Begun: It’s depressing when all I can say for my team is: at least our manager hasn’t been hit with a DUI. Though if the Yankees keep playing like they have been, I won’t blame Joe Torre for hittin’ the bottle. They’re got a double-digit deficit in games behind the Red Sox, who have lost, like, once this year. I’m practically in the rotation, it’s so banged up. We’ve used something on the order of 20 different pitchers, including such luminaries as Tyler Clippard, Matt DeSalvo and, probably at some point, Yo Mamma. The alleged savior, Roger Clemens, is due back Monday—but to what end? One guy’s not going to make up that many games. You know things are bad when a guy is able to do a straight-up steal of home against one of your pitchers, as happened to Andy Pettitte on Tuesday night. I mean, if that isn’t rock-bottom, I don’t know what is. It was the baseball equivalent of falling on your bum during the evening-gown portion of a Miss Universe competition.
Watson: True enough—Joe Torre (a former Cardinal catcher, you may recall) has not literally fallen asleep at the wheel—yet. But then again, no Cardinal has been photographed out on the town(s) with a buxom blonde who is not his wife! A-Rod—the gift that keeps on giving to the bleacher bums.
What makes this season particularly painful for Cardinal Nation is the defense of the World Series ring. Last year, as you know, the Redbirds won it all, despite having won the fewest number of regular-season games of any World Series champion. It got a little old, the criticism of a tainted crown you’d hear at parties. So I, like many of my Cardinal brethren, were looking for the Birds to come out and vindicate their victory. Instead, in an ominous portent, they dropped their first series of the season to the Mets, even as they were handing out the rings.
But enough whining: What do we do about it? What can we take from, say, Cub fans about how to face a season in the cellar?
Begun: What do we do about it? We sit alone, at home, and scream obscenities at the TV. Or maybe that’s just me. I’d like to point out that since you and I started this little thread, our teams are a collective 2-0. We both won Wednesday night, and no one stole home off one of our pitchers. Major progress. So we’re going to have to keep this up; as long as we keep writing, they’ll keep winning. Mentally, I’m not ready to accept the fact that this season’s permanently in the cellar. Teams have been roughly this far out and come back to win it all—the Marlins in 2003, the Yankees in 1978. This Yankee team is not the ‘78 team, but I also don’t think it’s the 1984 team, which was 14.5 out at about this point in the season (and finished 17 out). So I hold out hope. But this certainly is an odd feeling. The Yankees have been a playoff team every year since 1995, Bill Clinton’s first term, and here we are talking about whether his wife will be president.
Watson: You’re right: There has been a brief renaissance. But just when I start to get my hopes up, I notice that perhaps the hottest-hitting Cardinal through the early months—the catcher, Yadier Molina, improbably enough—just landed on the DL with a fractured wrist. And you guys have a series against the white-hot Red Sox just ahead.
My coping mechanism: I open to the box scores, curse—and then immediately comfort myself by looking at the other cellar-dwellers out there. I mean, we stink—but we’re still ahead of Cincinnati in the NL Central. And the Washington Nationals! There are four teams under .400! Life is good! And when that doesn’t work, I pretend baseball season hasn’t started yet.
Begun: I feel your pain. Our stud pitcher, Phil Hughes, was out with a pulled hamstring, and was due back soon. Then he went and sprained his ankle, which will sideline him until mid to late summer. How does anyone that’s not, say, a horse mess up a leg that badly while running? My coping mechanism is sheer denial. You should try it some time; it’s very powerful. I look at the box scores, or watch “SportsCenter,” and think, “OK, how long until this is over?” Cosmically, it’s just not possible that the Yankees could be in the same orbit as the Devil Rays. Just not possible. Just not possible …
Watson: The real question is: Can anyone else feel sorry for a dejected Yankee fan? I mean, no disrespect, but the Cardinals, whatever you think of them, haven’t generated the kind of mass hatred that a proud and boastful New York team has. The Busch family could never compete with George Steinbrenner for villainy on the national stage (though I confess, there has seldom been a greater irony than the decision by the House that Budweiser Built to ban alcohol in the Cardinal clubhouse after Hancock’s death). (Unless this counts as a greater irony: the group of investors that bought the team from the Busch family a few years back was headed by the guy who once bought out George Bush’s busted oil company). But really, can either one of us credibly whine? Will Cub fans throw batteries at us?
Begun: I can whine. Whether that whining is credible is another matter. But, you know, everything’s relative. The Yankees not making the playoffs would be a deviation from what’s been normal for me. For Cubs fans—for Pirates fans, say—making the playoffs, or even having a .500 season, would deviate from what’s normal to them. And once you head off into unknown waters, things get scary. (Hold me?) This Yankee team isn’t all that easy to like. It’s not the team that came together in 1996, the homegrown guys who wanted it bad and played like that. That ended with the signing of Jason Giambi (who now may be out the rest of the year with a foot injury). As a Yankee fan, though, I’ve come to terms with people hating the team. It’s understandable; I don’t begrudge people their hatred. But batteries? Ow.
Watson: It’s a different calculus for a Cards fan; we aren’t so worried about the hating, we just want the respect. Which is hard to ask for when the fellas aren’t playing respectably. It’s also hard to grumble too much when they did just grab the crown. Plus, they’ve won two. It’s a streak! Could it be time to put down the pity cup, and start believing again? Maybe baseball season just started, after all.
Begun: Yeah. And, if not, I guess there’s always the Rams. The NFL season kicks off in only three more months.
