Filip Bondy, Monumental Asshole

[G-Fafif]

From October 14's Snooze:

Over the past 50 years, the Yankees have won nine of their world championships, 15 American League pennants and fielded the likes of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. The Texas Rangers, meanwhile, played .471 baseball, moved from one dumpy stadium in Washington to a worse one in Arlington, never captured a home playoff game and never reached a World Series. The Rangers have retired exactly one player's jersey (aside from Jackie Robinson's)-and attempted to counter George M. Steinbrenner with George W. Bush in the owner's box. All they've ever had was Nolan Ryan, and they've ridden him like an urban cowboy on a mechanical bull. Ryan's no-hitters aside, this ALCS represents one of sports' great historical mismatches, 40 pennants versus zero. The Yanks should win this series just by throwing their pinstriped uniforms onto the field and reading from a few pages of The Baseball Encyclopedia. If only Bud Selig would agree to waive a few silly postseason rules, the Bombers might send their Scranton/Wilkes-Barre roster to Arlington for the first couple of games, make this a fair fight. Of course, the Yanks are too diplomatic to admit such a thing. "I think history can play a role if you're playing a team where the guys have played against you," Joe Girardi said. "Most of (the Rangers) don't remember the late '90s, so it's not going to affect them one way of another. It doesn't mean anything to them." Well, it should. The Rangers are the oldest of three existing major league clubs never to have won a pennant. They should be ashamed to bring their media guides to the Bronx. The late '90s? What about the '60s, when the Rangers were born as the Washington Senators, mostly to appease congressmen who were ready to vote away the league's antitrust exemptions after the other Senators moved to Minnesota. Those new, second-generation Senators were every bit as lousy and nomadic as the first batch. During their odd-ball stay in our nation's capital - who can forget Richard Nixon throwing out the first baseball? - and then after moving to Turnpike Stadium in Arlington, the Senators/Rangers managed exactly one .500 season among their first 15 years, through 1976. The magic moments since then? How about a New York Times reporter declaring with anguish her retirement from sports writing after fighting the backward postgame flow of fans and dealing with the horrors of the old rat-infested Arlington Stadium? How about the Rangers signing Alex Rodriguez to an unsustainable 10-year, $252 million contract in 2000, when the team still didn't have enough pitching to field a contender? Or owner Tom Hicks defaulting on $525 million in loans and Major League Baseball paying the club's operating expenses from a common fund? Or A-Rod filing as a creditor in court this year, seeking the $24.9 million still owed him by the Rangers? Yes, this has been a sad, losing franchise for half a century, but not in a charming way like the Cubbies. The Rangers are still hoping to emerge from the darkest of dark ages now under the guidance of Ryan and new owner Chuck Greenberg - who happens to be from Pittsburgh, so you can imagine how much he knows about building a decent baseball team. Here's the bottom line: In New York, a professional club is only worth as much as it pays its players, or as much as the franchise can attract on the open market. The Yankees' total payroll on opening day was $206.33 million, while the Rangers' was $55.25. The Rangers were sold to the Greenberg group for $570 million, despite playing now in the respectable Rangers Ballpark. Forbes estimates the Yankees are worth about three times that. Why are they even playing this series? Why don't they just use the scores from '96, '98 and '99? "I can't even think back to those years," Jorge Posada said. "It's over. I don't think it matters." It matters. The Yankees lead, 27 titles to none. Play ball. fjbondy@netscape.net

[metirish]

What an asshole, and he's off covering the NLCS after writing that claptrap......oh I bet he ates that....6 games - 54 innings and the storied MFY's were beaten in probably 50 of those innings.....yes , they should have sent the Minor League team.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Is the idea to bait peple into a fight?

[MFS62]

I remember reading that article when it was written and thinking "I hope the Rangers win, then tape that article to a brick and shove it up Bondy's ass."
Figuratively, they just did.

Later

[nymr83]

"I think history can play a role if you're playing a team where the guys have played against you," Joe Girardi said. "Most of (the Rangers) don't remember the late '90s, so it's not going to affect them one way of another. It doesn't mean anything to them."

Girardi has it right, the "history" should only matter when it involves the specific players on the field.

[Frayed Knot]

Bondy long ago admitted that he's a YLDB and NYM hater to the point where he's incapable of thinking or writing about either subject with an unbiased eye.
It's probably the main reason he is assigned to the NL series lest he be moved to (again) write long and lovingly about the obnoxious and sometimes criminal behavior of the "bleacher creatures".
That his main point about history determining this year's outcome - despite that history involving no current Rangers and only a few current Yanquis - was shot down by the only two players he quoted clearly didn't stop him from making an ass out of himself by clinging to the theory.






"a New York Times reporter declaring with anguish her retirement from sports writing after fighting the backward postgame flow of fans"

What exactly is a "backward flow of fans" ?
Did they leave the stadium walking backwards? ... Did the poor writer's dinner plans get upset by her unfamiliarity with the local traffic patterns? ... Did some of the patrons look like extras from the caveman Geico commercials and drag her off by the hair?

What I remember most from the late '90s Ranger-Yanx series was more than a few NY writers spending most of their time tripping over themselves to tell us what a backward outpost the Dallas/Ft Worth area was, specifically things like the lack of good Italian restaurants where sportswriters could mingle. Gee, life just doesn't get much tougher than that.

[Lefty Specialist]

Wow, that's breathtaking in it's douchiness. Reads almost like a piece from the Onion.

[Valadius]

He gets paid to write this tripe?

[ashie62]

Unbelievable...I do feel a sense of satisfaction.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I feel a little more satisfied now, having dropped him a note of congratulations.

[G-Fafif]

Bondy does seem to have a delightful knack for writing such screeds and not being around when the MFYs implode. Whenever the Mets would take a Subway Series, after he'd written how worthless they were, I'd look for the mea culpa and he'd be magically off covering Wimbledon or the women's World Cup or whatever. Natch he's on NLCS duty this week.

Matt Callan's retrospective on 2000 on Amazin' Avenue, covering fetid World Series Game Two, included a Bondy link, if you dare. What he writes today is tame by comparison; it reminded me how much I absolutely hated him when he came along with the Bleacher Creatures shtick.

I always figured there was an element of tongue-in-cheek to all this but I reached the Bondy breaking point in 2001 after the Mets traded Pratt, Wendell and Cook to the Phillies and he wrote, hey Mets fans, just root for the Phillies: Phets or Millies, it's all the same (he got a quote of Al Leiter that cracked the "I grew up loving the Mets" facade, wherein Al said yeah, when the Mets got bad and the Phillies got good, they were closer to Toms River and all; douche). I sent Bondy as civil a FUCK YOU e-mail as I could compose. To his credit, he wrote back, explained he loved the '69 Cubs and they broke his heart (he'd mentioned in previous columns that was a reason he forever resented the Mets...ha) and that he loved the Baltimore Colts and they broke his heart by bolting for Indianapolis. His point was stop taking sports so seriously and don't give your heart over to a professional sports team, it's just a greedy corporate business. (There was also something in there about his beloved Cubbies being bought by the evil Tribune Company, though he didn't mention, as a friend in the newspaper business pointed out, he was among the first to break the News's picket line, against Tribune, during the contentious strike of 1990-91.)

Interesting take for someone whose livelihood depended on people maintaining a vested interest in the teams he wrote about. I pointed this out in a followup. He never wrote back.

[ashie62]

Got this email from Bondy after emailing him on his 10/14 article.

Ted:

Yanks ask Rangers not to overuse Lee in World Series. Want him in tip-top shape for spring training in Tampa...

Arrogantly yours,
Filip

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Rangers have retired exactly one player's jersey (aside from Jackie Robinson's)-and attempted to counter George M. Steinbrenner with George W. Bush in the owner's box.

He realizes teams don't buy the owner, right?

[dgwphotography]

Monumental - ha, I see what you did there...

[HahnSolo]

G-Fafif wrote: as a friend in the newspaper business pointed out, he was among the first to break the News's picket line, against Tribune, during the contentious strike of 1990-91.)

Two things about Bondy. The first week I entered the corporate world in 1990 was when that strike began. I got off the 5 train at Union Square and heard a guy railing about the evil newspapers. The man looked like he hadn;t bathed or shaved in months (remember, this was about 36 hours after the strike began). It was Bondy.

The other thing? I always wondered by Peter Vecsey referred to him as "Ding Dong" Bondy. now I know.

[Frayed Knot]

The type of fan Bondy prefers to promote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztPQieRucKE&feature=related

[ashie62]

Sub-neanderthal

[MFS62]

Ashie62 wrote: Got this email from Bondy after emailing him on his 10/14 article. Ted: Yanks ask Rangers not to overuse Lee in World Series. Want him in tip-top shape for spring training in Tampa... Arrogantly yours, Filip

I want him to be tied to a chair in a warm, humid roon, his eyelids taped open, and forced to watch game 6 on a continuous loop for, say, ten years.

Later

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Got this email from Bondy after emailing him on his 10/14 article. Ted: Yanks ask Rangers not to overuse Lee in World Series. Want him in tip-top shape for spring training in Tampa... Arrogantly yours, Filip

Funny. I'm pretty sure I didn't write the same thing as you, and yet I got the following response:

Francis: Yanks ask Rangers not to overuse Lee in World Series. Want him in tip-top shape for spring training in Tampa... Arrogantly yours, Filip

[metirish]

Those are real ?, I mean the guys a total douchebag but that would put him in a different bracket.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Oh, indeed.

I just thanked him for putting the same amount of thought into his form-letter middle-finger as he does his columns.

[ashie62]

I asked him if he got paid for writing this stuff. he must be on robo-email..What a douche.

[Valadius]

Bondy just wrote an article basically proclaiming the Yankees the victors of the NLCS. Douchebag.

[stevejrogers]

Valadius wrote: Bondy just wrote an article basically proclaiming the Yankees the victors of the NLCS. Douchebag.

Reaching Val, reaching.

Though would have been shocking and very nice if Bondy, or anyone for that matter, made the connection that Righetti started his big league life with the Rangers.

[ashie62]

SteveJRogers wrote: Valadius wrote: Bondy just wrote an article basically proclaiming the Yankees the victors of the NLCS. Douchebag. Reaching Val, reaching. Though would have been shocking and very nice if Bondy, or anyone for that matter, made the connection that Righetti started his big league life with the Rangers.

Not reaching at all really...

[stevejrogers]

Ashie62 wrote: SteveJRogers wrote: Valadius wrote: Bondy just wrote an article basically proclaiming the Yankees the victors of the NLCS. Douchebag. Reaching Val, reaching. Though would have been shocking and very nice if Bondy, or anyone for that matter, made the connection that Righetti started his big league life with the Rangers. Not reaching at all really...

So, if an article comes out talking up Ryan's Met beginnings or even Francoeur's ex-Met status, that should be proclaiming a Met victory of the ALCS?

[stevejrogers]

Aliright, number one, it's only mentioned in the headline, which is rarely, if ever, written by the author of the piece, and a brief couple of graphs on Righetti's thoughts on if the Yankees had made it. Not exactly saying Righetti brought over tons of techniques and winning attitude learned from the dozen or so pitching coaches and managers he had when pitching in the Bronx, and that is why The Giant pitching staff is awesome.

Second, even if you want to presume 99 percent of readers know Dave Righetti's history in New York, it's still for the 1 percent that might not know and would be wondering why the fuck is this reporter is chatting up the Giants's pitching coach.

Look if Righetti was an ex Met you wouldn't be calling douchebagery on this exact article, swap Yankees for Mets in the title, article when it gets linked to in the Rico thread.

[seawolf17]

I'm stunned by that original article. How does that get past an editor? Sweet sassy molassey.

I actually read his Creatures book. Horrifying.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

He responded twice last night to my responses, and put a little more effort into 'em. (Funnily enough, WHILE he was working, during last night's clincher.)

Just taking a break between end-of-weekend chores. I'll post tomorrow.

[ashie62]

SteveJRogers wrote: SteveJRogers wrote: Valadius wrote: Bondy just wrote an article basically proclaiming the Yankees the victors of the NLCS. Douchebag. Reaching Val, reaching. Though would have been shocking and very nice if Bondy, or anyone for that matter, made the connection that Righetti started his big league life with the Rangers. Not reaching at all really... So, if an article comes out talking up Ryan's Met beginnings or even Francoeur's ex-Met status, that should be proclaiming a Met victory of the ALCS?

thats reaching.