Deal With It, America

I didn’t appreciate the Toronto Blue Jays teams of the early 90’s when they were in their prime.  At least not until I had to sit through the Yankees getting into the World Series year, after year, after year.  It was only then that I thought to myself “boy, I wish I could go back to the days where a team I didn’t hate with all my being dominated baseball.”

So when a matchup like San Francisco and Texas comes along, I appreciate it with everything I have.  As much as I didn’t watch last year (and I really didn’t watch more than eight total innings), I will watch this year.  What I’ve learned about myself lately is that despite being a Mets fan, I actually like baseball.  So I’ll pay attention much more so than I did when there were two teams participating that make me want to vomit.

Conventional wisdom says that nobody else will watch besides Arlington, San Francisco, and me … and that this will be a horribly rated series.  But conventional wisdom tends not to be so wise … especially when the people entrusted to present us with said wisdom instead present us with the theory that what Tony Lazzeri did in 1932 has bearing on 2010.  So I’m fully expecting some columnist out there … I don’t know who, and maybe it’ll be more than one, to come up with something like this over the next couple of days:

There will be something missing from this season’s fall classic, which doesn’t seem very classic at all.  With the uniforms reading Ross and Francoeur instead of Jeter and Halladay, the 2010 World Series lacks a certain star power.  Sure, Cliff Lee is the best post-season pitcher we’ve seen in a long time, and Tim Lincecum proves that big things come in long-haired packages.  But trading New York and Philadelphia for San Francisco and Arlington takes the Hollywood out of the Fall Classic, and thus will take the intrigue out of it.

And the ratings will prove it.  It’s just too bad that America will be deprived of the rematch that we all clamored for: Halladay and Oswalt vs. A-Rod and Cano.  Because as you know by now, baseball is just better when the Yankees are involved.  Ratings are up, food tastes better, birds sing louder … instead the only noise you’ll hear is the sound of remote controls turning elsewhere except the World Series.

You can book it.  Somebody’s going to write it … or something like it.  Probably, more than one high profile columnist will whine in print or on television about how nobody cares about the Giants and Rangers.  (I’m looking at you, Skip Bayless.)  First one that does will receive two round-trip tickets to a punch in the head.  So to all those thinking about it, or asked by their editors to come up with reasons not to watch the World Series, just cut and paste the above two paragraphs and save yourselves some trouble.

I thank the Giants for eliminating the final bane of my existence.  But Pat Burrell?  Cody Ross?  Matt Cain?  Guillermo Mota?  (The turning point of Game 6 was Mota warming up in the bullpen and not coming into the game.)  I just can’t root for the guy who kills the Mets, the rodeo clown who went on this tippie-toes to yell at Mike Pelfrey, the guy who beaned David Wright then tipped his cap smugly to the crowd, and the guy who shook off Paul Lo Duca before giving up a series changing triple to Scott Spiezio in ’06.  Can’t do it (except for special circumstances, of course.)  I wish Tim Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez well.  I hope Brian Wilson’s beard isn’t as flammable as it looks.  But I’ll look forward to Frenchy receiving his World Series ring in April of 2011 when he opens up that packing envelope in the Royals clubhouse.  And if I’m lucky, I’ll get to bid on it while surfing through eBay in twenty years.  Rangers in seven.