If the Sox can do it, how about Cornell?

[Jerseygirl]

And for the record, I have mixed feelings about A-Rod being a Yankee, even though he was really nice when I blatently checked him out and gave him a "how you doin'?" on E. 82nd before I realized he was, in fact, A-Rod.  It was totally obnoxious of me.  Anyway, my point is that he wanted to be in Boston.

But if I were on my way to first and there were two guys on the basepath trying to get me out, I have to say I would have swatted the hell out of them too.  Yeah, it was a blatent swat, but they should have just had the ball, not their bodies, in the way.  Both of them screwed up, advantage goes to the runner.

Unsurprisingly I could go on all night, but I should probably get away from this board and have a life...

[DeltaOne81]

My hell yeah for your bandwagon comment was delayed .

Btw, my friends can be very nice people otherwise. Something about being a Yankees fan just does that to many people.

I will bring up a point of contention though... you bash Damon's hair and then are mad at Sox fans who deride Arod (new name: Slappy) and Jeter for non-baseball related things!?! You can take either side on that one - its all in good fun, or its mean (college hockey fans would tend to go for #1), but you can't do both at once. Its not all in good fun against the Sox, but inappropriate against the Yanks - ya gotta admit, I got ya there .

So yes, Damon's a caveman/jesus/bigfoot and Pedro's a head hunter (so was/is Clemens)... and ARod's a spoiled cheater and Jeter is a pretty boy. All sounds fair to me.

Yes, sure, there are plenty of aholes on both sides. Unfortunately, by now, its a Middle-East-conflict thing, where no one knows who started it. One things for sure though, in the last 9 seasons, Yankees fans has plenty of chances to show good sportsmanship in triumph, and by-in-large failed miserably. So I really can't say that I blame the people on the receiving end of that for so long, for striking back when they finally have a chance? I don't blame your friend David for acting back to that guy, in the same way you can't blame Sox fans after they've been on the receiving end of that for 86 years (well, at least a decade, take your pick).

What your calling may happen if they win the series. But if the ALCS decreases the Yankee bandwagon-ism, that's good enough

P.S. There's nothing wrong with throwing a ball back. In some places (Wrigley) its a tradition. Although, that ball made it out of the park, so some fan on Landsdowne Street had one hell of an arm.

[Jerseygirl]

I wasn't the one who made up the Unfrozen Caveman nickname.  I believe that was Bill Simmons, ESPN's the Sports Guy, who is a huuuuuuuuuge Sox fan.

[DeltaOne81]

never said you made it up, but it sure wasn't meant as a compliment :-)

[Jerseygirl]

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:

 Hey, I actually happen to like Johnny Damon in general....[/q]

[Josh '99]

[Q]puff Wrote:
 maybe it'd work if the goalie is chased in the first[/q]"Who's your daddy" "worked", IMO, because Pedro said the Yanks were his daddy.  I have yet to hear an opposing goaltender say the same.  *shrug*

[Josh '99]

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:
I'll defend my team, of which I have been a fan ever since Derek Jeter was still a skinny, mullet sporting, high schooler...[/q]Jeter had a mullet?  Is he canadian and we never realized it?   ::screwy:: :-P

[jbeaber1998]

I'm a diehard sx fanand refer to Damon exclusively as Captain Caveman, referencing the fine animated character.  I was deeply impressed with my friends who cheer for the Yanks.  Two called me and graciously extended congrats.  And I, despite WAY TOO MUCH tequila, was able to respond somewhat maturely back.  This is the greatest rivalry in pro sports and is a lot of fun.  Both teams have idiots (Petie going after heads and making dumb comments, A-Rod slap), both have hitters you totally fear (Matsui, Manny, Papi, Giambi as long as he is on the Roids, Jeter).  This is hopefully the fun of it all.  All else being said, Yanks fans finally fully understand what it feels like to be a Sox fan....

[RichS]

Uh, no actually, we don't and never will....lol.  Unless one happens to also be a Rangers' fan!  :-D

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]jbeaber1998 Wrote:

 I'm a diehard sx fanand refer to Damon exclusively as Captain Caveman, referencing the fine animated character.  I was deeply impressed with my friends who cheer for the Yanks.  Two called me and graciously extended congrats.  And I, despite WAY TOO MUCH tequila, was able to respond somewhat maturely back.  This is the greatest rivalry in pro sports and is a lot of fun.  Both teams have idiots (Petie going after heads and making dumb comments, A-Rod slap), both have hitters you totally fear (Matsui, Manny, Papi, Giambi as long as he is on the Roids, Jeter).  This is hopefully the fun of it all.  All else being said, Yanks fans finally fully understand what it feels like to be a Sox fan....
[/q]
I wish I felt this was true. Yankees fans are always gracious in defeat, and then next time they win, they're right back to arrogant jerks (again, most). They were gracious about losing to the DBacks, the Angle, the Marlins... but all summer it was "I don't know why the Red Sox even bother, we all know how it'll end."

Maybe the greatest collapse/comeback in the history of baseball will change things, but I won't believe it 'til I see it. Maybe I'll see it, maybe not .

[billhoward]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:
But that's what makes us love sports - each game starts 0-0 and just about anything can happen.[/q]

This suggests the makings of a natural-born TV announcer: This ability to realize and expound on the natural patterns of sports hidden too far beneath the surface for others to capture and appreciate.

[jkahn]

[Q] billhoward wrote:
[Q]jkahn Wrote:
But that's what makes us love sports - each game starts 0-0 and just about anything can happen.[/Q]


This suggests the makings of a natural-born TV announcer: This ability to realize and expound on the natural patterns of sports hidden too far beneath the surface for others to capture and appreciate.[/Q]

I actually wanted to do Cornell hockey play-by-play at the beginning of my freshman year.  I walked into VBR and asked about it, but WCHU had the contract and a long-time entrenched announcer, Sam Woodside.  I did do sports and news for one night a week on VBR in '66-'67, but my style was getting the facts out there, rather than expounding.  

[billhoward]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

 [Q2] billhoward wrote:
[Q2]jkahn Wrote:
But that's what makes us love sports - each game starts 0-0 and just about anything can happen.[/Q]
This suggests the makings of a natural-born TV announcer: This ability to realize and expound on the natural patterns of sports hidden too far beneath the surface for others to capture and appreciate.[/Q]
I actually wanted to do Cornell hockey play-by-play at the beginning of my freshman year.  I walked into VBR and asked about it, but WCHU had the contract and a long-time entrenched announcer, Sam Woodside.  I did do sports and news for one night a week on VBR in '66-'67, but my style was getting the facts out there, rather than expounding.[/q]

If you were competing against Sam Woodside, whew! Now there was a legend of a special sort. One of the charms of small town sports is the authenticity and color and occasioal malapropisms of the announcers and sportswriters: decent guys who are overworked and underpaid and you love them for their foibles as well as everything else.Same for the print writers. Remember the Dan Jenkins novel about small-town sportswriting in the 1930s? It rang true a lifetime later when it came out. And you must have crossed the path of Jay Levine before he headed off for Philadelphia and the big time (and whatever became of him?). That was the last gasp of Cornell's being in the big time, getting major writers to come see Marinaro play football, getting a banner across the top of the sports page when he broke the rushing record.

To bring the conversation full circle to Boston again, another huge change in sports has been the quality of newspaper sports section and sportswritng and coverage. Competititon from TV, later deadlines, faster transmission of stories back to the paper, digital photography the last decade, it's all vastly better, or has the ability to be better. And -- sorry, Yankees fans -- the paper that epitomized the change was the Globe of the 1970s and 1980s. Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Ray Fitzgerald (RIP), Dan Shaughnessy, Lesley Visser, Leigh Montville, Fran Rosa (sports editor), that was a murderers row that never got traded to New York. They made you delight in the sports page. The Globe's brilliance at the time was such a contrast to the neanderthal pennings that marked Dick Young of the Daily News (uppity blacks and players looking for a decent salary were not to his liking) and the NY Times must then and now have a banner in the department that reads, "Gravitas uberalles." Today, the Times is shocked, shocked by the quasi-professionalism of college athletics and the bumblings of the Olympic Committee.

There was no finer treat than Bob Ryan's Globe column the day after a Celtics - Lakers game. I had dinner a couple months ago with Lesley Visser (well, I was at the same table at a charity event with her, three others, and Boomer Esiason). The woman is the same age is me, I saw her last at an awards banquet in 1979, and she is essentially unchanged. I was in love then and now. (She also tells stories as good or better than Boomer.) Sheesh, now there's one person who stays in shape. Like many others who made the switch to TV, you can't begrudge them the money, but when you're reduced from writing with passion and intelligence to being a looker on the sideline sticking a mike in someone's face, I don't think you can show off the range of your talents.

[billhoward]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

 [Q2] billhoward wrote:
[Q2]jkahn Wrote:
But that's what makes us love sports - each game starts 0-0 and just about anything can happen.[/Q]
This suggests the makings of a natural-born TV announcer: This ability to realize and expound on the natural patterns of sports hidden too far beneath the surface for others to capture and appreciate.[/Q]
I actually wanted to do Cornell hockey play-by-play at the beginning of my freshman year.  I walked into VBR and asked about it, but WCHU had the contract and a long-time entrenched announcer, Sam Woodside.  I did do sports and news for one night a week on VBR in '66-'67, but my style was getting the facts out there, rather than expounding.[/q]

Sam Woodside is a classic example of the colorful characters who are part of a small town sports scene, him and Kenny Van Sickle of the Ithaca Journal. Because you love the team, you come to love a person like Sam, malapropisms and all. That was also the era of Jay Levine, a young WHCU charger who moved on to Philadelphia and the big time (and where did he go from there?). 'VBR was a training ground for a lot of broadcast and media professionals. Mark Liff I recall, also. The nice thign about WVBR over my Cornell Daily Sun is radio forces you to keep it short, and that's an important tool for all forms of media once you're out and looking for work.

[billhoward]

Announcers and sportswriters are such boneheads. The odds of a comeback from a 3-0 deficit are one in sixteen if the two teams are equal - one in two for each game - 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2. Most teams that got into 3-0 deficts are not the equal of the team that got them in that condition, either unequals in general, or unequals at that time because of, say, injuries to key players.

Of course, if Fox Sports brought on a statistician to explain to the fans, it wouldn't be so good for ratings.