after a bunch of Catholic priests (I know it was a leftover from the town's PCL days) but it works for San Diego. Those old Taco Bell uniforms from the early 80s and these things now, just scream Padres to me. I hope they keep them forever.
And if things don't work out, fuck it, there's plenty of sunshine and tacos in Southern California. I'm sure that everyone will be okay.
5.
To paraphrase another Seattle export that burned brightly in the 1990s:
"I like bad teams and I cannot lie.
Teams other fans will just deny."
The Mariners are a bad team, but I like them a lot. There are reasons that I talk about in my latest little essay. They were integral to the 1986 Red Sox: they were the team that struck out 20 times against Clemens and they sent us Spike Owen and Dave Henderson. Without the M's, where would Boston have been that year?
Despite writing a lot about the 90s Ms, I did not make one reference to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains or any grunge band. I am so very proud of myself.
We are 5 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Adam Curry style, my favorite baseball teams.
They played in a dome where it always seemed like they were in a constant twilight. They wore double-knit pullovers with a racing stripe on the sleeves. Their hats had a weird logo (more on this in a second). Their players were also-rans that the team tried very hard to market as good. They played in the middle of the night, for god's sake. Every time you looked at the batting leaders or the standings, anything that had to do with the Mariners had an asterisk next to it. That was because their games ended too late to make the next day's morning edition.
Mariners games were both exotic and romantic to a baseball fan in the East.
It felt like the Mariners played in an alternate dimension that the Red Sox would visit once or twice a year. "Shit, the Sox have the M's tonight in Seattle? I have to take a nap and brew three pots of coffee to make it through the first four innings."
The Mariners were tucked in the northwest corner of the country, playing uninspired and dreadful baseball with some weird characters while the world was asleep in their comfy beds. Gaylord Perry got his 300th win in Seattle. Alvin Davis won Rookie of the Year in 1984 as an M. Mark Langston was the lefty version of Roger Clemens striking out batter after batter. Harold Reynolds broke Rickey Henderson's streak of leading the league in stolen bases. Rickey was injured that year, and gave Reyonlds shit about leading the league with "only" 60 thefts "Rickey would have had that in half a season!" but it still counts! Probably the most interesting thing that happened to the Mariners in their first 13 seasons was being on the wrong end of the first Roger Clemens 20 strikeout game*.
* If you're ever bored, check out the roster to that 1986 Mariner team. It's fucking bonkers.
Then something weird happened. The Mariners had the number one pick in 1987 and they chose a dude with a name that most baseball fans knew: Ken Griffey. By the time he made it to the Majors, the Mariners had traded Langston to the Montreal Expos for a bushel of prospects that included the incredibly tall and incredibly wild Randy Johnson. They traded Frank Costanza's arch enemy Ken Phelps to the Yanks for Jay Buhner. And picked up Alex Rodriguez with the first pick in the 1993 draft, and he didn't waste much time in the minors before debuting the next season.
The M's also had another guy on the team that not a lot of people paid much attention to, but they would soon enough: Edgar Martinez. Martinez could always hit, but he couldn't field really well, so it took some time before he was able to crack the lineup and stick. But once he did, the dude started to rake. And rake. And rake. He never stopped.
By the time 1995 rolled around, the Mariners looked good. But there was talk that if the city didn't pass a proposal for a new stadium (the Kingdome was a disaster), Major League Baseball was leaving the Emerald City for a second time. The other problem was that the California Angels were playing out of their mind and the Mariners were just doing nothing.
Until after the All-Star break, where they caught fire, caught the Angels, made it to the playoffs, beat the Yankees and lost to the Indians. Baseball was saved in Seattle, Safeco Field was built and they all lived happily ever after.
The problem with four Hall of Famers in their prime is that they want to be paid like four Hall of Famers in their prime. Which isn't really a problem for you or me, but it is if you're an owner of a baseball team. By the end of the decade, the M's traded Griffey, sent Johnson on his walk-about and let Rodriguez find America. Only Martinez was left. It looked like loserville once again for Seattle, but during the offseason where they lost ARod, they picked up a guy by the name of Ichiro Suzuki.
Buoyed by this Japanese import, the Mariners won 116 games and streaked through the playoffs and won the World Series! Actually, only one of these things is true as the team flamed out in October. Hard. Ichiro was still worth the price of admission for many seasons, but the Mariners went through an awful run of no playoff appearance until they made it to October baseball last year. Fun fact: they're also the only team in the Majors not to have ever made the World Series. The Rays have gone to two Series, the D'Backs won a Series, the Rockies have made it, the Marlins have won two and their expansion brethren, the Blue Jays won back-to-back championships in the 90s.
Despite the many wonderful players this team has employed, no team has ever put it all together and just got to the World Series yet.
And that's one of the reason why I love this goofy franchise. They're perennial losers but they don't wear it as a badge of courage like the Cubs or the Red Sox did. There's nothing big or metaphysical or philosophical about them not making the World Series. They kinda suck when they need to be really great.
That's it.
I touched on this above, but I love that the Mariners are all by themselves in the Pacific Northwest. They don't have Vancouver or Portland to pal around with. They're the Sasquatch of Major League Baseball, all alone in the woods, visible only to people who seek them. You want to be a Mariners fan in Virginia or Boston or Buffalo, good luck buddy, you're going to have to work.
When I was a kid and got one of their cards, I had no idea who they were. What the hell is a Lee Guetterman? Is this Dick Williams the same Dick Williams who managed the 67 Impossible Dream Red Sox? Greg Briley's real name is Greg B. Riley and he was just too nice of a guy to point that out, right?
They were all Major Leaguers, even though they didn't seem to be. Like if you were a Mariner, your entire career in Seattle was a rumor.
But undoubtedly the dopest thing about the Seattle Mariners was the logo that I added here. The upside down trident (ancient Greeks said that an upside down trident was bad mojo--probably not in those exact words--because all of the good luck ran out of it when it was pointed down) with the star around it rules. I love everything about 10/10, no fucking notes at all.
The colors of blue and yellow also rule, the funky lettering, the racing stripes, the pull over jerseys. All awesome, absolutely perfect for this team. Then the M's tried to get traditional and dialed back the uniqueness of their look and it was okay. They kept the yellow and blue and the only cool thing was that this was what Griffey was wearing when he debuted, so I have a lot of fond memories.
Then they went to blue, tealish green and silver in 1993 and they've kept that look ever since. It's okay, but it's stale. The Mariners should never be stale, they're weird and they need to go back to that blue and yellow outfit now. Otherwise what's the point of having a team in Seattle?
4.
I think it was French philosopher Busta Rhymes who once said, "Don't mean no disrespect. Brew-ha, Brew-ha, I got you all in check!"
The Brewers. The ball and glove logo. Why is this team my fourth favorite? The answer is dumb, but that's the way it goes.
We are about 4 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Adam Curry style, my favorite baseball teams.
If you name your team after a profession that creates sudsy libations, you better be fun. I don't know if the Brewers, the team, is a lot of fun. There are a lot of years when the club is flat as decades old Schlitz. There are also times when the Brewers do well and the stadium is alive with cheese heads screaming for their baseball heroes. However, the former outweigh the latter by a lot.
Despite that, going to a Brewers game is probably the most fun you can have in the Major Leagues. The Brew Crew fans are one of the few fanbases that tailgate before just about every game. That's a potential 81 tailgates, which is absolutely awesome. And they're not grilling veggie burgers and sipping mimosas. They're chowing down on dogs and sausages, dipping everything in cheese and pounding brew dogs as if the local brewery's existence depends on it.
When you get into the stadium, it's a lot of fun too. There's Bernie Brewer in his chalet waiting for someone to launch a ding dong johnson so that he can take a trip down his slide and release the celebration. Back in the day, Bernie used to slide into a mug of beer; but I guess that sent a bad message to the kids, so it's no longer that tasty beverage.
Have we evolved as a species? I'd say no.
The whole atmosphere is a daily party with some baseball thrown into the mix to keep our attention away from our expanding waist lines and our now crippling love of beer. That seems really bleak, but not as bad as some of the teams that Milwaukee has run on the field in their existence.
The Brewers were a team that began its existence as the Seattle Pilots--you can read all about them in Jim Bouton's seminal book, "Ball Four". The Pilots lasted a year in Seattle and no one was sure what year two held for them. Prior to Spring Training, the team was in discussions to be sold and then moved. But nothing had happened yet by the time the team reported to Arizona. And the sale stayed in limbo for eight weeks. There's a story that after 1970 Spring Training was over (the team first played in 1969) that the equipment truck driver was at a stop in the desert and was waiting for a phone call to drive left to the Pacific Northwest or go right to Milwaukee.
He was told to go right by used car salesman, new owner and future Commissioner of MLB Alan "Bud" Selig.
And the rest was history. Sorta. History has a tendency of moving slow as the Brew Crew wasn't really good in the 70s until Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglive, Gorman Thomas and others showed up, coalesced and became a bad ass team. The early 80s was all Milwaukee as they made their only World Series (they lost to the Cards in a seven game thriller) and continued to push the favorites in the American League East.
The 90s was a completely forgettable era of Milwaukee baseball as they were always in the second division, playing a lot of very boring baseball. As the new century dawned, things started to turn around a bit. They got rid of County Stadium (where the Braves played in the 50s and 60s once they abandoned Boston) and moved into a new state-of-the-art stadium.
The Brewers started a boom-bust sort of tradition where they'd be really good for a few years, empty their minor league coffers for a player or two that might put them over the line, lose in the playoffs and then have to rebuild. That lead to a lot of exciting teams with Prince Fielder, CC Sabathia, Zack Grienke and Ryan Braun. Once those players left and after a year or two of bleh teams, a new generation of younger players took their place.
The Brewers can be confusing sometimes. Unlike the Astros who switched leagues but have always felt like a National League team cosplaying as an American League club, the Brew Crew seem like a National League team that was stuck in the AL because they couldn't figure out a way home. Beginning with the Braves Milwaukee was always a National League city. Even before the big club moved here, the Boston Braves' AAA team was in Milwaukee.
Fun fact: while in the American League, the Brewers are the only team to play in all three divisions: East, Central and West. The currently sit in the NL Central.
They've had their ups and downs and while it's fun to go to the games, the best part of the Milwaukee Brewers is their logo. How long did it take you to notice that the glove is actually an M resting on top of a B? It took me a long-ass time, my friends. When I was a kid, I'd look at that hat and wonder, "Why do they have a glove on their hat?" like of all the baseball equipment you could use as a logo, why would you choose a glove?
It seemed dumb.
But then I saw it. I saw the "M" and the "B" and everything changed. I was obsessed with this idea and even though it was the days before the Internet, I read everything I could about this thing. Like did you know that the logo was created by a father and son for a "Design the Milwaukee Brewers new logo" contest? You know what they won? Two seats to every single Brewers game in perpetuity. Lifetime passes! How awesome is that?
I think that MLB players are given lifetime passes to any game in any stadium if they meet a certain requirement (years in the league) and the Iran hostages got the same perk when they were freed, but they don't give these out to normies. So you're telling me, I get to watch baseball in my hometown for free, any time I want AND I get to see my favorite team play with the logo that I designed?
I know that at the end of the day this father and son team were royally screwed on the merchandise dollars, but who cares. That prize is totally worth it. I wouldn't think twice about the lost revenue. Honestly. This logo is probably the first or second best in all of sports (big ups to the Hartford Whalers logo, which rules too).
In the woebegone 90s, the Brewers dropped the glove logo and replaced it with an interlocking M and B that sorta looked like the Notre Dame logo. And it sucked. There were too many sharp angles, it looked like something that you'd find at an old church--there was no whimsy to it. After awhile the team got wise and brought the ball and glove back, with an updated look. And it looks terrific.
Is this why I have the Brewers ranked so high? Yeah. Finding that secret was a seminal moment for me. It really got me interested in design. It made me pay attention to details. It taught me that there are little secrets everywhere, you just have to look.
And did it hurt that the initials of the Milwaukee Brewers represented in that logo are the same as mine? Hell no. I'm nothing if not completely self-absorbed.
I
like underdogs and Oakland is the ultimate 'dog. I really love this
forgotten team and hope that it doesn't find its way to Las Vegas.
We are about 3 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Adam Curry style, my favorite baseball teams.
I was an unabashed (pun intended) Oakland Athletics fan. From 1988 through 1990, the A's were undoubtedly the best team in the league and I was all in. They were a dominant machine (until the third week in October when the World Series is played) that had power hitting, speed, hitting for average, defense, starting pitching, relief pitching and a good manager. They had young players, wily veterans, reclamation projects and random dudes who played above their pay grade when they put on the gold and green.
Plus they played in a cool city and the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum wasn't a complete dump yet. The Raiders still called Los Angeles home, so Mt. Davis wasn't in center field and you could see the rolling hills behind the park. The place was banged out for every game and it seemed as if the baseball universe revolved around Oakland for those years.
Rickey Henderson, Carney Lansford, Dave Henderson, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dave Parker (or Don Baylor), Terry Steinbach, Tony Phillips (or Mike Gallego or Willie Randolph or Glenn Hubbard) and Walt Weiss was the lineup. The starting staff was lead by Dave Stewart, Bob Welch, Mike Moore, Storm Davis and Curt Young. A rejuvenated Dennis Eckersley nailed down any leads and the righty-lefty combos that emerged from the bullpen was deftly mastered by manager Tony LaRussa.
For a baseball obsessed kid, this was nirvana. This was how baseball was supposed to be played. Oakland could play any type of game: they could win in a pitcher's duel, they could play home run derby, their speed was a killer so if you want to engage in a track meet, good luck, they (except for Canseco) defended masterfully and they were all battle tested, so it's not like they were going to make a ton of mental errors. You could watch a week's worth of A's games and not see the same thing.
Even though there was a ton of flash and star power, it seemed like the thinking person's way to play baseball.
Then they bottomed out. Players got old and they retired. Players' acts got old* and they were shipped out. Some players got too expensive, the ones that the team kept were often injured. It happens to the best teams. By the mid 90s, the Oakland A's were a shadow of their past glory.
* In Howard Bryant's excellent biography on Rickey Henderson, during the 1990 World Series, Jose Canseco was bitching about being in the postseason. "It's no fair that since we're so good, we have to play all of these extra games every year." Fuck you, dude. Seriously.
As the A's were sucking and being ignored, they started making some nice front office hirings including a former fringe big leaguer named Billy Beane. Beane had an interesting way of building up a club and he started putting it to the test in Oakland. And it worked. With cast-offs and overlooked players (and a few legit stars), the A's started winning again. They made the postseason a bunch of times, though they never won it all.
The one problem with Beane's system was that the A's had no money, so they couldn't keep good players when they wanted to get paid. They either traded them for prospects or they let them walk for nothing. The issue is that if you're going to keep replenishing your stars like this, you need to have a high hit rate. That's almost impossible, so the A's bottomed out again.
They have done the boom-bust thing for awhile and they are currently cratering big time. The 2023 A's might be one of the worst teams ever assembled. If you've seen the movie "Major League" you'll know why. The owner wants to move to Las Vegas and he's doing everything in his power to turn off fan support. There has been some talk of a new park (which, in fairness, they really do need) but the city has no intentions of building a stadium for a billionaire for free.
This is refreshing. They've already lost the Warriors and the Raiders in the last five years, so it's probably adios A's. If it's a good deal, they'll do it, but they're not going to screw their tax payers in order to assuage the ego of a billionaire. And here's the thing, I'm not sure how much Las Vegas wants the A's, TBH. They love their Golden Knights, but the Raiders haven't been that much of a success in the desert and there's a lot of talk that the NBA (lead by an ownership featuring LeBron James) is going to go there too.
This might not be the best place for the A's to land, you guys. But you know what, the A's bounce around so expect them to go somewhere else in 20 years.
Whether the A's stay in Oakland or move to Las Vegas, I hope that they keep their green and gold. They have the best uniforms in the league, bar none. The scripted "Athletics" on the homes and the "Oakland" on the aways are classic. In 1987, I think six (out of 26) teams completely updated their entire uniform sets and the A's were the best. I loved them so much that I bought a black starter jacket with the script Athletics on the front and the elephant patch on the left sleeve. It was my favorite jacket ever.
Not only can they do classic, but the yellow and kelly green alts are also really cool updates too that don't look out of place wherever they play.
Everyone has their favorite ball club, but I think that you also need another one--an underdog--to root for. The A's could be your underdog. I wish the Athletics ownership would get their heads out of their asses and wake up to discover that Oakland is an awesome place filled with die hard fans who would rather root for the Dodgers than step into Oracle Park and cheer for the Giants. The place used to be an absolute mad house (in a good way) in the not-to-distant past and it could be again--this team could own the entire city!
I really hope that they don't move. And I hope that they get a new ballpark. And I also hope that they're good again. They've spent more years in Oakland than they spent in their original city of Philadelphia (and way more than in their second stop of Kansas City), so even though they may look like vagabonds, they're not. As their marketing statement goes, they're rooted in Oakland. And that's where they should be.
2.
I
know. I know. I've lived in Boston my entire life, but the Dodgers are
my second favorite team. The LOS ANGELES Dodgers? Yes. But it's more
than just the team, it's what the whole city represents to me.
We are officially 2 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Adam Curry style, my favorite baseball teams.
I've been to 29 different major league parks, but I've never been to Dodger Stadium. I have seven parks left on my list (I've been to eight parks that no longer exist) and I am eagerly anticipating going to Los Angeles and experiencing Dodger Stadium.
To me, Dodger Stadium is baseball. Opened in 1962, it's the third oldest park in the Majors, but it doesn't look it at all. Somehow it seems both modern and old at the same time. The symmetry of the place along with its clean aesthetic just appeals to me. To me, the obvious parallel is old Yankee Stadium, but while YS always looked dark, dirty and lived in, Dodger Stadium always looks pristine, bright and clean.
It's a perfect metaphor for the two cities themselves.
While I love New York, I never wanted to live there. It seemed like a lot of a lot, if you know what I mean. And there's a lot of excitement to that and it's why I love visiting there, but you also seem to be on top one another at all times. There's no personal space, it's drab and dark and cold--in more ways than just the weather.
Los Angeles seemed like a sunny oasis. A place that was ridiculously sprawled out where you can have your space, but be around a lot of people too. Obviously there are some disadvantages to that, but the weather covers up those detriments. Plus, if I lived in New York, I'd have to watch the Yankees. LA has the Dodgers.
As a Bostonian, it feels strange rooting for an LA team. Los Angeles and Boston don't have the rivalry that Boston and New York have, but it's there. And when push comes to shove, Boston has taken care of Los Angeles in the games that matter. Aside from St. Louis where Boston has beaten a team from all four majors in a Championship, Boston is a Bruins Stanley Cup series victory over the Kings from doing the same to LA.
The "BEAT LA! BEAT LA!" chant rings loud and true.
Unless they're playing the Sox, I can't root against the Dodgers. Their manager is literally the catalyst for the greatest sports moment of my life. How can I hope Dave Roberts fails? They traded for (and paid) the best player that the Red Sox developed in two generations in Mookie Betts. Just because he's on the Dodgers, I'm supposed to hate him?
But it's more than that. Growing up, the Dodgers were ubiquitous. From appearing on practically every "Game of the Week" to manager Tommy LaSorda starring as the Baseball Wizard on "The Baseball Bunch" and shilling for NutraSlim to Don Drysdale guesting on the "Brady Bunch" to Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser, Kirk Gibson, Mike Piazza, and many, many more appearing on multiple TV shows, you either became a Dodgers fan or you hated them.
I'm not made of stone, guys, I definitely became a Dodgers fan and bought all of the "I bleed blue" LaSorda bullshit that came with it. That's because when you talk the propaganda about the Dodgers, you're pretty much speaking the same propaganda about baseball in general. At this point, the messages are
practically intertwined.
I haven't even begun to get into the person who was the soundtrack of baseball for almost 70 years, Vin Scully. I had a friend who was adamant that Scully was "overrated". Everyone has opinions, it's cool to believe what you want, but as soon as he said this, I thought, "This is not a serious person. This person's opinions from now until infinity need to be ignored."
Amazingly, Scully mostly worked alone in his booth for his career and was able to effortlessly paint such a vibrant picture of what was happening in Chavez Ravine that his lyrical gymnastics were as poetic as anything the Bard wrote. I'm fucking serious, man. The ability to talk into a microphone, describe the action, start and continue a story while pausing for balls and strikes, in the course of a half inning, night after night, without notes is a mutant ability. What I'm saying is that Vin Scully should have been on the X-Men.
Whenever I think of the Dodgers I think of blue sky, 80 degree days, sunshine, palm trees and the sounds of Scully on the radio--even if you're taking in the game at the stadium. I think of crisp white uniforms with blue writing and red numbers on the front with a blue cap and white button on the top. I think of baby blue colored outfield walls ringed by faded maize seats and those diamond shaped scoreboards. No matter who's playing and what the score is, it's as relaxing as a day at the beach.
I know that I've built up Dodger Stadium in my mind as the be-all, end-all baseball nirvana and I've been around the sun enough times to know that it's not all that. But there's a sliver of a chance that it might be and that's what baseball really is, right? That's what keeps us watching the game; the chance to see, to experience, to feel, something that we never have.
That's what baseball, the Dodgers and Los Angeles means to me. It's not so much that I'm a huge Ron Cey fan, but I'm a fan of the idea, the promise really, of the sport and ultimately this team.
Y'all it's no surprise who my favorite team is. I wrote a lot about the Sox below.
You know what also isn't a surprise: the Real National Hot Dog Day is tomorrow. We're having quite a crew to Case de Magrane's House of Awesome tomorrow. Now you have to get cracking too. Dogs, beer, chips, ice cream and pretzels are on our menu. What's on yours?
JDI, mofrackies. JDI.
Was there really any suspense or surprise in this pick? Of course, it's the Boston Red Sox. Who else would it be? I've written so much about the Sox on this site, my blog, Instagram, Twitter that anything that I write now is bound to be a rerun.
But having said that, the Red Sox are my team and they will always be my team. It's not just the team itself that brings me a ton of joy (and frustration) but its the ancillary things.
- The Red Sox were a huge part of my wife and I getting together. She's a Yankees fan and when we first started dating* her, I liked her but I wasn't sure how much she liked me. So in order to get more time for her to like me, I offered a wager m; which ever of our teams won the season series the other had to make dinner. This bet was made in April 2003 and I figured I had about six months to work my magic. The series game down to the final weekend in September and the two teams were tied at eight wins apiece. During the last game Bernie Williams took Scott Sauerback deep in the eighth and the Yankees won the game and the series. I made enchiladas for the first time in my life and Aly and I were engaged about a year later.
* Our first date was Opening Day at Fenway. We got SRO tickets but as we were walking into the park, a guy asked us where our seats were and gave us his tickets in the grandstands behind third base--which I took as a good omen about this potential relationship. Pedro got lit up by the O's--which I took as a bad omen. I guess getting good seats outweighs a Hall of Famer getting shellacked by a shitbum team.
- The Red Sox have strengthened a bond between my mother and myself. I'd watch games with my mom and we'd talk about our favorite players (hers was Marty Barrett, mine was Jim Rice). And even when I was at my most assholish, the way that we'd smooth that over was by first talking about the Sox and then discussing what the real issue was. I think that it disarmed both of us and got the ball rolling--not an easy thing to do with a teenager, as I'm finding out now.
- I've met countless friends through the Boston Red Sox. Not just my online chums, but real life people too. Going to a ballgame with a friend is one of life's greatest pleasures. You can have a beer, eat a dog, catch up about life, talk about nothing, reminisce, watch and comment on the game--it's better than a bar, better than a restaurant, better than hanging out in someone's living room. There's no better place to learn about what's going on in someone's life than at Fenway (or really, any ballpark).
- It kept me connected to my brother. My brother passed away a little more than two years ago and while I wouldn't say we were super tight, I'd give anything to talk to him about the Red Sox just one more time. We wouldn't argue (all the time) but we'd discuss the day's baseball events and he'd ask, "Why did the team do this, By?" "Why are they doing that, By?" and we'd just hash it out. It was about the only time that we really got along without any pretenses. And I miss it.
- Any time I'm at a social function where I don't know many people, the Red Sox keep me from feeling awkward. Everyone has an opinion on the Sox. "Did you see the Sox game last night? Fucking unbelievable right?" (The last sentence can be taken two completely different ways.) Even in the offseason, "Did you see who the Sox picked up? Fucking unbelievable right?" And you're off to the races. The thing is, the Red Sox--and baseball really--is an amazing ice breaker. Unlike hockey or football, just about everyone has played baseball at some point in their lives. Hoops has always been marketed toward younger people, so it could be a gamble to talk about basketball--and then it could be about either the NBA or NCAA.
But baseball? Everyone knows about baseball.
Even if they haven't watched an MLB game in years, there's a ton to talk about. You can focus on the past: "you went to THAT game, no shit, that's awesome?" "Yeah, I know what you mean. My coach used to make us do the same stuff. What an asshole, right?" You can talk about today: "I know, I can't believe that Devers hit a ball that far. It's crazy." You can talk about the future: "Dude, I feel you. Chaim Bloom does fucking suck. I don't know what they're going to do this year."
The Red Sox, and baseball in general, allows you to purge all of your feelings: extreme joy, epic frustration, intense fear, ecstatic happiness, but since it's game played every day for six months (seven if you're lucky) it also allows you to just relax, take the game in, let it wash over you. Games tend not to matter that much in long run.
It's that mundane events that lends to its specialness though. I don't normally text at night, but every once in awhile a friend and I will trade texts if something good is happening during the midle of the night, "Yo. You watching MLB Network right now? Ohtani is dealing." or "Sox in Seattle, what do you think?"
I don't think that the Red Sox are aware of just how many doors they've opened for me in my lifetime. I don't think that they're clue in to just how big of an influence they've had on my life. I know it sounds silly, but it's all very true. There are some obsessions that you can't pinpoint to when you started them, they just happen and next thing you know, you can't stop thinking about them. But I can absolutely tell you the exact moment I became completely and totally immersed in the Red Sox, the exact moment when that team, and sport, dug its claws in me and never let go.
It was Sunday October 12, 1986, Game 5 of the American League Championship Series around 5:00 pm EST. The Sox were down 3-1 in games to the California Angels and were losing Game Five by a score 5-4 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Angels starter Mike Witt was carving up the Sox like a turkey on Thanksgiving. This was the first team that I loved and I could not fathom that it was going to end this way. This team had kicked so much ass for six months and they were going to let it slip away? Like this? With a whimper? This sucks.
Let's back up a few moments: entering the ninth inning, the Sox were down by three. The announcers were going on and on about after so many near misses, California Manager Gene Mauch was finally going to his first World Series but they just had to dispatch the listless Sox first.
After a hit and a couple of outs, up comes former Angel Don Baylor, who deposits a Witt pitch into the left field bleachers for a two-out, two run homer. It was something he did in that stadium, many, many times. Mauch freaks out and instead of letting his dominant pitcher get one more out, goes to the bullpen and summons Gary Lucas. He promptly plunks the next batter, Rich Gedman, sending him to first. After that at bat, Mauch has apparently seen enough of Lucas so he sends him to the showers and summons Angel closer Donnie Moore.
Stepping to the plate is seldom used--and quite honestly a guy who hadn't been very good for the Sox since coming to the team in a late summer trade with the Mariners--Dave Henderson. Henderson entered the game earlier after regular centerfielder Tony Armas pulled up injured. Within an inning of entering the game, Henderson attempted to rob a home run but the ball landed in his glove and his momentum when he hit the wall forced the ball to pop out of his mitt over the wall. He was sorta wearing the horns. Armas was too old to try that shit, it probably would have been a double.
Anyway, Henderson takes a couple of cuts on some offspeed stuff and looks completely clueless against Moore. But Moore decided to get cute and tried to sneak a fastball by him. Henderson, the absolute last dude on this 24-man roster you'd think would be a hero, puts the ball in the bleachers. The Red Sox score FOUR in the ninth and end up winning in extras. They roll through the rest of the Series and play the Mets in the World Series where some stupid shit happens.
It doesn't matter. That moment where a person who should never have been in the game, a person who effectively lost the game for the team earlier in the contest, a person who wasn't even on the team as last as July 4th, who was playing in Seattle of all fucking places, that guy--THAT FUCKING GUY--was able to turn the entire series around. Dave Henderson made a name for himself that day. He was a hero.
That's what we all want, right? The ability for redemption. The ability to be exaulted. The ability to tell everyone that you can do the job, just give me a chance. Baseball gives everyone that ability. That's what I love most about the sport, it's the most American of all the games.
2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 were magical and crazy and brilliant and amazing and any other adjective that you have. But at the same time, there is nothing like the magic of baseball when you're 12-years-old, your favorite team is down to its last strike and the season is on the brink of being finished and some dude comes out of nowhere and saves it.
Guys, I've been chasing that dragon for 36 years and honestly, I doubt that I'm ever going to catch it. I've come close a few times, but it won't happen again. But it might. And that right there, that feeling of maybe it will, is what baseball--and the Boston Red Sox--means to me.
Forever.
