Beasts of the Same Mold
By Jack Jablin
We're gonna Tarantino this baby... Because it'll blow your mind...
"No".
That is the answer to the question I am about to pose; the last word that will be spoken in this article. This question is one which I have long debated; one that I have always known the answer to and yet buried in the back of my mind as a strange paranoia... Until recently.
Thanks to Manny Ramirez (something you will rarely hear from me) I have come to a conclusion that frightens me - a conclusion that I have discussed with others. The article that you are reading is one that I have tried to write for four months. However, I have yet to find the proper words to describe what it is that I am feeling. Never-the-less, I hope that this attempt will come out as more than entertaining - something that will be a guidebook to the next generation of fans, of players, of GM's.
I want you to think about the Yankees for a moment. If you hate the Yankees, you can probably think of more than a few reasons for why you loathe the Bronx Bombers; a few of these reasons would most likely be:
1. The Yankees steal players with their incredibly oversized payroll.
2. The Yankees' are an organization that is almost famed for betraying managers, coaches and GM's, when a scapegoat is needed.
3. The Yankee players are overpaid, overly catered to and still whine like spoiled children - A-Rod, Randy Johnson, Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, namely.
4. The Yankee fans are notorious for turning their backs on their own players.
5. The Yankees are the epitome of evil - this one speaks for itself and should be taught as FACT in schools, like 2+2=4.
From the eyes of a man who has watched the Kansas City Royals fall from grace and be held down over the course of a decade, these are reasons to not just hate a team - but to loathe them with a passion so intense, the mere mention of their name melts any nearby objects. To be fair, none of the above is an illegal act, but when put in perspective, they all seem rotten.
Most recently, the Yankees broke open their payroll so that they could sign former Red Sock Johnny Damon. Will this move solidify the Yankees as contenders? Probably not, a slap hitter usually doesn't win championships - look at Wade Boggs - and his defense isn't much to write home about either. But this goes up on the Alan Embree boards; are the Sox really going to miss him? Not really, but he WAS stolen by a rival and he WAS at one time, a part of the Red Sox legacy.
Now, we all know why we hate the Yankees - but it's not your time to speak. Right now it is the turn of Yankee fans; think of why you hate the Red Sox. Make a list in your mind - go ahead... Ok, time's up! The odds are, you just wrote down the following reasons -
1. The Red Sox steal players with their incredibly oversized payroll, despite claiming that the Yankees' payroll is that much worse.
2. The Red Sox are an organization that is famous for betraying and leaving managers, coaches and GM's to take the fall for a team's bad year: want an example? Theo Epstein being betrayed by the boss' own newspaper and a man you might know: Grady Little. 'Nuff said.
3. The Red Sox players are overpaid, overly catered to and still whine like spoiled children - in 2005? There was Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, Kevin Millar, Wade Miller, David Wells, Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke.
4. The Boston fans are almost expected to turn on their team, they're the definition of fair-weather fans.
5. The Red Sox are the epitome of "good by proxy" - just because they feud with the Yankees and are from a different city, it's almost EXPECTED that they be better, simply by presumption of their being good in the world.
Guess what Red Sock fans? You're the exact same thing as what you hate! I stuck on the train from 1994 until when Boston won the championship - then I go to Boston only to hear people talking (note: in the 2004 off-season) about how Tito has to go? How the team doesn't know what they're doing? That's whining, that's not sports. You're not allowed to shed a tear until opening day - unless you're the person who lost the World Series - and if you're the champion, you don't get to complain for another three years.
Now, now, I know that Red Sox fans are going to say: "But Curt Schilling doesn't whiiiiine!" Sure he does! If Alex Rodriguez talked the kind of smack that Curt Schilling did, we would have written him off as the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. You can't defend the Red Sox - don't say that they've been driven to be like the Yankees because of the need to compete, because they do the exact same dirty tricks. They don't HAVE a farm system - what they have they shopped former stars for.
The Red Sox use the local media as a tool to attack their own management and this is atrocious to me. How dare you attack Theo Epstein before he even made his decision to leave Boston. This is on par with Manny demanding a trade because of his privacy, despite the fact that (unless he goes to Colorado or Milwaukee) no baseball city will EVER let him live in peace! Johnny Damon?
I remember in 2004, people saying: "Johnny Damon is everything the Red Sox stand for". Yup, so now that you've seen the dark side of Johnny Damon, hate him - instead of hating the system that created him. Hate the Yankees because they opened the same checkbook that the Red Sox will to get THEIR new center fielder, hate the Yankees because their GM was actually in the capacity to make a deal. That's right, hate the Yankees because this year, they had EVERYTHING the Sox didn't. But don't forget, hate the Red Sox, because with a payroll $60,000,000 less than what they currently have, they're absolutely nothing.
Are the Red Sox and Yankees all that different? Are these two teams who are infamous based on their rivalry really all that much different? When I explained this to a friend of mine - as we watched the Eagles lay the smackdown on the 'greatest show on turf' - he asked me "does this ruin baseball for you"? I thought about this for a little while - I've always said that baseball is a sport that's easy to hate if you don't have a team to follow. On the one hand, the Red Sox are the team I've grown up with - but in the past two years I've been able to follow another team: the MLB team. A team consisting of great players like the Kansas City Royals, the Tampa Devil Rays, Texas Rangers, St Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals. The MLB is a team consisting of 30 players - I guess I'll just have to hate two of them.
"Does this ruin your love for baseball" - the question again ringing through my mind, I paused and looked back toward my friend, sorrowed gleam in eye replaced by one of revelation:
No.
Cheers,
Jack Jablin
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