Asymmetrical Information

How quickly they forget.

The Yankees are a bunch of Communists. God hates them, and so do I.

Jerek Deter.

Randy Johnson in pinstripes. Thank God the Pope didn't have to see this.

Yes, because one regular season win *definitely* makes up for the worst postseason collapse in baseball history. :)

The Yankees are the second most evil thing in baseball, after the Dodgers.

Well, those are the two most evil teams: Interleague play is the worst thing Selig has done to the game. That and A FRIGGIN' TIE at the All-Star game.

Enjoy it while it lasts. :)

If I had the wealth of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, I would spend whatever I had to - a billion, ten billion, whatever - to get Steinbrenner to sell me the Yankees. The current players would finish out their contracts as ushers and parking attendents, and I would field a team of homeless people, each earning the league minimum of $250k or whatever. I would turn monument park into a men's room (a catch basin under each plaque), mow "we suck" into the outfield grass, and institute the following two-tiered ticketing system: those wearing the shirts and caps of either the Mets, Red Sox, or the opposing team of the day would be granted free admission, while anybody else would be charged $1000 per seat.

Forget "world peace" or "ending hunger" or any of that other crap, the utter and permanent humiliation of the New York Yankees is the one utopian dream for humanity that I hold above all others.

It used to be Red Sox fans who get overexcited about victories in April ...

No, the most evil thing Mr. Selig has done is introduce the wildcard. Do you think it was a coincidence that the season of its first year was stopped by a strike? Do you really think that this was not an example of God showing His wrath? (A bit milder, perhaps, than a plague of locusts...but not much).

After all these years we have to endure teams competing against (or bypassing) divisional rivals against whom they were manifestly inferior over a 162 game marathon. A single game or a short series may turn on luck. A season does not.

And I say this despite the fact that my 2nd favorite team (the LA, er...California, er...Anaheim, er...LA Angels) managed to win a WS in just that manner. However, I was grateful that they defeated the two most evil teams in baseball in the process. And on that note, I wonder how you can say that the Dodgers are the most evil team in baseball. Unless you are from Brooklyn or "The City".

Jane - Please lay off sports. Stick to the less controversial topics, like abortion and gay marriage.

Being a Yankees fan is too easy. Try being a Mets or Giants fan. <sigh>

Meanwhile, over here in Milwaukee, the Brewers have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Is it too early to say that it's too early to be excited by one win? Is it okay for me to admit that on opening day 2005 at Yankee Stadium with Randy Johnson going versus David Wells I would have been shocked by anything but a Yankee win? Is it the right time to say that this one win came about 5 or 6 months too late?

Earliest baseball memories? Boston vs. Mets - 1986. The Yankees back then? Total crap that I rooted for.
I started as a Yankees fan back in the 80's when Mattingly was captain, and they fielded such greats as Steve Sax, Steve Howe, Dave Righetti, an aging Dave Winfield, and superstars like Jesse (Barf)ield and Alvaro Espinosa. (/sarcasm)
Then '94 just about killed me with the strike since they were finally in first for the first time in my memory.

(indeed...why are there so many steves...hmm.)

Alan: The Dodgers are evil because in 1965 they beat the Twins in the World Series. My father is a Twins fan, he was nine. Thusly his life-long grudge began and has been handed-down through the ages...err...one generation. Growing up I was allowed to root for any team but the Dodgers, and I still hatesss them.

As for the Wild Card, yeah, that's gotta be the worst. I lump that in with inter-league and the three divisions stuff, all happened the same horrible year.

I like inter-league play, but I think MLB should have a lot less of it, to keep it "special."

Go Packers!

Hang on a minute. (What's that? [whisper, whisper] Wrong sport? Oh, fer goshsakes.)

Never mind.

I enjoy inter-league play, but I think there's too much of it. It seems to take up the entire month of June. I think two three-game series would be perfect, one against a nearby rival (e.g. Baltimore vs. Washington), and one against another team. Frankly, I'm sick of the Mets getting saddled with six games against the toughest team in baseball every year, while Atlanta usually gets to play some creampuff like Tampa Bay.

I see the wildcard as essential, as was the initial expansion of the playoff structure into east vs. west some 35 years ago. If MLB is going to keep adding teams, it doesn't make much sense to have a system where 90% of them are essentially out of contention by June.

The real atrocity is the Designated Hitter. Since rule 1.01 of the official rules of baseball begins "baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each...", the American League has actually been playing some other game for the last few decades.

The DH is just stupid because it removes a lot of interesting managerial decisions (when to pull the pitcher, whether and where to play somebody who sucks at defense, who to double-switch for, etc.).

So they're a baseball team I gather? Could some knowledgable sports fan put them in a context intelligible to non seppos - Australian Rules Football for instance? Are the Yankees Collingwood, Essendon or West Coast?

I don't even know what a "seppo" is... Sorry.

I agree with fling about the DH, though. Seems to me, you play with the team you have, and if you have a guy on the mound who's such a one-trick pony that he trips over his own feet tapping his toes with the bat, too bad for you: recruit better. (He might injure his expensive arm - again, too bad for you, and for him.)

I love baseball - best sport for watching in person, IMHO - but I don't follow it, per se; can anyone tell me whether the American League overall is able to attract better pitchers (I'm implying "because of the DH rule")?

can anyone tell me whether the American League overall is able to attract better pitchers (I'm implying "because of the DH rule")?

I don't think it's a significant factor. The NL Atlanta Braves had the best pitching staff in baseball for most of the '90's. The most dominant pitchers of the last 5-10 years are probably Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martinez, and all of them have played in both leagues. Money seems to be the overwhelming factor, followed by the team's prospects, whether their home field tends to favor hitters or pitchers, and finally whether it's the kind of city the pitcher and his family want to live in.

Also, to the extent that it's a factor at all, the DH might have the overall effect of keeping better pitchers out of the AL, because it hurts their stats. If you were a pitcher, would you rather face a fellow pitcher who hits .120 or some steroid-pumped DH who hits .320 with 45 home runs? You'd have to REALLY hate getting into the batters box to choose the latter.

Too right, Rob Leder - I should've thought of the stats thing. Thanks for setting me straight!

jesus h. christ..what happened today?!

yikes!

There already was inter-league play, and it was pretty special, it's called THE WORLD SERIES. Right on about the DH rule, this is why that as much as I love the Mariners, I prefer to watch NL ball. Much more interesting management.

Timothy, if you can nurse a grudge that is only a few months younger than me and is borne of the love of an obscure and generally mediocre team, then I can only salute your hatred of the Dodgers (misguided though it certainly is). My salute may include only one finger, mind you, but it's still a salute to a real fan.

Happy Opening Day-week. When or if the Yankees take a break from winning, here's a funny site to check out:
American Sports Pulp

Apparently no baseball/AFL crossover types on this site to help me. Shame.

"Seppo" is Aussie rhyming slang for American -
Spetic tank = yank and as Australians often shorten words, seppo. Incidentally, there's no intent to be derogatory with the septic tank reference, it's just a convenient term in common use that rhymes. cf "noah" for shark - noah's ark = shark, "rubbedy" for drinking establishment - rubbedy dub = pub, but I digress.

Seriously, are the Yankees a team that wins all the time that everyone hates, perennial losers with the occasional accidental win or wildly erratic, capable of beating or being beaten by the rest of the leaue? I genuinely have no knowledge whatsoever and would be interested to learn.

They're the team that wins every time and are hated by most. They've won, I believe, 26 championships since their founding in 1901, and have also been losing finalists and semi-finalists (though the concept of a semi-finalist has only existed in baseball since 1969) many other times. No one else comes remotely close.

Their biggest rivals are the Boston Red Sox. However, it's generally been a one sided rivalry. Since their victory in 1918, the Sox have been victims of quite a few heartbreaks. Whether being denied entry into the World Series by the Yankees, or achieving the Series only to just miss victory, theirs is a history of torment made worse of the dominance of their rival and nearest neighbor. Sox fans HATE the Yankees. Yankees fans, I would say, tend to be more contemptuous of the Sox (again, look at their relative histories).

Last year, Boston finally broke through. In the 7-game series against the Yankees for the right to go to the Series, Boston lost the first 3 games and was losing VERY late in the 4th. Unlike every other team to be down 3-0 in a 7 game series, they somehow found a way to come back that night and win the next three games as well. In the WS itself, they finally got their championship.

Boston fans are understandably thrilled, but one gets the impression that this seems to make up for nearly a century of futility, and that this somehow puts them on a nearly equal footing. Of course they're wrong. At least my grandfather was able to die in peace, years ago, knowing that he'd seen our favorite team win the World Series a number of times. (And no, it's not the Yankees. I prefer the older league, the one that follows the first rule in the book.)

Does that answer it for you?

Alan: Fair enough, Dodgers are a team with a lot of talent, really too bad about that whole "sleeping with Satan" thing. What's funny is that my father was nine when that happened, it's a transgenerational grudge. Which only happens in baseball, and is one more reason I love the game.

And I think the Twins are going to be pretty decent this year, they had a good season last year and most of the talent is back. The Astros on the other hand (my truly favorite team), well, they lost Beltran, but a lot of talent is back, they have a decent pitching staff (if they'd get rid of Qualls damn that Qualls). Pettite healthy, Clements back, Wheeler, Oswalt, Backe, Lidge, it's a pretty good roster. Plus they lost Kent, thank God.

I thought rhyming slang was only a Cockney thing, I didn't know the Australians had one too...learn something new every day around here...

Thanks Alan, a comprehensive answer.

Rob, I think Australian rhyming slang is pretty closely linked to cockney, both in the technique itself and a lot of the terms. Presumably due to the fact that cockneys would have been a pretty large share of convicts during the transportation days.

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