For those of you who don't know, Justin Rebello and I have been exchanging emails during the MLB playoffs. For those of you who do know, I promise you that baseball season will be over before Halloween and, much like Fox, we will be back with our regularly scheduled programming.
Until then, however, we're enjoying this shit.
On to the exchange.
From: Justin Rebello
Subject: NATIONAL DISGRACE
With all due respect to the St. Louis Cardinals, why even have the National League?
Honestly, congratulations Nate and good luck in the World Series, but this series was like watching retards fuck. Very enthralling but you feel dirty for even enjoying it a little.
I mean, here was a series where Pujols recorded one RBI, Rolen gave a throwback to his anemic performance in the 2004 World Series, the ace Carpenter sucked and the star of one of the games is named So. The top hitter isn't even the best Molina in baseball. He's not even the second best! The LCS MVP used to pitch for the Red Sox and sucked. Sucked! He was awful. I had more faith in Jeanne Zelasko getting a 5 on an AP calc exam than Suppan pitching well for my favorite team.
This is a team that nearly blew a ten game lead with less than a month to play and now they're going to the World Series? What next? Will “Man of the Year” be nominated for Best Picture?
Ten more observations:
Endy Chavez's incredible catch in the sixth officially surpassed Pujols' homer off Lidge last year as the penultimate “How the hell do you not win the series after a play like that?” scenario.
Hey, is it okay now to quit the Derek Jeter-David Wright comparisons? We can? Great.
Cardinals fans shouldn't be too concerned that Oliver fucking Perez pitched six innings only allowing one run last night. I mean, it's not like the Tigers are known for their pitching.
Is it possible for Jim Edmonds to simply strike out, put his head down and walk back to the dugout with saying something to the umpire? Even when he swings and misses he's arguing balls and strikes. Every Edmonds at-bat reminds me of the jackass on the cell phone who rear-ends you on the highway and gets out of his car while making the “What the hell?” gesture with his arms.
What happened to Major Leaguers knowing how to celebrate big-game home runs? Both Yadier and Magglio Ordonez hit huge homers this postseason and followed it with a frolic around the bases that would make Richard Simmons point and laugh.
Reason #40,916 why I was rooting against the Mets, the thought of the constant FOX montages of 1986 during the World Series. Or even worse, that retarded Subway Series from 2000. I still haven't gotten over all those moustaches. You could show a still shot of Tom Selleck in his Magnum P.I. days for a week straight and still not get as much stache exposure as that Subway Series crap.
I hate to keep picking on New Yorkers, but man are they ugly. The unibrows-to-people ratio at Shea last night was staggering. Haven't these people ever seen a baseball game on FOX? They show more shots of the crowd than the players. At least run a fucking comb through your face.
I tried to think of a drinking scenario for Wainwright K-ing Beltran (who just murders the Cards) with the bases loaded in the ninth. I would say it would be like if today I downed a bunch of tequila shots, picked up a hot chick and told several charming anecdotes, when the last time I drank tequila I was hungover for five days and took a shit in my sock drawer.
My National League predictions for 2007:
EAST: Nationals
CENTRAL: Pirates.
AL WEST: Rockies.
Wild Card: My Little cousin's T-ball team.
Forget about steroid or competitive balance, either put the DH in both leagues or get rid of it. What if in hockey just the Wales Conference used three defenders but no goalie? That's right. Wales Conference. We're going old school now.
And with all that said, Tigers in 4.
From: Nathan DeGraaf
The National League hasn't been as good as the American League for going on ten years now, but that didn't stop me from dancing around The Local Pub last night. We're in. That's all that matters. We are in the World Series.
Yeah motherfuckers!!!!
Basically, if the Mets had won, Endy Chavez's catch would have gone down as the single most spectacular post season play by an outfielder. As it is, it's just highlight fodder. And I'm fine with that. Really, I am.
David Wright's mini-collapse was just proof that the media will hype up anything. Honestly, I was never scared of David Wright. Now, Carlos Beltran. Well, I mean? quite frankly, dude gives me nightmares. But David Wright. Only thing that scares me about him is the possibility that he could knock up my sister.
The Tigers are known for their pitching, J-Reb, but the Mets were known for their hitting and only scored a combined three runs against the Suppan/Weaver combination. So, to borrow a phrase from Jim Caple, tell your statistics to shut up.
Jimmy Edmonds is just a chatty guy. Sometimes I think he uses his at-bats as an opportunity to talk to people. There's no one to talk to in the outfield. I honestly believed that if Edmonds played first, he'd chat it up more than Sean Casey (half of our readers just missed that reference, by the way).
Wainright striking out Beltran is actually more like you walking into a bar, seeing the hot chick that told all your buddies to go to hell, approaching her and melting her with three lines. I mean, Adam Wainright should have been the series MVP. Right now, I think Steinbrenner would trade us Christ himself for that kid.
And, because my team is going to the World Fucking Series, I'm ending with this here anecdote.
Last night, I was watching the game at home. Just before Endy Chavez made his catch, I decided to head on up to the Local Pub and finish the game there. I was truly the only one in the bar who gave a crap who won, so naturally, all my friends started openly rooting for the Mets, practically inviting me to melt down and re-enact scenes from “Carrie” in the bar.
When the top of the ninth started, I gave up my chair and stood.
And then I started to vibrate. You know that feeling you get during orgasm, where you can't really, totally, one-hundred-percent feel your body? Yeah well I had that going on with about a million butterflies on top of it. I was borderline dizzy/nauseous.
And then Yadier Molina hit a home run.
And I lost it, practically strangled my friend Mark (who was busting my balls the whole night) and high-fived everyone who would let me.
And then came the bottom of the ninth inning. Adam Wainright, the 25 year old pitcher who was quoted several times this year as saying that he always wanted to pitch in that series clinching, bases loaded, two-out situation, got exactly what he wished for.
And then Carlos Beltran came up to bat.
And I thought of every time the Cardinals had been burned by Beltran. And I couldn't watch. And I couldn't look away. And all I kept saying, over and over again, was Adam Wainright's name. And everyone in the bar kept their distance from me, anticipating a Beltran homerun.
And Wainright froze that Cardinal-killing sumbitch for strike three.
And you know the drill after that. All the emotions surface. Instead of throwing up, you scream your lungs out and order another beer. Instead of going home depressed, you hug everyone around you and drive home with the windows open and the music blaring. And you feel like you just survived a plane crash, only the plane crashed into a field of dreams. And your phone explodes because everyone who gives a shit calls you. And you can't stop being happy and people who like you can't stop being happy for you.
And then you call Justin Rebello, one of the most cynical bastards you've never actually met, and instead of answering the phone with, “This is Justin” or “What do you want?” he says, “Congratulations.”
And so you finish the night off by drinking to excess and immersing yourself in coverage of the game you just watched. And while you're giving the finger to every ESPN talking head that picked New York to win the World Series, an ex-girlfriend calls and tells you the following:
“I know this is probably the happiest you've been in months and I just wanted to hear you tell me about the game, just so I can hear that happy-Nate voice.”
And you tell her about Yadier Molina, suddenly turning into Jonny Bench and picking up the slack of an entire team.
And even though she can't understand you, doesn't like you anymore and couldn't care less about baseball, she still wishes you luck because she knows how much you care. She may think it's sad, but still she knows.
And you wake up the next day, hung-over as hell, and you remember it all over again. You smile from ear to ear as you drive in to work.
And then you realize that hope is not a thing with feathers. Hope does not spring eternal. Hope is game 1 of the World Series.
And maybe you only have a chance in hell of winning, but that's still a chance.
And that's about a million times better than no chance at all.
Cardinals in seven.