by Neate Sager, Out Of Left Field
Roy Halladay, you might be on B Squad, but you're the B Squad leader.
On Monday, Halladay likened playing for the perennially also-ran Toronto Blue Jays to being "like a little bit of Groundhog Day ...You want to talk about why we're succeeding, what we've done to help us get to the point of where we're at, and we just haven't done that ... It's hard to keep talking about the same thing."
To a diehard Jays fan, that's the equivalent of, in the last two hours, having lost your job, your apartment, your car and your girlfriend. And then depression set in. There's only one way to respond -- with an open letter pieced together from Bill Murray movies. It's the best way to get inside this guy's pelt and crawl around for a few days.
Dear Doc,
So it's true. A commenter on Drunk Jays Fans a while back claimed you'd been overheard wondering over dinner in a Toronto eatery if you were doomed to play your entire career in Toronto and never make the playoffs. It must make your lips numb just to think about it.
If this was coming from someone who isn't the god of ground-ball outs, people would be saying, right about now, his bladder feels like an overstuffed vacuum cleaner bag and his butt is kinda like an about-to-explode bratwurst.
This is a letdown. In the grand scheme of Blue Jays baseball, a high-dollar hurler betraying any trace of human emotion is really more of an A.J. Burnett thing. You're the Doc. You can chew your way through a concrete wall -- or the New York Yankees lineup, as you did with a two-hit shutout last Friday at Rogers Centre, the world's only 50,000-seat video-rental outlet -- and spit out the other side covered with lime and chalk and look good in doing it.
As a bonus, you usually finish the job in less than two-and-a-half hours.
This can be forgiven. You forgot that your cross to bear is putting up Cy Young-worthy stats while throwing for a team owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers' baseball philosophy: A hundred-dollar shine on a three-dollar pair of shoes. That kind of explains why the Jays have given 205 at-bats this season to Kevin Wench.
You saying you're unhappy and "one thing I really want to accomplish in the rest of my time, is win a World Series," could mean Toronto is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions, real wrath of God type stuff -- human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Up until now, the impression was that you were cool with being the best Roy Halladay you could be. That was enough for us, even if it never was with Mats Sundin during the NHL season. You taking the mound every fifth day was one reason not to look at the long winter and see a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope -- but enough about the Toronto Maple Leafs.
What else is there for a baseball geek in Canada, aside from fulminating at the brilliant bits of misinformation that periodically spew forth from GM J.P. Ricciardi? Since you pitch for a team that hasn't been anywhere near the playoffs since both of us were in the eleventh grade, the satisfaction of a job well-done is supposed to be enough to keep you happy.
Who knew? You're always so concerned about your reputation. Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk!
You're not alone in having a weak moment in Jays-land. In the spring, there's always the wild thoughts, imagining a real Cinderella story, came out of nowhere, to lead the pack in the cutthroat AL East. By the team summer heats up, it's usually obvious that even if you guys play so far above your heads that your noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good-looking girls would still cheer for the Red Sox and the Yankees because they've got all the money and for the Tampa Bay Rays because they have more brains, and those teams will go to the playoffs!
It just doesn't matter we win or we lose. It just doesn't matter!
You're needed in Toronto to take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, the Red Sox and Yankees can buy anything -- and the Rays have a much better drafting record than the Jays have under Ricciardi -- but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it.
The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge -- which more or less sums up your team averaging only 3.8 runs in your starts this season.
That is your burden. If you could pitch in a hair shirt, you would. Having to have a World Series ring to be validated is some screwhead fetish. You're pitching for the doomed, otherwise known as diehard Jays fans. They're lost, they're helpless, they're somebody else's meal, they're like pigs in the wilderness.
They --we -- need a leader every fifth day. An army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. And you're always gonna be here to be that big toe for us.
Of course, you'd like a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. Oh, uh, there won't be any October glory, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.
So you got that goin' for you, which is nice.
(There are 17 quotes from Bill Murray movies buried in this post. How many can you find before resorting to checking IMDb?)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
SINCE ROY HALLADAY IS SUCH A BILL MURRAY FAN ...
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
VARITEK NEEDS TO GO
by Brian P. Foley, The College Baseball Blog
Is Jason Varitek the worst All-Star in the history of Baseball?
I think the answer is an overwhelming YES! He is only hitting .215 on the year with an on base percentage of .297. He had a horrible month of June with a batting average of .122 and a slugging percentage of .176. Are you kidding me? I think the Red Sox could bring up a third level prospect who could put up numbers like that.
Lets go back to the All-Star selection of Varitek who like the pink hat wearing Red Sox fans call him "Tek." The players and managers put Varitek as a reserve catcher in the AL. They said the reasoning behind it is how well he handles the pitching staff of the Boston Red Sox. The BoSox have the eighth best ERA in MLB with the Oakland A's having the best ERA. He has thrown out a grand total of eight runners while allowing 37 stolen bases that comes out to throwing out only 17 percent of runners which is nothing to be proud of.
So why is Kurt Suzuki not in the All-Star game over Jason Varitek since he is the catcher for the Oakland A's who lead the team in ERA? He is hitting .279 on the year while throwing out 21 runners and allowing 37 stolen bases. This comes out to a percentage of 36 which is very good for a MLB catcher. The main reason why Suzuki is not in the All-Star game is the fact that he plays for the Oakland A's and that is not a large market team like Boston.
I am a Red Sox fan but the truth hurts. Varitek needs to go.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
TOP 11 THINGS YOU CAN INFER FROM MILTON BRADLEY'S NEW YORK TIMES ALL-STAR BLOG
by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool
See it for yourself here...
11. Milton's got a surprisingly effective and discrete ghost writer
10. Now that he's been to the All-Star Game, the umpires are not going to annoy him ever again
9. Since he's playing in the game and Billy Beane isn't, that means he wins
8. Like Jackie Robinson, he is also black, a target of hatred, and a carbon based form of life
7. His Mom is important to him, and in all likelihood, better than yours. Dad, not so much
6. He's down with Jebus, who clearly wanted him to be with his seventh organization at age 30
5. Once again, the nay sayers have taken it on the chin. Oh, you nay sayers. Will you ever learn?
4. His posts will be, shall we say, very lightly edited
3. He's looked and looked, but still hasn't seen Jeff Kent
2. The Ryan Lefebvre incident from just four weeks ago, and the dozens of similar experiences before that, are all bygones, baby
1. The NY Times is hoping, big-time, that there will be An Incident that makes their sports secion relevant
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