DAVE
10-10-2006, 10:06 AM
It's pretty standard Yankee Hating, but pretty funny.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6044930?FSO1&ATT=HCP>1=8705
Taking joy in the Yankees' misery
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Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 18 hours ago
Schadenfreude.
It's an awfully fancy word for a very mean little feeling: experiencing joy at others' misery.
But, man, I've been practically bubbling over with it these last few days. Ever since Robinson Cano grounded out to second to end the Yankees' season on Saturday, I've been unable to contain my glee. Watching the $200M unsinkable vessel get torpedoed by Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman and double-agent saboteur Alex Rodriguez was the most fun anyone could have short of their team winning it all.
We've all been beaten over the head with the phrase "good pitching beats good hitting," but what happened in the Yankees-Tigers series was something beyond that. The New York bats weren't just "good hitters." It was a lineup that included three MVPs (after Derek Jeter gets his prize for this year) and nine, count 'em, nine All-Stars.
ABC debuted a new series last week called The Nine in which the compelling mystery is what happened to nine bank hostages during their harrowing 52-hour captivity. Yankee fans are wondering what the hell happened to their nine during roughly the same length of time at the end of last week.
Beginning in the fourth inning of Game 2 on Thursday, the Yankees began a torturous 20-inning scoreless stretch in which they were humiliated by Tigers pitching. Detroit used a combination of very young arms (Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, Bonderman) and very old arms (Rogers, Todd Jones) to make the Bronx Bombers look very bad.
And Mets fans, Red Sox fans and mid- and small-market baseball fans everywhere united in their joy.
Five of my buddies were among the approximately 10,000 Mets fans at Dodger Stadium on Saturday when they saw the incredible news: the Yanks were gone. Eliminated. Done. While the Mets' sweep of the Dodgers was cause for celebration, it was the news of the Yankees' demise that popped the cork on possibility. No Mets fan I talked to thought their patchwork pitching staff had a chance against the Yankees. Sure, they might still lose to the Cardinals or the winner of Tigers-A's, but another Subway Series beatdown was a certainty in the minds of Mets fans.
For Red Sox fans, so disappointed by the 2006 season of unending calamity, the Yankees' loss was a soothing balm on an open sore. Yes, we'll still have to hear about the Boston Massacre II, but unlike the first one in 1978, the Yankees' failure to win the World Series will take the sting out of the reference. As the Tigers moved closer — inning by inning, game by game — to pulling off the upset, les miserables of Red Sox Nation wanted some company. And they got it. After Jamie Walker got Cano (season average .342, playoff average .133) to ground out, the Yankees, like the Red Sox, were just another one of 29 teams to not win the World Series in '06.
My three closest Tigers fan pals were, of course, delirious. Who'd have thought it would be the Tigers that would ease their pain after the playoff flameouts of the Pistons and Red Wings? Even Jon Kitna's untimely generosity against the Vikings yesterday couldn't dampen their spirits. Their team just went from badly limping underdog to co-favorite to win the World Series. Incredible.
As for that other co-favorite, A's fans were loving the Tigers' crazed celebration after defusing the Bombers. Joel Zumaya double-fisting champagne bottles in centerfield? Great. Kenny Rogers pouring bubbly over a cop's head atop the dugout? Super. Keep swigging. Presumably the Tigers won't be physiologically hungover after three days of drying up, but they may have a bit of an emotional hangover. The A's, meanwhile, quietly swept the team that dominated the American League the last four months and must be reveling in their anonymity as they prepare to take on the baseball world's new darling.
As for this Red Sox fan, I have spent the last few days poring over the New York papers, soaking in all the reasons the Yankees still haven't won a World Series in the 21st century (2000 was the last year of the 20th century).
You already know the numbers, but, boy, is it fun to repeat them:
A-Rod's postseason woes continued ... and Red Sox Nation rejoiced. (Paul Sancya / Associated Press)
A-Rod went 1-for-14 (.071) to drop his playoff average to .109 (5-for-46) since the Yankees led the Red Sox 3-0 in the 2004 ALCS. Rodriguez has now gone 12 playoff games without an RBI.
Gary Sheffield went 1-for-12 (.083), meaning he earned $13M for every postseason hit he got this year.
Cano, the next Rod Carew (with more power), saw his average drop over 200 points after finishing third in the AL in batting average.
Jason Giambi got one hit for his $18M and is scheduled for off-season wrist surgery.
Even Derek Jeter hit only .273 (3-for-11) in the three straight losses and looked very bad whiffing against Bonderman.
Johnny Damon ($13M) was hitless in Detroit while the Tigers took advantage of his weak arm, scooting from first to third at every opportunity.
Randy Johnson ($16M) and his herniated disc made it through only 5.2 innings and gave up five runs in the pivotal Game 3 loss. Not only was he not the best 40-something lefty in the playoffs (both Rogers and Tom Glavine were much, much better), he wasn't even the best 6-foot-10 pitcher in the playoffs, a distinction belonging to the Padres' Chris Young.
And on and on.
When my buddy Bill Simmons tipped me off this morning to how awesome the postmortems have been on WFAN's Mike and the Mad Dog, I tuned in to the YES network to watch the broadcast.
It's almost too good to be true. Yankees fans calling in to kill their team. "Joe Torre must go." "A-Rod must go." One Yankees fan was so blinded with rage and disappointment he even suggested trading Jeter. And all this with hosts Chris Russo and Mike Francesa piling on. I must be dreaming.
Russo and Francesa also pilloried Cory Lidle (three earned runs in 1.1 innings) for running away from his post-series quote that Francesa pointedly read back to the journeyman pitcher: "We got taken by surprise. We got matched up by a team that was a little more ready to play than we were." When it was explained to Lidle why that might sound to some like an indictment of the manager, he distanced himself from his words faster than a Joel Zumaya fastball, saying he'd been misquoted.
For all those baseball fans whose team spent less than a fifth of a billion dollars on payroll this season, the Yankees' latest playoff collapse has been great reading, great radio and great TV. When Mike and the Mad Dog went to break after a particularly enjoyable segment on YES, a giant tiger leapt across the screen. It turned out it was an ad for the 2007 GMC Yukon Denali with the tagline "the definition of great engineering."
The 2006 Yankees had all the expensive parts, but for the sixth year in a row, they just didn't fit together.
And how sweet is that?
Kevin Hench is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6044930?FSO1&ATT=HCP>1=8705
Taking joy in the Yankees' misery
Story Tools:
Print Email Blog This Subscribe
Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 18 hours ago
Schadenfreude.
It's an awfully fancy word for a very mean little feeling: experiencing joy at others' misery.
But, man, I've been practically bubbling over with it these last few days. Ever since Robinson Cano grounded out to second to end the Yankees' season on Saturday, I've been unable to contain my glee. Watching the $200M unsinkable vessel get torpedoed by Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman and double-agent saboteur Alex Rodriguez was the most fun anyone could have short of their team winning it all.
We've all been beaten over the head with the phrase "good pitching beats good hitting," but what happened in the Yankees-Tigers series was something beyond that. The New York bats weren't just "good hitters." It was a lineup that included three MVPs (after Derek Jeter gets his prize for this year) and nine, count 'em, nine All-Stars.
ABC debuted a new series last week called The Nine in which the compelling mystery is what happened to nine bank hostages during their harrowing 52-hour captivity. Yankee fans are wondering what the hell happened to their nine during roughly the same length of time at the end of last week.
Beginning in the fourth inning of Game 2 on Thursday, the Yankees began a torturous 20-inning scoreless stretch in which they were humiliated by Tigers pitching. Detroit used a combination of very young arms (Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, Bonderman) and very old arms (Rogers, Todd Jones) to make the Bronx Bombers look very bad.
And Mets fans, Red Sox fans and mid- and small-market baseball fans everywhere united in their joy.
Five of my buddies were among the approximately 10,000 Mets fans at Dodger Stadium on Saturday when they saw the incredible news: the Yanks were gone. Eliminated. Done. While the Mets' sweep of the Dodgers was cause for celebration, it was the news of the Yankees' demise that popped the cork on possibility. No Mets fan I talked to thought their patchwork pitching staff had a chance against the Yankees. Sure, they might still lose to the Cardinals or the winner of Tigers-A's, but another Subway Series beatdown was a certainty in the minds of Mets fans.
For Red Sox fans, so disappointed by the 2006 season of unending calamity, the Yankees' loss was a soothing balm on an open sore. Yes, we'll still have to hear about the Boston Massacre II, but unlike the first one in 1978, the Yankees' failure to win the World Series will take the sting out of the reference. As the Tigers moved closer — inning by inning, game by game — to pulling off the upset, les miserables of Red Sox Nation wanted some company. And they got it. After Jamie Walker got Cano (season average .342, playoff average .133) to ground out, the Yankees, like the Red Sox, were just another one of 29 teams to not win the World Series in '06.
My three closest Tigers fan pals were, of course, delirious. Who'd have thought it would be the Tigers that would ease their pain after the playoff flameouts of the Pistons and Red Wings? Even Jon Kitna's untimely generosity against the Vikings yesterday couldn't dampen their spirits. Their team just went from badly limping underdog to co-favorite to win the World Series. Incredible.
As for that other co-favorite, A's fans were loving the Tigers' crazed celebration after defusing the Bombers. Joel Zumaya double-fisting champagne bottles in centerfield? Great. Kenny Rogers pouring bubbly over a cop's head atop the dugout? Super. Keep swigging. Presumably the Tigers won't be physiologically hungover after three days of drying up, but they may have a bit of an emotional hangover. The A's, meanwhile, quietly swept the team that dominated the American League the last four months and must be reveling in their anonymity as they prepare to take on the baseball world's new darling.
As for this Red Sox fan, I have spent the last few days poring over the New York papers, soaking in all the reasons the Yankees still haven't won a World Series in the 21st century (2000 was the last year of the 20th century).
You already know the numbers, but, boy, is it fun to repeat them:
A-Rod's postseason woes continued ... and Red Sox Nation rejoiced. (Paul Sancya / Associated Press)
A-Rod went 1-for-14 (.071) to drop his playoff average to .109 (5-for-46) since the Yankees led the Red Sox 3-0 in the 2004 ALCS. Rodriguez has now gone 12 playoff games without an RBI.
Gary Sheffield went 1-for-12 (.083), meaning he earned $13M for every postseason hit he got this year.
Cano, the next Rod Carew (with more power), saw his average drop over 200 points after finishing third in the AL in batting average.
Jason Giambi got one hit for his $18M and is scheduled for off-season wrist surgery.
Even Derek Jeter hit only .273 (3-for-11) in the three straight losses and looked very bad whiffing against Bonderman.
Johnny Damon ($13M) was hitless in Detroit while the Tigers took advantage of his weak arm, scooting from first to third at every opportunity.
Randy Johnson ($16M) and his herniated disc made it through only 5.2 innings and gave up five runs in the pivotal Game 3 loss. Not only was he not the best 40-something lefty in the playoffs (both Rogers and Tom Glavine were much, much better), he wasn't even the best 6-foot-10 pitcher in the playoffs, a distinction belonging to the Padres' Chris Young.
And on and on.
When my buddy Bill Simmons tipped me off this morning to how awesome the postmortems have been on WFAN's Mike and the Mad Dog, I tuned in to the YES network to watch the broadcast.
It's almost too good to be true. Yankees fans calling in to kill their team. "Joe Torre must go." "A-Rod must go." One Yankees fan was so blinded with rage and disappointment he even suggested trading Jeter. And all this with hosts Chris Russo and Mike Francesa piling on. I must be dreaming.
Russo and Francesa also pilloried Cory Lidle (three earned runs in 1.1 innings) for running away from his post-series quote that Francesa pointedly read back to the journeyman pitcher: "We got taken by surprise. We got matched up by a team that was a little more ready to play than we were." When it was explained to Lidle why that might sound to some like an indictment of the manager, he distanced himself from his words faster than a Joel Zumaya fastball, saying he'd been misquoted.
For all those baseball fans whose team spent less than a fifth of a billion dollars on payroll this season, the Yankees' latest playoff collapse has been great reading, great radio and great TV. When Mike and the Mad Dog went to break after a particularly enjoyable segment on YES, a giant tiger leapt across the screen. It turned out it was an ad for the 2007 GMC Yukon Denali with the tagline "the definition of great engineering."
The 2006 Yankees had all the expensive parts, but for the sixth year in a row, they just didn't fit together.
And how sweet is that?
Kevin Hench is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.