Loyal Scaiaholics will know that I’ve been somewhat rudderless since losing the Montreal Expos back in 2004.
I know what you’re thinking: “How can you be somewhat rudderless?! There’s no degree of having a rudder. Either a boat has a rudder or it doesn’t! It’s like a lamp. There can’t be somewhat of a bulb in it. There can only be a whole bulb or no bulb. And I’m not talking about, like, putting a 60 watt bulb into a lamp instead of 75. It’s still a whole bulb.”
That’s true, and to that degree, the Rangers have been great to me and I’ve found myself drawn to the Cincinnati Reds as a source of civic pride, but it doesn’t quite feel the same.
Then I went to Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers and Angels were playing last weekend in one of the last exhibition games of the spring. It was just a spring training game. I was with my family and my brothers spent most of the night arguing about whether Don Mattingly should grow back his moustache (one took the position that it would be an excellent idea, the other countered that the idea was simply very good).
The Dodgers would win 9-8. A strange feeling of excitement washed over me, but I wasn’t happy to see the Dodgers won.
It just felt special to watch the Angels fail. It was good to feel something. Hate is a part of baseball. An important part.
No one watched the 2011 World Series because the Rangers and Giants were just happy to be there. I remember interviewing some fans from San Francisco before Game 3. One of them said he’d never been to Texas before and the guy behind him in line said, “Oh, enjoy your visit.”
Enjoy your visit?! Whatever happened to “I hear Buster Posey wears a slip under his jersey!”?
It was the same in San Francisco. Who could forget the iconic Newy Scruggs report on the fans who were too hepped up on skunkweed to get intense?
Everybody watches when the Yankees and Red Sox play each other, even when Boston is horrible, but guess who’s on national TV Sunday night? Angels/Rangers. Josh Hamilton returns to Arlington since abandoning the city that booed him for striking out, like, 12 times during that wild card game against Baltimore last October… and a beautiful, hate-fueled rivalry is born!
That’s why I was a little surprised when Josh Hamilton said real fans wouldn’t boo him when he comes back to Texas this year.
I met Josh Hamilton several times and he seemed like a really nice guy. He never took an ego with the media; he was always very forthright and genuine.
But I hate him now. He took a different job that paid better. I’d never do that (except the four times I’ve done it since graduating from college, of course).
It’s not real hate, after all. It’s Baseball Hate. That’s how you know you’re something. No one hates the Astros, for instance. They’re adorable. But if they get good again, you’re going to want to hurl a battery at the head of a guy warming up in the bullpen, no matter how much the new orange color scheme reminds you of the first time you saw the Bad News Bears movie when they played in the Astrodome.
I have a rich history with Baseball Hate.
In the 1990s, who was front and center telling the world that the Atlanta Braves were most definitely not on an unprecedented string of division championships? This reporter, that’s who. Does 1994 and Montreal’s 6 1/2 game lead at the time of the strike ring a bell?
If only they had sparsely read blogs back then. Things would be different. Actually, they probably wouldn’t. I suspect most of the people who read this blog are people I know, and people I know also know that whenever I get a few drinks in me, I, like most people, start talking about the 1994 Montreal Expos.
“A lot of people don’t remember Darrin Fletcher was an all-star that year,” I might say. “Darrin Fletcher!!”
I even hated the Florida Marlins years before it was cool!
True story: back in 2003, I ran a fantasy baseball league with some friends in college. I wouldn’t let anyone draft a member of the Marlins. That was the year they won the World Series and still there were just all these Marlins sitting in the free agent pool.
We, the Montreal Expos fans, tried to warn south Florida. We could have ended Jeff Loria’s reign of terror. But one day, and perhaps one day soon, we will have our revenge:
