I don't want to be one of those people who hates baseball, because I don't. I really do love baseball, I do! There is no other sport going on in the summer, yet it seems appropriate that baseball is the only sport for the summer. Not to wax too nostalgic, but it's the heartbeat of the American summer, and I will love it just for that.
But I've not only not tuned into much of the World Series but I've done a whole lot to actively avoid it. I did that last year, and that was because the small-market Kansas City Royals won it all. I still hate it to this day. Don't really know why; looking back at it now my refusal to watch seems to stem from some irrational hatred.
However, after much thinking, I have come to this hypothesis about myself, and it's one I'm not all that proud of having. I hate with a passion the New York Yankees, and that was solidified when they had that massive run in the mid-nineties, when Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera were in their prime. That was the time when there was unfettered, deregulated player spending in Major League Baseball, which led to a huge stratification between the haves and the have-nots ... which really turned into the Yankees and everybody else. That's why they were dominant for so long, and therefore I grew to resent their built-in advantage -- one I'm not quite convinced they've lost, even though they've missed the playoffs for, like, the third year in a row.
So I should be overjoyed that the Royals slayed Goliath and won it all last year, right? No. It may be because I'm jealous that it's the Royals which were the small-market turn to finally fight the power and win the World Series in this new arms race in baseball. But I think it's something much weirder about me, and much more sinister: Once I see a team as "small-market" or "lucrative," I want them to remain that way. It defines them; it's something I can point to as a characteristic that I always know is inimical (is that the right word?) to their very identity. That's what the Twinks are. And that's what the Royals are -- well, were. And them winning it all last year offended something really deep in me. They were no longer consistent. They violated the immutable trait I knew them as, and when they, well, showed signs that they actually were winners, they betrayed the identity I ascribed to them. In turn, then, they screwed me over. And that means they're dead to me.
A lot of people are dead to me as soon as I feel they screwed me over. Maybe I should look into that.
Anyway, I look at the Chicago Cubs the same way. All my life -- and in the lives of most people on planet Earth -- the Cubbies were just the "Lovable Losers" on Waveland Avenue. But no, the Ricketts family decided they didn't want to be loser anymore, and then they hired baseball God Theo Epstein, who made move after miraculous move to turn the Cubs from David to Goliath. And really, God bless 'em. I have a lot of friends who are Cubs fans and are living and dying with every pitch of the Fall Classic. But I have to pay attention to the petty side of me: This is a change from the Cubs that I know, and that I think that they need to continue to be. That they are on the cusp of winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years is an affront to everything I knew them to be. They have no right to change their identity. And that's why I have this visceral hate for them. And that's why I'm not watching.
There's another facet to my thinking about this that may be a more direct understand of how I feel. The Cubs have traditionally been seen as the underdog. That may be true when you consider the franchise's entire history. But for this series, they certainly are not. They may be down three-games-to-two to Cleveland as of press time, but they still have the decisive advantage on paper, and I still give them a good shot of coming back to winning this whole thing. They are the favorites in this series. They are Goliath. And the fact that they got rid of their David identity to become what I and what I think Cubs fans have despised for so long is, in my view, hypocrisy. So that's another reason why I can't stand to watch the Cubs possibly win this.
So, I'm rooting for Cleveland, right? No. For the record I have a Facebook friend and a Mother I'd Like To Fuck who lives in Cleveland and is a fan. (Actually I remember her on Facebook holding her grandchild, so she's now a Grandmother I'd Like To Fuck.) And they're trying to steal this World Series with every trick Terry Francona can pull out of his bag of tricks. But ... their nickname is the Indians, man! And the organization and their fans won't give it up. So I can't root for a racist mascot either.
So you see that I have reasons to hate both teams. I'm not an objective observer with no dog in this fight; I hate both teams. So I'll try not to watch the World Series. However, if it goes to Game 7, maybe I'll have to reconsider. I reserve that right.
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