Know who you’re rooting for…

So tonight’s the All-Star Game.  Anybody who knows me knows I’m a huge baseball fan.  America’s pastime.  Ballparks, beer, and brats.  I’ve travelled countless miles to attend games in numerous stadiums, some of which no longer stand.  I pay through the nose to watch my beloved Yankees on TV, since I don’t live in the home market.  I listen to games on the radio at work, in the car, etc. 

But did you ever realize that a bunch of pansy names the teams have?  Hardly any invoke an image of strength, competitiveness, or machismo.  Then again, many of them were coined in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  They spoke a different English back then, which probably began the tradition of naming teams after the most ridiculous stuff.

Like garments.  And by garments, I mean stockings…er…socks: the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and the Cincinnati Reds.  No, the Reds weren’t named after the Communist party, they were the Red Stockings. 

Or birds.  Nothing says fierce like the Baltimore Oriole.  No eagles, raptors or other birds of prey in baseball.  The NFL gets the Falcons.  The NBA gets the Hawks.  Instead we get the O’s or the Toronto Blue Jays or St. Louis Cardinals.  And don’t tell me that blue jays are aggressive towards other birds of their size.  They’re still small.

One of the most non-confrontational names in MLB has to be the San Diego Padres.  And their mascot isn’t that goofy monk but rather the San Diego Chicken.  What do you fear more, poultry or a priest?  (No pedophile punchlines here, please.)  Or what about the Los Angeles Angels?  A cute fluffy Angel with wings and a halo?  Not exactly a warrior.  But really the Angels are named after…

Locations.  The City of Angels.  I’ve never been to LA, nor do I know why they’d name a city after angels.  And the Colorado Rockies.  OK, the mountains are strong, but they don’t move.  The Colorado Avalanche on the other hand is something to fear.  Who wants to get buried alive in moving snow?  The Philadelphia Phillies…are they named after the city or the bad cigar used for smoking pot?  (That one can go either way.)  Or the New York Metropolitans and the New York Yankees?  What the hell is a Met or a Yankee?  Why not just call the Mets the Cosmos (after the girly drink, not the former soccer team)?  And the Yanks are named after the good guys during the Civil War?  Wow, way to be current, especially since they didn’t adopt the name Yankees until almost 50 years after the Civil War!

OK, let’s get the so-called racism out of the way.  Everybody thinks the Indians and the Braves are derogatory names.  But both team names in my opinion invoke a tough, sparring people.  Nobody is saying they can’t handle the firewater.  Or they’re making up for years of racism by opening casinos.  OK, Chief Wahoo straggles the line a little bit.  And I’m getting a little sick of the hillbilly tomahawk chop.  So we have two teams that may qualify for tough status, but they’ll get proverbial asterisks. 

There’s a whole bunch of ambiguous names.  The San Francisco Giants are giant whats?  Kittens?  Cotton Balls?  They’re not the Jolly Green Giant, since it’s the cross-town A’s that are green.  The Oakland A’s have an elephant mascot, but when I hear the name Athletic, the image that comes to mind is early 1900’s circus strongman with the handlebar moustache and knee-high boots, the big trapezoidal hunk of iron with the ring on top that they pick up with one finger, and it says 1000 lbs. on the front of it.  The Washington Nationals kept the wimpy name tradition since they wanted to shed the Senators name.  And the Minnesota Twins…what can I say?

The Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers.  There aren’t any trolleys in Brooklyn any more, and neither are the Dodgers.  The name just doesn’t make sense for LA, just like the Lakers, named after what, the Hollywood Reservoir?

Until I did the research for this piece, I never knew the Kansas City Royals were named after the annual rodeo held there.  Again, clueless as to why…

There’s a bunch of occupations.  The Seattle Mariners.  We all know the fellows on the Deadliest Catch are the real tough guys.  So who exactly are the Seattle Mariners named after, ferryboat operators?  The Texas Rangers?  I’d only be scared if they were the Walker, Texas Rangers, with a picture of Chuck Norris on the caps.  Now the Houston Colt .45s had a cool name.  It was the gun that won the west.  But it didn’t matter as they were named after the Astrodome, which was named after the importance of the space industry in Houston.  I only think of space and Houston in the same sentence when I hear  “Houston, we have a problem.”  They couldn’t come up with Oil Rigger?  Oh, that rhymes with a bad word, so that’s why the NFL team probably used the name Oilers. 

Then there’s the Milwaukee Brewers.  Bernie Brewer can’t slide into a mug any more.  Ooooo…scary beer.  If he can’t slide into a mug any more just go ahead and change the team name already to the Two-Faces (not to be confused with the Twins), named after Bud Selig. 

The Florida Marlins are named after a fish.  And while the Tampa Bay Rays used to be named after deadly sting rays, they’re now opting for the more tranquil sunshine rays. 

The Arizona Diamondbacks are named after deadly rattlesnakes.  But for those of us who don’t live in the desert, why not just call them Rattlesnakes?

The Cubs are named after bears, but not Da Bears.  They’re cute cuddly cubs, which puts them on the level of teddy bears.  That leaves one team.

The Detroit Tigers.  It’s obvious.  Pretty to look at, but they’re maul you to death.  The command respect.  And you have to respect any team that played that long at the corner of Michigan and Trumball. Good thing they didn’t name the team after the auto industry.

I’m not about advocating for changing names of teams, because they’ve been ingrained into our culture.  I don’t want to root for the New York Toughguys.  And I’ll never root for the Boston Can’t-Pronounce-The-Letter-R’s. 

And it’s just a silly team name, and nothing more.

Go West, Young Man!

So to my delight, waiting on my DVR this morning was Joe Torre on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Some people will say that anybody, not just Torre, could have managed the Yanks to all those World Series.  I say no, because if that were the case, why haven’t they won any since 2000?

So I like Torre, and I like Conan.  This looked like perfect early morning viewing while I had my first cup of coffee for the day…quiet time on the couch, coffee and boxers, and everybody else still asleep, and something I actually want to watch. 

So Torre and Conan are going to play off each other, both having made monumental recent moves from the Center of the Universe, aka New York, to the Twilight Zone, aka Los Angeles.  Torre came out with a Dodgers coffee mug, cap, and jersey with Ted Williams’ number 9, and Conan across the back.  Can I just say how much I hate that?  I don’t wear Yankee jerseys with my name across the back not just because the Yankees stick to tradition and don’t put names on the, but because I DON’T PLAY FOR THEM!!!  And Conan didn’t play for the Dodgers. Now if it were an actual name/number combination of an actual Dodgers player (past or present), I could care less. 

But then came the west coast shtick.  Two shots of wheat grass, because “that’s what they do out there.”  I wanted to see the two of them pop the shots, but no.  This was a direct play on the State Farm commercial from last year, talking about Torre moving to LA from New York. 

Click here to watch the commercial so you know what the hell I’m talking about.

Now I’ve never been to California.  Hell, with the exception of a single trip to Vegas, I can count the number of times I’ve been west of the Mississippi.  So I can’t say I’ve experience the So Cal vibe.  So if I move there, that would be a big deal.

Now here’s where I get to call bullshit.  Any astute student of the game of baseball would know that before Joe Torre managed the Yanks, from 1985 to 1990, he was a TV analyst for the CALIFORNIA FUCKING ANGELS!!!  Now I think there’s an inferiority complex Anaheim has with Los Angeles, but last time I checked, THEY’RE BOTH IN CALIFORNIA!!!

And Conan, I’d never give you crap for being a die-hard Sox fan, since you’re from Brookline.  But your wikipedia page says that not only did you write for The Simpsons (which I knew), you also wrote for Not Necessarily the News (which I didn’t know).  Both jobs were separated by writing for Saturday Night Live.  So this is your THIRD stint in LA, is it not?

Another reason people don’t take you seriously…

Manny  Ramirez has been one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball.  He can do what’s very difficult to do in baseball…single-handedly change a outcome of a game.  He’s a very talented hitter, and he has over 500 home runs to show for it.  He’s been very dangerous, especially when he’s motivated.  Just look how he carried the Dodgers into the playoffs last year. 

Now I’m not about to defend how he acted in Boston and got himself traded.  But at the same time, Boston let him get away with childish behavior for way too long.  Guess they learned Manny being Manny was only good when they were winning.  And that hair is just ridiculous.

So all the off-season tabloid fodder has surrounded baseball players and whether or not they’re on steroids.  Who’s juicing?  Who’s not?  Are records legit?  Now one of the great things about baseball is that over the course of history, the game itself has evolved from the introduction of non-white players, to the 162-game season, to division play, to the designated hitter, to the wild card and expansion teams.  Records one year may not necessarily have the same set of scenarios as the next season.  They’re being played in different stadiums with different dimensions.  And different players.  So what? 

So now the question is whether or not steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs really do give players a competitive advantage.  Some can quantify it, others say the jury is still out.  But we do know one thing…they’re not proverbial cans of spinach.  I’m the sam age as Derek Jeter, and you can shoot a gallon of the stuff in my ass, I’m not about to start fielding like Jeter or swinging the bat like Reggie Jackson any time soon.  Or even a single-A player. 

So it’s old news that Manny Ramirez got caught.  He denies it.  OK, what else is he going to do.  He’s trying to land one more big contract.  Per wikipedia, “According to an ESPN report, the drug used by Ramirez is human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a women’s fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body’s natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO.”  If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well, any idiot can draw their own conclusions. 

Now come out the clowns at Peta issuing a press release.  http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=13036 “We want to turn Manny on to the wonders of ‘veggie Viagra’–a healthy vegetarian diet–so that he can get his ‘big stick’ back in the game without having to use any weird ‘performance-enhancing’ drugs,” says PETA Assistant Director Dan Shannon. “Guys who stuff their bellies full of dead animals in the kitchen are often unable to score in the bedroom.” 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? Manny Ramirez makes an excuse that’s as hollow as can be to maybe he can get another $50 million dollar contract.  If I were him, I’d say anything short of being Jesus to get that kind of coin.  And the dopes at Peta are taking him at face-value to push their vegan agenda?  It’s no wonder this diddy din’t get much press coverage.

For the record, I have no problems grilling up some veggies next to my steaks.

Imagine what could have been…

Everybody waxes poetic about the Dodgers and Giants leaving New York, but there were two other baseball teams that headed west for greener pastures: the Washington Senators (twice), and the Philadelphia Athletics.  The A’s headed to KC after the 1954 season, and on to Oakland in 1968.  But did Philadelphia get rid of the wrong team?  Sure they just won the World Series, and their popularity here has finally surpassed the Iggles.  But what if the Phils shipped off and the A’s stuck around?  Three World Series titles in a row in the 70’s?  Reggie Jackson playing in Philly?  Does he get traded to Baltimore and eventually sign with the Yanks?  Reggie Pretzels instead of Reggie Bars?  But even more so, the team colors would match the logo with the corporate sponsor of the new ballpark, Citizens Bank.  Hmmm…