Schadenfreude

Major victories do not come often for the Royals. As far as relatively recent history goes, we mostly just have that time we swept the Cardinals in St Louis. The next best thing is for the Yankees to lose. If we are the ones to beat them then so much the better, but watching the Yankees lose when it really matters almost literally leaves a sweet taste in one’s mouth. There are many things to hate about the Yankees: their arrogance, their selfishness, the fact that they think they are entitled to victories and the fact that their glory hunters fill Kauffman Stadium every time they come to town. Robinson Cano recently added another one by snubbing Billy Butler for the Home Run Derby. Billy is not quite a bona fide home run hitter it is true, but he is having a very good year and has actually hit more home runs than Prince Fielder right now. More importantly, however, the Home Run Derby is there to put on a show for the fans and the show would have been a lot nicer with Billy Butler playing in front of his home town crowd. It does not matter which league wins, in fact more than a few Royals fans were cheering for Carlos Beltran of the National League!

But Cano, after hinting that he might choose Butler, chose Mark Trumbo instead. He decided that his league winning a meaningless contest was more important than entertaining the fans who were paying to watch. It was a very typically Yankee thing to do; he may as well have actually stuck two fingers up at the fans. But Royals fans are a mostly knowledgeable bunch. They recognised the snub and responded appropriately: they booed Cano in batting practice, they booed Cano when he was announced and they booed him when he came to the plate whilst mixing in some ‘Billy Butler’ chants. All that was to be expected, but where they really shone was that they never let up. It would have been easy to throw some boos at him and then return to ‘normal service’, but they did not. They booed every pitch to him and roared every time he failed to hit a home run. It clearly got ot Cano who stepped out twice to towel himself off and take another drink of Gatorade. No other player had stepped out at all as far as I had seen. His reception continued and Cano did not manage to hit a single home run, the only player to so fail. Cano snubbed Kansas City and was brought to his knees by our fans. It almost tastes as good as Alex Rodriguez striking out to end the Yankees season last October. I have never been prouder to be a Royals fan; we may be few but we are the best in baseball.

Ten best sporting moments of 2011

I know the sporting year isn’t over yet. I actually had a conversation on Twitter about whether I ought to write a ‘year end’ style post or save it for after the Test. I decided to save my full year in review post for later, but at the same time I would be very surprised if anything happened that warranted an inclusion on this list. If I’m wrong I can always write a revision as well, so with that in mind here are my top ten sporting moments of 2011:

10 – New Zealand winning the Hobart Test
I know my Aussie readers won’t like this, but it was a pretty important moment. New Zealanders probably care more about winning the Rugby World Cup, but they had not won a Test in Australia for 26 years before this. Doug Bracewell may be a great find for the Kiwis and the conclusion of the match was one of the most thrilling you will see.

9 – Tigers winning Game 5 of the ALDS
I love watching the Yankees lose. I love watching the Yankees lose deciding games in the playoffs even more. But most of all I love watching Alex Rodriguez strike out to lose a deciding game in the playoffs in front of a very put out Yankee Stadium crowd.

8 – Royals winning a three game series in New York
The Royals spent most of the month of April this year in or near first place. (It’s true, look it up.) Whilst losing six in a row to the Rangers and Indians at the end of April basically put an end to any notion of contending, there were still bright spots after that. In the second week of May the Royals travelled to New York and won two out of three against the Yankees. The deciding game of the series saw the Royals score six runs in the second inning, including Eric Hosmer’s second major league home run and some terrible defensive mistakes by the Yankees. It was the Royals first series win in New York since 1999.

7 – Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
It was the match that that caused the media to accept City as genuine title contenders. More importantly it was the match that made United supporters very cross and thus made Liverpool supporters like myself very happy.

6 – Australia reduced to 21-9 at Cape Town
With apologies to my Australian readers. Though as much as I enjoyed this I was more astonished to watch the innings unfold. On no fewer than three occasions I thought there must surely be a recovery, surely they couldn’t lose another wicket. I was wrong on all three occasions, as by the time the recovery did come I had stopped expecting it. Almost as amazing as the innings itself was the shot selection of Brad Haddin and the fact that he wasn’t immediately dropped because of it. Both defy belief.

5 – England winning the Cardiff Test
I already used this in my best moments in English cricket this year, so there isn’t a lot more to say. Nonetheless, it was incredible watching England go from just wanting a few wickets to Sri Lanka not even coming close to saving the Test and certainly belongs on this list as well.

4 – Virender Sehwag making a king pair at Edgbaton/Stuart Broad’s Trent Bridge hat trick
I’ve included these together for their similarity, not only because they both involve Indian wickets falling cheaply. Broad’s hat trick marked the end of the last time India would have an advantage in the series, but I think Sehwag’s king pair marked the last time India had any real hope. It was also a moment of personal pleasure, because Sehwag is massively overrated. He has a good record on the flat pitches of the subcontinent and that is it; his aggression is not suited for English conditions or anywhere the ball does a bit. After the second Test I read about and saw Indians claiming that he would save the series for them and I rather enjoyed being vindicated.

3 – Cardinals winning Game 6 of the World Series
I’m a Royals fan, but years of living amongst Cardinals fans in Kirksville made me rather sympathetic to them. (Though I always hated when they would gripe about ‘barely being .500’ or some such.) Add that to the fact that I hate the Texas Rangers and I was definitely cheering for the Cardinals in the last World Series. Even if I hadn’t, however, I think their multiple comebacks in Game 6 would have had to rank high on a list of best sporting moments, as it was absolutely astonishing.

2 & 1 – Lancashire winning the County Championship and England winning the Ashes
How could I not copy these from my first list? England winning the Ashes in Australia is the only thing that could possibly trump Lancashire winning the title outright. Neither had ever happened before in my lifetime and for them both to happen this year is almost an embarrassment of riches. I have little doubt they will be on a list of best moments in the decade should I make one in 2020.

Edited to add: The Guardian have produced their list of cricketing moments, but there is a lot of World Cup stuff at the expense of Lancs.

It’s such a beautiful night

Tonight was a good night. Tigers 3-2 Yankees. Since the Royals have not made it to the postseason in my lifetime, my biggest October desire is to see the Yankees lose. I despise the Yankees, to an extent not normally seen outside top tier football leagues. (Look at my tweets during game five if you doubt me.) I also despise several Yankees individually. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher are the three that spring most readily to mind, and the fact that two of them struck out with the bases loaded in the seventh gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I won’t say that I despise all Yankee fans, but I have hated every one of them with which I have ever come in contact. The amount of schadenfreude gained from watching 50,000 of them with their heads in their hands is almost incomparable.

Wankers

Season’s over, assholes

The game could hardly have gone better. A blowout would have been fun, but the air of crushing disappointment when Fuck-Rod struck out to end the game was palpable even watching on TV and it was wonderful. A blowout would have been much more gradual, and a lot of the ‘fans’ in attendance would have gone home early, as they did in game seven of the 2004 ALCS. It’s fun, but it’s not as fun. Also a blowout would not have involved Fuck-Rod striking out with the tying run on second in the seventh inning, and you can’t put a price on that sort of thing. (In fact, Fuck-Rod struck out three times to finish his ALDS 2-18. It’s those sort of numbers that give me faith in humanity.)

Fuck-Rod

There isn’t a cloud in the sky here. The moon is out and it’s quite warm in spite of the lateness of the hour and the month. And the New York Yankees and their fans will have six months of drinking their own tears.

Don’t let me down

I’m very disappointed that the Yankees forced a game five. I really didn’t think they would, but not so much due to the immediate stats. Whilst AJ Burnett had an ERA above five in the regular season, and 6.99 in his last ten starts, he got enough run support to go 3-2 in that stretch. Porcello, meantime, had an ERA in his last ten starts of 5.28, so I didn’t expect either pitcher to last long (Burnett was very lucky to only give up one run).

Why I really expected the Yankees to fail was because of their decidedly ordinary record recently in the ALDS. In the 21st century they have a record of 22-18. It’s not bad, mind, but it’s not great. If you throw out their record against the Twins, however, it drops to just 10-16. (As an aside: Both losses against the Twins were in New York. In Minnesota in the ALDS the Yankees are 7-0.) When facing elimination in game four the Yankees had lost three out of their previous four (lost to the Angels in 2002, beat the Angels in 2005, lost to the Tigers in 2006 and lost to the Indians in 2007).

So the Yankees have done well to force a game five, and now it’s a rematch of game one (sort of). They have home field advantage, but I think the Tigers will win. (I really, really hope I’m right this time.) Doug Fister is, I am convinced, a better pitcher than Ivan Nova (game one notwithstanding). I don’t think Nova will succumb to the pressure of the occasion, but I do think that he will be outpitched. Alex Rodriguez, on the other hand, will succumb to the pressure or whatever it is that causes him to play like he’s too busy copulating with himself to remember how to use a bat in the month of October. (The simplest explanation is often the best, and I suspect the reason he plays like that is because he’s too busy copulating with himself in the dugout to remember how to use a bat.)

I hope I’m right though, because I really f*cking hate the Yankees.