Let's Go _____________ !

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

While the Mets mount their stunning comeback, the following teams this morning remain in their respective division races fewer than 6 games back.

Fill in the blank(s) with your backup rooting interest(s) -- one per non-NL East division.

Discuss your selections!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

If you're picking teams other than the Pirates in the Central, I don't know what to do for you.

Elsewise, gimme the A's and O's, and their die-hard empty seats.

[metirish]

In no particular order


Arizona......gave us one of the best baseball moments ever in 2001.....I remember the local rags deploring us to root for the MFY's because really we'd be rooting for NY and a new brave world.......the reaction here was .....puke and FU ......

Pirates ......been waiting for this current crew to come of age....seems like we have been talking about a lot of these players since they were just prospects....

Rangers.......would be happy to see them win one.....exciting to watch

White Sox......only for Rockin Robbin ....otherwise I could care less about them

[Ceetar]

I picked the Pirates, but after I clicked I changed my mind to Beltran..i mean the Cardinals.

I just can't root for the Pirates. they're supposed to be bad. They're the archetypal bad team. It messes with my head.'

Otherwise, in order Tigers/Orioles/Giants/Angels I like the Tigers, Verlander. Orioles are the closest to taking over the division so I like them, Always sorta liked the Giants and Angels, probably just because those are my favorite of the 5 Cali cities.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

White Sox for Ventura, and the Orioles for a friend who is a die-hard O's fan. He probably goes to 30 games a year, and is loving this season.

[Frayed Knot]

Rays - because I don't believe in the Orioles and the Boston Valentines are too far out and too injured. Plus they just got Longoria back for the first time since May

ChiSox - for Robin and just to be anti-Tiger (although there's always the temptation to root for the best anti-MFY medicine and that might be the Detroit Verlanders)

A's - I don't believe it (they just don't hit enough) although it would be fun

Pirates - just a race between them and Cincy would be fun, and I'd pull for an Astros comeback before picking the Cardinals

Giants - more anti-LAD and Snakes than anything specific, plus seeing all that pitching in the post-season would be fun

Edited August 8, 2012 by Guest

[metirish]

I'd like to pick the A's too but I thought the criteria was one per division when it's not the NL East.....bit confusing to me anyways....

Bucket?

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: I'd like to pick the A's too but I thought the criteria was one per division when it's not the NL East.....bit confusing to me anyways....

Right, one team from each of the other five divisions.
You could pick the A's but would have to do so instead of your earlier pick of Texas
The only division you failed to pick before was AL East

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You can pick a team in each division.

I went O's, Chisox, A's, Pirates, Dodgers, though I really don't care for the NL West in general.

Gotta love the O's. They are damn near knocking on the door with a -54 run differential, won in 14 innings last night.

I've been on the Ventura bandwagon since the start. Pirates pulled my underdog-rooting muscle last year but gotta give it up to them for having an even better run this year. I suppose the Reds are OK, but they've beaten us up a few times already this year including twice with me in attendance so fuck them and Dusty.

[Guest sharpie]

I'm with JCL except for Giants over Dodgers because I used to live there and I can't warm up to Don Mattingly. I for some reason missed clicking on the AL Central however. Count one more vote for the Chisox.

[MFS62]

Rays, because they have good luck against the MFYs.
ChiSox, because a longtime friend roots for them.
Rangers, because they would be outmanaged again in a World Series, and lose to an NL team.
Pirates, the team I rooted for when my first team moved West. And that's why ...
I can't root for any teams in the NL West, so none of the would be my "backup".

Later

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

O's because it's been a long time
Tigers because my wife is from Michigan
A's because I want sabermetrics to win
Pirates because it's even longer than the O's
Giants because I don't care for any team in the NL West but San Francisco is nice city

[ashie62]

Oakland..I was ordered not to pick on my younger brother in 1973 as he was a young A's fan.

I was so depressed when Matlack got shelled in game 7 that I hid in an empty refrigerator box in the backyard til dark.

So, I kinda like to see them do well..

[Gwreck]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: If you're picking teams other than the Pirates in the Central, I don't know what to do for you.

Exactly.

I am surprised by votes for the Angels, White Sox and Giants. Recent winners of the World Series need no extra help from us.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Gwreck wrote: I am surprised by votes for the Angels, White Sox and Giants. Recent winners of the World Series need no extra help from us.

I'm not so enthusiastic about the Giants but the D-Backs are also recent winners of the World Series and I have a genetic dislike for the Dodgers. Maybe if the Padres were in it, I'd root for them.

[Ceetar]

Gwreck wrote: I am surprised by votes for the Angels, White Sox and Giants. Recent winners of the World Series need no extra help from us.

Don't worry, If history has taught me anything, rooting for them is not going to be 'help'.

[TransMonk]

I'm with JCL.

Mostly the Sox for Robin and my old man's a fan.

Would love a Bucs-Sox WS.

[metsmarathon]

some of these races are easy to pick a rooting interest.

in the AL east, the o's are the obvious choice, unless hte sole goal is unseating and/or defeating hte mfy's in the playoffs, in which case the rays are a decent choice. it's not like there's anything necessarily unlikeable about them, only that the o's are so much more underdoggey that they beg the rooting.

in the al west, is there a more underdoggy team than the a's? the a's, for whom it was questioned why they should even be allowed an all star representative? the a's whose two most expensive players are yoenis cespedis and coco freaking crisp? the a's who need to move but can't because of a shitty stadium and a shitty imaginary line? the a's whose top pitcher is bartolo freaking colon? the a's who, well, are the lowly a's.

i suppose you could root for texas to finally get over the hump, or for young mike trout and his angels, forlorn and forgotten with prince albert's rough start. but really, how can you not root for the a's?

in the nl central, again, the choice is obvious. it's the pirates. bonus points to the saint louis beltrans, and the dogged little cincinnati reds, plugging along just fine without masher joey votto. but it's the pirates. they've been such sad sacks for so damned long that you almost have to root for them, irrespective of past transgressions. like building up a young bobby bonilla into the kind of free agent a hungry dumb team would leap for.

in the nl west and the al central, teh choices are less clear. detroit is your favorite if you want to knock off the yankees, i think, but the white sox have ventura, a fact i keep on forgetting as i'm not paying nearly enough attention to baseball lately. also, do you really want to root for an infield whose corners comprise prince fielder and miguel cabrera? you're just going to feel awful when it all goes pear shaped, to match their pear shapes.

in the nl west, the dodgers are shaping up to be a left coast yankees, and is that the kind of hting you can support? i say no. sorry vin scully. though the success of hanley ramirez would reflect poorly on the miami charlatans. so thre's that. and the giants have melky cabrera as tehir top offensive threat. there's something both honorable about that, and disgraceful. i think its the yankees/braves cooties. sorry melky. in my mind, you shall always suck. and your current success feels only a fantasm. i just don't believe it's real. and so that leaves arizona, a team wfor whom i have such a lack of resonance, that i just checked tehir bb-ref page and still don't know anything abou tthem. except they gave up 3 homers to ike, and let harvey slap them silly. so for thata, i root for thee.

i think it's quite clear that if i were not a mets fan, and if i were a fan of osome other team somewhere outside the nl east, i would be rooting hard for hte nats. heck, i still am. i wish them well. not well enough to beat hte mets and finish ahead of them consistently, but well enough to give their own fans hope, and to provide a worth y foil for my own team. i'm sick of philly and atlanta. and miami? fuck those charlatans.

[Ceetar]

metsmarathon wrote: i think it's quite clear that if i were not a mets fan, and if i were a fan of osome other team somewhere outside the nl east, i would be rooting hard for hte nats. heck, i still am. i wish them well. not well enough to beat hte mets and finish ahead of them consistently, but well enough to give their own fans hope, and to provide a worth y foil for my own team. i'm sick of philly and atlanta. and miami? fuck those charlatans.

Nah, the media hype Strasburg and Harper get (although thankfully Trout tempers some of that) makes them never underdogs, not that I particularly want to root for an underdog, but the flapping over those two is enough to make me dislike the team.

[TransMonk]

Yeah, Nats Schmats. If the Mets can't win the East, I hope whoever does goes down hard and early.

[metsmarathon]

Ceetar wrote: metsmarathon wrote: i think it's quite clear that if i were not a mets fan, and if i were a fan of osome other team somewhere outside the nl east, i would be rooting hard for hte nats. heck, i still am. i wish them well. not well enough to beat hte mets and finish ahead of them consistently, but well enough to give their own fans hope, and to provide a worth y foil for my own team. i'm sick of philly and atlanta. and miami? fuck those charlatans. Nah, the media hype Strasburg and Harper get (although thankfully Trout tempers some of that) makes them never underdogs, not that I particularly want to root for an underdog, but the flapping over those two is enough to make me dislike the team.

don't be a hater. also, don't let hte media control you. and not liking somehting because the media likes it is not at all the same thing as not letting hte media control you.

[Ceetar]

metsmarathon wrote: metsmarathon wrote: i think it's quite clear that if i were not a mets fan, and if i were a fan of osome other team somewhere outside the nl east, i would be rooting hard for hte nats. heck, i still am. i wish them well. not well enough to beat hte mets and finish ahead of them consistently, but well enough to give their own fans hope, and to provide a worth y foil for my own team. i'm sick of philly and atlanta. and miami? fuck those charlatans. Nah, the media hype Strasburg and Harper get (although thankfully Trout tempers some of that) makes them never underdogs, not that I particularly want to root for an underdog, but the flapping over those two is enough to make me dislike the team. don't be a hater. also, don't let hte media control you. and not liking somehting because the media likes it is not at all the same thing as not letting hte media control you.

True.

but I'm against NL East teams besides the Mets having phenoms on general principle anyway.

[TransMonk]

Also, as good as he may be Harper comes of to me as quite the ass-hat, bro.

[Fman99]

I don't root for other MLB teams, as a rule.

So I'll go with

Let's Go See Strippers Who May or May Not Be Prostitutes!

[Frayed Knot]

You Orioles backers get a boost (or maybe not) by the big club announcing the promotion of Manny Machado today.
Machado, who just turned 20 y/o a month ago, was the 3rd pick of the 2010 draft out of HS where his size (6' 3"), position (SS), Spanish name, and Miami upbringing drew comparisons to a certain Alex Rodriguez.

The timing seems a bit odd in that, while doing quite well for his age, he hasn't dominated at his current level in AA Bowie (.266/352/.438)
You assume they didn't bring him up just to have him sit around so I guess that means the bench for the low-OBA but decent power JJ Hardy who's been the more or less regular SS most of the year.
Definitely a 'Go-For-It' move and hope he sparks the club over the final 50 games while the Yanx are in their current state of just waddling along.



oe: apparently Machado to play 3B for now, at least on a platoon basis with Wilson Betamit.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Guest

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Frayed Knot wrote: comparisons to a certain Alex Rodriguez.

Does he have a portrait of himself as a centaur?

[metsmarathon]

he decided to go for the more subtle minotaur portrait. you can't tell by looking at the bull's head, but that's his naked body above the living room sofa.

[Frayed Knot]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: comparisons to a certain Alex Rodriguez. Does he have a portrait of himself as a centaur?

Not sure.
The comparisons I've heard have all involved size, position, heritage, and location. No one that I've read has said anything about them also having rampant narcissism in common.

[Frayed Knot]

Machado starts his ML career by going 6-for-16 including 1 double, 1 triple and 3 HRs

Baltimore has slid 1/2 game behind the Rays in the AL East but still hold a 1/2 game lead for WC#2 over Oakland.

[G-Fafif]

Grantland's Michael Weinreb with the Bucs fans who've grown up without. Will almost make you forget the lingering bad taste from September 1990.

In September, when (and if, always if) the Pirates win their 82nd game of the season, a couple of things might happen. The first is that my friend JB, who has been flipping the bird to the Port Matilda highway exit as a spiritual release anytime he drives back through central Pennsylvania, may finally let his anger go. The second is that a man named Tim Crouse may engage in a solitary prayer ritual in Columbus, Ohio. Crouse grew up sitting in the cheap seats at Three Rivers; on that night in 1992, he sat by himself in the dark, in an armchair situated about two feet from the television because the rest of his family had gone to bed. He was 16 years old, and the next morning in the hallway at school, nobody really spoke. He has never gone back and watched the ninth inning since. Crouse lives in Columbus now. He, like Pat Lackey, is a member of the Lost Generation, one of those Pirates fans scattered across America who has spent the past 19 years feeling lonely and disconnected. A few years ago, his brother-in-law, as a taunt, gave him a baseball card, an Upper Deck commemorative shot of Bream's foot touching home plate while the Pirates' catcher, Mike LaValliere, lunges at Bream's thigh. He keeps it in his wallet as a reminder. "I'm just a really optimistic guy by nature," he tells me. "I don't think I ever really got close to giving up on them." Since he left town, Crouse's city has evolved, even as his baseball team has struggled to keep up. The transformation that Midwest cities like Cleveland and Detroit are trying to muddle through has already taken place in Pittsburgh. This is largely because of the fortune that industrialists like Carnegie and others endowed to local institutions; Pittsburgh is no longer one of the largest cities in the country, but it is a pioneer of Rust Belt urban renewal. If the Steelers represent the city's ties to what it used to be, it is not hard to imagine that the Pirates can become the embodiment of the new Pittsburgh, an extension of the aspirational ethos that led Barney Dreyfuss to build Forbes Field. There is no reason to endure history anymore, which is why, when (and if) the Pirates win their 82nd game, Crouse plans to remove the baseball card from his wallet, whisper some sort of invocation, and then set the damned thing on fire.