...and i've had it. this blog seems a bit bizarre to write a mere days after my excitement in a blog about the royals being in the world series.
watching the world series (and it's not even technically over), man that was painful, for as long as i could put up with it. even though my team won game three and was up 2-1 in the series, that was all i could stand. i watched game four up to the point of a 4-4 tie and then, having seen so many games, knowing with close certainty what would happen, i didn't want to be a part of it. anyone can say, "man it's tied. anything can happen!" but that kind of talk was so irrelevant. the royals got out of game by the skin of their teeth when they should've lost, meaning the series should've been over, but was saved because a rookie pitcher bailed his coaches out from looking like idiots. in such a case, i have little respect for the game and don't want to waste my time watching.
game three of the 2014 world series needs no explanation to the people that saw it. needless to say, sending hererra up to bat made no sense in any way of thinking about the game of baseball. and it's not like ned yost hasn't spent years in the national league to understand the philosophy of using pinch hitters. when a coach makes a decision so bone-headed, and it's not like that was the only one, a win doesn't make a fan feel better when there are still two games left to win. dumb decisions might pay off two times out of seven, but they don't pay off four times out of seven. it's further maddening to hear the announcers gloat over how well the royal's coaches are doing and have done! sure, getting to the world series is amazing. the royals rarely do it. however, i am quite sure they never will again as long as ned yost is calling the shots. when it comes to postseasons, luck (or whatever word your own personal philosophy on the subject) has a lot to do with things.
the specifics of game three bear consideration given the circumstances in game four, but to make a long story short, game three was saved once hererra was finally lifted for the rookie pitcher finnegan. however, that error in judgement was no lesson to the royal's staff. it was further compounded in game four with another gaffe in the use of pinch hitters. instead of the pitcher, aoki came up to bat. with no outs and dyson on first, there was no doubt that aoki would do anything other than bunt. even on a two-strike pitch, he should have been bunting. instead, he did the worst possible thing...hit into a double play and killed the rally. then, finnegan was brought in again. sure the guy was a saving grace the night before, but he had only pitched twice in the previous eleven games. it's not like he is a seasoned veteran to pitch reliably on an uneven schedule. he was the first person in baseball history to appear in the college world series and the MLB world series in the same year. that is, not the kind of guy you want to overwork with only four chances left to win a championship. so, once the score was tied at 4-4, i knew. i turned off my free-sourced internet feed of the series and did not watch another pitch. maybe i'll watch the royals again someday, but i am certainly instituting the 'bob boone rule' which is that i will not watch them until the idiots in the dugout are removed.
it's easy for me to be critical. i am not the one in the cooker. i understand very well that it is one thing to make predictions on paper and compare those with the actual outcomes. it is quite another to walk into a casino, lay down $1000, and say, "i am this confident." that's essentially the difference between myself and the royal's coaches. however, the royal's coaches are playing craps with real money that fans provide them. craps is not a winnable game, only a streaky game, like baseball. eventually, the luck runs out. and i don't like seeing guys being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars continually making ill-advised decisions that high school coaches could get right. thus, go figure how the royals made it to the 1980 world series and still fired the manager the next year. the royals might be better off taking some random person off the streets who has nothing to lose and letting them call the shots for free than paying someone half the ranch to burn down the other half.
as it is not entirely fair for me to criticize people in positions i will never have, it is also not entirely fair for me to compare one sports league to another. but people getting paid millions to play sports are fairly comparable to some end, as in how ridiculous the waste of my time in supporting them is.
nonetheless, i distracted myself from baseball the next day on a long drive. i turned on an afternoon NFL game; philadelphia eagles vs. arizona cardinals. the game had elements of excitement to be sure. on another ill-advised play call, the cardinals went for everything on a third-and-five when they were 70 yards away from the endzone, down by three points and under two minutes left in the game. it was such a ridiculous idea that even the eagles didn't expect it. the move paid off for the cardinals and they ended up winning the game. not that the entire game was that exciting, the eagles outplayed the cardinals most of the game, but sometimes luck plays its role at the right time. i was happy for the cardinals, though not nearly as much as the color commentator (rod woodson, who i have tons of respect for). at the end of the game, woodson said, "that was exciting! this is more real than reality TV. i say it often that the best reality TV is sports."
let me dissect this comment. considering it's real people doing real things, it should be somewhat real, certainly moreso than some rich girls sitting in a lavish house bitching about an ankle biter pissing on the floor. but it's not that real. (see my other blogs about the staged theatre aspect of pro sports.) these are guys making millions to do something that people don't really need to be able to do. if they can, cool. if they don't, the world is not going to be any worse off. but even if they do, the world is not going to be any better off. wars in the middle east won't stop if the cowboys win the damn super bowl. it is not very real to pay people millions of dollars to perform pointless duties. yes, it was an exciting game. it should have been even more exciting considering it was the two best teams in the conference, both with top notch former pac-12 quarterbacks. however, the excitement is so short lived. no one will remember this game come next season, other than the people at the game or the people that spend their lives gathering an encyclopedic knowledge of these things. i can grant that the people that went to the game may have even gotten their money's worth, but did everyone that went to an NFL game get their money's worth? after all sports is the best TV there is, best reality out there, right?
on the other side of the country, the jets were losing to the bills. the jets are so bad, they are almost as bad as the raiders. they were so bad last sunday that they brought michael vick in to replace geno smith. vick was no more effective and the two quarterback made a combined six turnovers. i wouldn't have paid fifty cents to see that game. in fact, i wouldn't have watched the game if i was compensated $10 per hour for every hour of my life wasted. yet, somewhere in new jersey, there are people spending thousands of dollars per year on this worthless product, year in year out. i have news for them, joe namath is not coming out of retirement. i waited 10 years for another warren moon to come along and was blessed with kurt warner. it's been about 10 years, so maybe jameis winston is the next big thing? ha! i am not waiting around, spending more time and money, to see when or if that ever happens again. because, even if it does happen again, it won't really change my life anyway.
to continue with a little on the jameis winston front, enter exhibit A of why pro football needs less supporters. i read an article that expected the jets might actually pick jameis winston first round in the draft. the only thing worse than me wasting my time reading such an article is the fact that the guy who wrote it writes similar article/blogs numerous times per week. i couldn't be paid enough to do that job. the fact that winston will play in the "national felons league" is but one more reason to never give the league a passing thought. i don't ride michael vick too hard. i tried hard to understand the situation, and i know that he was used and put into a position that he only partially deserved. he was more or less the symbol of a bad situation. other people needed to be persecuted more than he was, but he was the big celebrity in the mix so he took the biggest heat. at the same time that vick's celebrity status hurt him, it also helped him. any other black man convicted of that crime would never have gotten out of prison. ray rice would be in prison right now too, if not for who he is. jameis winston is in the same boat. these guys have extreme marketing value, so the most gutless person on the planet (yes, you roger goodell) continues to make an obscene living off giving these guys opportunities. rae carruth wasn't a big celebrity, wasn't a money maker, so he is still rotting in prison. the NFL continues to prove they are more interested in creating the next dynamic story, which means more of the likes of winston, vick, rice, because that sells incredibly well. the dynamics of guys like warren moon and kurt warner are harder to create, and don't result in much more income because authentic success is boring. reality TV success sells better, and the NFL has made it obvious that are sell-outs for that kind of money. the professional leagues to various degrees all do this.
i could get started about the NFL expanding to other continents, playing games on the other side of the world, wanting to expand to 18 games and such. all the decisions are foolish and designed as money makers that don't take the safety of their own players into consideration. forget roger goodell and his greed. i am no part of it, or any of the bullshit in professional sports.
i don't need to be frustrated by any of this. i can stop paying attention to any of it. i have tried before, but it's kind of like a drug. i am also trying to quit drinking alcohol and caffeine currently. it's hard to give up. but, man, thinking about all things i have wished i had accomplished over the years and then thinking about all the times i spent watching some sporting event that i couldn't even tell you about right now. for every three hours a game takes from my life, knowing that it has happened a couple times a week over 25 years, that is a lot of time that could've been spent on things better than primadonna athletes that don't deserve the money they get paid. i long ago quit purchasing memorabilia, schwag and tickets to professional sporting events. i have never purchased a cable TV package because i don't approve of the money going to such people. the only thing i haven't been able to do is stop watching, stop wondering, stop caring. so, i am complicit in the furthering of the ridiculous enterprise. or, was complicit. no more. to hell with it. i have my three to ten hours per week back, i have the $20 or i spend at the bar to see the games back and i don't have the frustration of dealing with TV announcers getting overly excited about how awesome whatever just happened was.
on the same weekend as these pathetic sporting events, i ran a 5k as i have done probably 200 or so times in my life. i turned in my worst time ever, even worse than the first time i ran one. three days later, my lungs still hurt. what's the lesson? i can spend hours watching a game on TV, i can spend $30 drinking at the bar while watching the game, but i can't spend one hour per week for some jogging? no, i let my own life is slip by while i watch someone else give themselves head injuries and other physical abuse that will cause them to commit suicide at age 45. i spend hours watching in frustration as qualified coaches makes bad decisions that an unqualified fan wouldn't even make.
why? the excitement of sports still lives to the same degree in unpaid events. watching my friends kids play soccer actually makes a boring sport like soccer entertaining. watching the walla walla sweets play baseball is every bit as authentic as anything the majors can produce. EOU basketball give a thrill unseen in the NBA. none of these games cost more than a few dollars to go see. they are local products created by people i can meet and congratulate personally. they have an element of shame to live up to when they perform badly. they try harder to earn their spots on their teams, and are given no quarter when they mess up. EOU's football coach camp even chewed out his own players when they were winning by 42 points last saturday. i like this. high return on no investment. and here i was considering paying $300 for a standing room ticket and another $300 for the round trip to san francisco to see a world series game. if the free version on the internet pissed me off, i could only imagine how paying close to $1000 would have made me feel. so, i never will attend a world series game. no biggie. not like i have attended an MLB game since at least 2002 anyway. i will spend my money where it is deserved.
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