The Chronic Curmudgeon

Why choose a place like Topeka in October? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to someplace like, oh, I don't know, BOSTON, where nobody ever thinks about baseball in October?

When was the last time the Yankee$ bought won a World Series? Oh, that's right -- it hasn't happened in this millenium.

Meanwhile, I hope you guys are still gagging on the memory of the greatest choke in sports history -- being up 3 games to 0 and having 2 outs and two strikes in the ninth inning of Game Four, and then managing to choke it all away and lose to the Red Sox in 2004.

Looking up the Red Sox's "home grown talent"...

David Ortiz? Nope.

Manny Ramirez? Nope...He left Cleveland to come to the "mid-market" Chowds for $160 million.

Mark Loretta? Nope.

Mike Lowell? Nope.

Coco Crisp? Nope.

Alex Cora? Nope.

Wily No Pena? Nope.

Doug Mirabelli? Nope, came from the Giants organization.

How about the rotation.

Schilling? Why yes, he is a home grown product...sort of.

Wells? No.

Beckett? No.

So 8/9ths of the lineup and 2/3rds of the top end of the rotation (and I'm giving you a gift in Schilling) are not home grown. Unless the Red Sox play their home games in Santa Domingo.

You know why? Because outside of Papelbon all the Red Sox's home grown players SUCK.

In other words. Quit crying, quit your pathetic Big Apple Envy. That note had more spin than Tucker Carlson could come up with in a week. The Red Sox could've resigned Johnny Damon and Pedro Martinez, but they were CHEAP. Not poor. Cheap. And they can afford to be CHEAP because they know their fan base will ignore their billion-dollar owner to whine about the billion-dollar owners in New York.

YOU make me want to root for the Yankees.

And in closing...as your friend...SHUT THE FUCK UP :)

Let's see, Corey... Ortiz, was he signed away for big money? Nope. The Twins let him walk.

Varitek? Nope. Seattle traded him to the Sox in a deal where the Mariners were acquiring playoff run help; Tek was a minor leaguer.

Crisp? You can have him. He's a joke. But, he did get traded for, not signed to a massive FA contract.

Wily Mo? We should have kept Arroyo.

Wells? That fat, drunk Yankee should never have been signed, and it is a black stain on the organization that he's allowed in Fenway Park as anything more than a beer vendor.

Pedro... I maintain that it was the right decision to not give him a four year deal; your Met$ will be wishing they weren't paying him $15 million in 2008 when his arm resembles taffy. All those trips to the DL this year were just a harbinger, my friend.

Yes, the Sox have a bigger payroll than most. Undenied. But I've never heard Sox fans arrogantly proclaim superiority over all of baseball for a lineup that was bought to the extent that Yankee/Met fans do. If I have to hear one more Cletus of a Yankee fan bring up "26 rings," I will vomit -- but not before grabbing them by the collar and forcing them to admit that with a salary cap, the Yankee$ would be lucky to have one third of that.

And as for NY envy, my friend? You have it wrong. It's NY hatred. I dislike every possible thing about my current area of residence, and wish to hell I could get out of here. (Stupid job.) I won't bash the city further, I'll just say that not every place is for everybody... and NY/tri-state is definitely not for me. If the gods of current or future employers were to smile upon me, I'd be living somewhere else -- virtually ANYWHERE else.

And as for the Sox homegrowners sucking, let's see what you're yapping about in 2008 when Papelbon, Lester, Kris Johnson, Craig Hansen, Bryce Cox, Manny Delcarmen, Edgar Martinez, Justin Masterson, and Clay Buchholz are the best under 26 pitching staff in baseball, and Dustin Pedroia, Jacob Ellsburg, David Murphy and Brandon Moss begin to hit the Show. I'm okay with the Sox missing the playoffs this year -- they didn't deal any of their young future studs at the deadline, and they're in much better shape for the next six years or so than the Yankee$ (until they go buy more players) or the Met$.

So in closing, as *your* friend... BITE MY NEW YORK-HATING ASS. :-)

Hating NY is so 2005.

However, I do love when you make fun of Yankee fans, because 1, I hate baseball and 2, I hate yankee fans. I love new york though and a large part of me thinks you're jealous of people who really love it here. Well, maybe not of me, because I'm poor. But I'm never bored, I never have to complain about flooding in my basement or the neighbor kids playing basketball too late when they come home from their yacht club.

And finally, please remove the image of someone biting your ass. I can't be having that.

Beav, I just did a really long screed rebutting your contention that I'm somehow "jealous" of anything in this area. In order to avoid the broken record here on this blog, and to avoid hurting the feelings of New Yorkers who read the blog, I have deleted it... but suffice it to say that trust me... I am not jealous of anyone or anything here.

Mudge, I want to continue to like you. So I am going to overlook your rant. While I am happy to respect your opinion, I also usually make it my business to deconstruct sweeping generalizations and "arguments" made by those accustomed to having their opinions slide through as a result of their shrewd utilization of rhetoric. Right now, however, I have neither the time nor the energy to deconstruct your tirade word by word. Additionally, in a situation such as this my deconstruction would be with the aim of putting the propagandist in the position of having to be faced with questions about his/her own self that (s)he probably would prefer not to answer in a public forum. The propagandist in question would then use his/her rhetorical skills to try to deflect attention away from the questions posed, and I would have to expend more time and more energy to nail him/her to the wall. Frankly, I don't want to be in an antagonistic rhetorical relationship with you, so I'm just going to go back to my own cozy blog now and pretend as if this never happened.

BTW the Mets traded for Delgado and Lo Duca and Jose Valentin and Shawn Green. The only free agents in the starting lineup are Beltran and Cliff Floyd.

Meanwhile here were the payrolls at the beginning of the season.

1 New York Yankees $194,663,079
2 Boston Red Sox $120,099,824
3 Los Angeles Angels $103,472,000
4 Chicago White Sox $102,750,667
5 New York Mets $101,084,963

You mean the Red $ox of Bo$ton have the second largest payroll in baseball? NO WAY!

BTW add another $19 million to the Yankees payroll and another 3.2 million to the Mets for Roberto Hernandez, Guillermo Mota and Shawn Green.

On a positive note good luck to the Red $ox in the playoffs...:)

Quit your whining and demand more from your ownership or join the National League :)

I'm glad you have refrained from making slanderous remarks about my hometown, Mudge. Or else I was going to have to start a campaign aimed at shaming you into taking down that photo in your header. ;)

Jill - I'd be more than happy to take it down. It's there because a) whether I like it or not, this is where I live right now; b) I kinda like how the Chrysler building looks.

The day I move, the photo changes. I promise. :-)

Corey... and you're going to talk to me about front offices? The Mets? Front office? Victor Zambrano ring a bell? Or every move they made in the 1990s?

Delgado and LoDuca came in a salary dump (as did Beckett and Lowell), so those acquisitions (on both parts) count as a sin against the game's integrity -- though neither is as venal a sin as the Abreu "deal" (you could get better deals from a loan shark while you were in prison).

I have written before -- and at length -- about how baseball desperately needs a salary cap (and a salary floor). Make all teams deal within the same payroll range like the NFL does... say a payroll of between $55 million and $90 million. No cheap owners (are you listening, Kansas City? Florida?) would be allowed to take revenue sharing money and pocket it. And no owners (NEW YORK, either league... Boston... LA Angels... the usual suspects) would be allowed to buy their way to the playoffs in Yankee-esque fashion every year; make teams get there the old fashioned way, by forcing them to develop their own players instead of buying everyone else's.

And in that case, see the aforementioned prospects in the Sox system, vs. what the Yankee$ have (a whopping 2 guys in the minors with realistic MLB chances) or the Met$ (let you keep Lastings Milledge and his punk-ass attitude and clubhouse poison), and I feel just fine that my team would be in a far stronger position.

It's a shame the the $ox, with a farm system full of prospects (most of whom will get traded for established superstars to make up for the panic of not reaching the playoffs), have to spend $120 million dollars to ensure a second place finish in their division. Shame Shame.

And the Victor Zambrano trade allowed the Mets to acquire Omar Minaya...Plus as predicted, the D-Rays would fuck up Kazmir's arm since he's a long-term reliever

Wow, I never really got a good look at what it was like from second place as a fan. But, 'mudge, your rant-without-merit sure opened my eyes. You've convinced me that being a winner is bad; that playing as a team is despicable. Your argument, my friend, is minor league. Boston and New York have -- roughly minus a few scheckels -- the same salary expenditures. The difference is that the Yankees obviously spend their money wisely. Make your argument about the Yanks/Sox and KC/Florida and maybe I'll listen, but you're better than the argument you're currently trying to make (plus, Corey's a sportswriter...what are you thinking???).

Im suggesting that A-Rod get bumped to 3rd on the all-time loser list to make room for Jermaine Dye.
While A.J.P. is nipping at both their heels, Dye is the only hitter Ive watched face Joe Nathan and egotistically watch every ball he hit. He crushes a would-be homerun, turns, stands at the plate, and watches the ball hook foul. He argues basically every called strike, how dare they give him a strike he didn't swing at.
Ozzie was supposed to be changing the image of the White Sox, claiming they would be a "nicer" team that would not employ so many thugs.
Dye is a step back in that capacity. Talented yes, but just not a team player.

I won't even get started on Pierzinsky. He's lucky I've never run into him in public...

This may be unAmerican of me, but I still haven't forgiven MLB for the strike. Can't stand the pro game anymore, so hey. Who cares about New York, relatively speaking?

But the demise of the Cowboys? Now there's a subject I can gloat about for days on end. And have been known to, in fact, seeing as the two men in my life are diehard fans of my most hated team in all of sport.

Then again? I've been a Vikings fan for going on four decades. So, yeah.

The more you bash NYC, the more I think you're jealous.

GET OVER IT!!! :)