The Outlander
For the last few weeks, I’ve been chomping at the bit for something to get worked up about and post about. I mean it doesn’t take much, but I’ve found the current storylines swirling around here in Buffalo have been so meaningless, so trivial, that to try and put some 1,000 word diatribe about them would be so transparently fraudulent - not to mention really difficult for me to do - that it would frankly unbecoming of me. I don’t have many standards when it comes to what I’ll write about, but faux-outrage (copyright: national media, November 2011) - or blatant trolling if you will - is the lowest point of blogging you can reach (Ed. Note: We've all been there). I’d rather read hot takes on what the French Connection statue should look like, or an in-depth post on whoever the other punter in Bills camp is. Vince Young? Who cares? Tarvaris Jackson? Ditto. The NHL lockout? That’ll be worth discussion in a month, when the first slew of games have been cancelled but for now, the two sides are speaking so far past each other they can’t even bother being insulted, and neither should we. Shane Doan? My once raging doaner is now flaccid and sad.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been chomping at the bit for something to get worked up about and post about. I mean it doesn’t take much, but I’ve found the current storylines swirling around here in Buffalo have been so meaningless, so trivial, that to try and put some 1,000 word diatribe about them would be so transparently fraudulent - not to mention really difficult for me to do - that it would frankly unbecoming of me. I don’t have many standards when it comes to what I’ll write about, but faux-outrage (copyright: national media, November 2011) - or blatant trolling if you will - is the lowest point of blogging you can reach (Ed. Note: We've all been there). I’d rather read hot takes on what the French Connection statue should look like, or an in-depth post on whoever the other punter in Bills camp is. Vince Young? Who cares? Tarvaris Jackson? Ditto. The NHL lockout? That’ll be worth discussion in a month, when the first slew of games have been cancelled but for now, the two sides are speaking so far past each other they can’t even bother being insulted, and neither should we. Shane Doan? My once raging doaner is now flaccid and sad.
Garbage. The one place I didn’t expect to provide inspiration was my baseball team, the pitiful (go ahead, drink that word in) Boston Red Sox. I wrote about them some thirty games into the season (respectful post on the Youk notwithstanding) and until a week or so ago, nothing had changed. They still sucked ass, their roster was still filled with a bunch of egomaniacal tools and, frankly, why subject you, our refined readers, to Red Sox garbage when this baseball season has been so captivating otherwise. God knows you’ve had enough shoved down your throat by ESPN about Pedroia v. Bobby V, and “can they turn it around” crap that attempted to take you away from the Pirates (!?!), the Nats (!!), the A’s (!!) and R.A. Dickey that I felt no need to pile on. You deserve a summer without Red Sox talk, and with the team wallowing in mediocrity, what better summer than this one?
Then Josh Beckett had to go and be a douche again, when he’s no longer wearing the uniform no less. Apparently he went on WEEI and claimed the Boston media machine turned him into a “monster” and ran him out of town. You know what Josh? Fuck you and your stupid hippie necklaces. Yes, the media is going to cover you; you’re the most popular team in the city, the state, and the region, with two World Series’ in the last decade, the latter of which you were the fucking horse for. You played nearly seven full seasons there. You’re not Carl Crawford, someone who only produces for T-Ball sized crowds and can only handle an interview with one lonely mouth-breathing intern at the St. Pete Times without collapsing into himself like a black hole (by the way Carl, good fucking riddance you worthless pustule). The problem wasn’t the media, Beckett; it was you.
I need to clarify here, since perhaps as a non-New Englander my blame is more rational. I don’t give a shit about golfing on off days, or fried chicken. I don’t care if you’re funneling beers and doing lines of coke off John Lackey’s bubble ass in the locker room before starts. My list of things you can’t do is two bullet points long: violent crime, and be shitty at your job. I’d like to think those two requirements apply across the board at pretty much every job in the country. To my knowledge, you passed the former with flying colors. It was the latter that you have failed at, and to be utterly devoid of any humility, any admission that yes, you were failing at being a major league starting pitcher who could get through five innings without falling all over yourself - is why you’re a douche.
I need to clarify here, since perhaps as a non-New Englander my blame is more rational. I don’t give a shit about golfing on off days, or fried chicken. I don’t care if you’re funneling beers and doing lines of coke off John Lackey’s bubble ass in the locker room before starts. My list of things you can’t do is two bullet points long: violent crime, and be shitty at your job. I’d like to think those two requirements apply across the board at pretty much every job in the country. To my knowledge, you passed the former with flying colors. It was the latter that you have failed at, and to be utterly devoid of any humility, any admission that yes, you were failing at being a major league starting pitcher who could get through five innings without falling all over yourself - is why you’re a douche.
STAY GONE.
Fans want results. Yes, a lot of Boston fans are entitled idiots. But to think that every Sox fan was convinced to boo the shit out of you because WEEI and The Boston Globe told them that you hit the links on an off day? Christ, maybe you have been doing lines off Lackey’s ass you soul-patched jerkwad. Fans love players who perform well. I’ll grant you, maybe you should have been provided more of a pass from the fans because of 2007 alone, but only if you have the ability to be self-aware. Getting yanked after three and 2/3rds, hearing the boos and telling yourself, “those fucking reporters got to them,” is simply blind idiocy, and a blind idiocy that can single-handedly destroy a locker room. And if your performance is the media’s fault, if you went 5-11 with an ERA over five because Dan Shaunessey was writing mean things about you, then somewhere along your Boston career you lost yourself, and that’s just sad.
I urged Sox fans earlier this summer to embrace the horror of this season, and from where I’ve been sitting, it’s been entertaining. It seems every other night the Red Sox twitter handle alerts me to the fact they’re trailing by four runs in the third inning. The Sabres may hate their coach too, but launching a goddamn mutiny through media leaks and petulant behavior while dropping games to the Royals and Indians at every opportunity isn’t a way to get anyone on your side. Last week they had leads of six runs twice in three games and lost them both. That’s Angels in the Outfield pre-actual angels shit. The best part of the season was the team shipping their best hitter to LA. The worst? David Ortiz going Shawn Merriman on his Achilles rounding the fucking bases after a home run. I’m ready for this season’s inevitable whimpering demise.
You’re up Bills. After this summer, it’s a low bar to clear.
I urged Sox fans earlier this summer to embrace the horror of this season, and from where I’ve been sitting, it’s been entertaining. It seems every other night the Red Sox twitter handle alerts me to the fact they’re trailing by four runs in the third inning. The Sabres may hate their coach too, but launching a goddamn mutiny through media leaks and petulant behavior while dropping games to the Royals and Indians at every opportunity isn’t a way to get anyone on your side. Last week they had leads of six runs twice in three games and lost them both. That’s Angels in the Outfield pre-actual angels shit. The best part of the season was the team shipping their best hitter to LA. The worst? David Ortiz going Shawn Merriman on his Achilles rounding the fucking bases after a home run. I’m ready for this season’s inevitable whimpering demise.
You’re up Bills. After this summer, it’s a low bar to clear.
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