Win or lose, the Phillies getting no-hit in the World Series makes me happy

After the Braves got bounced from the playoffs, I mostly stopped paying attention to baseball.  There was a minute where I tangenally cared about the Yankees because mythical wife is a fan, but they were swept out of the ALCS almost as fast as the Braves were bounced from the NLDS, so it was really easy to throw my hands up and say ehh who cares to the rest of the playoffs.

Regardless, I still made a prediction that the Phillies were the team to beat, as much as it disgusts me to admit it, but most people know baseball playoffs are all about the team that gets hot, and the Phillies appear to be that team.  And I’ve stated throughout the years that there’s always a modicum of satisfaction in being right, even if it means undesirable teams emerge victorious, so even if the Phillies were to win a World Series, at least I could say that I was right about it.

Three games in, it looked like I was on the path to sports acumen satisfaction, with the Phillies obliterating the Astros in game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.  It made me disgust face knowing the Phillies would be champions, but at least I once again look like I know what I’m talking about with baseball, but pretty much all of the momentum comes to a screeching halt in game 4.

Now there’s still plenty of time in what effectively has become a best-of-three for the Phillies to right the ship and win the World Series.  But win or lose, the Phillies have entered the baseball hall of shame, as being just the second team in the history of the entire league to have ever been no-hit in the World Series.  Even if they lose, the Astros have cemented themselves as a historical standout in the annals of the game, as one of the two teams that have thrown a no-hitter in the World Series; so years from now when people talk about the Phillies winning in 2022, there will always be someone who will pipe in ehhhh wasn’t that the year they got no-hit in the World Series?

Yes, winning cures all ails, but getting no-hit is a pretty embarrassing dishonor to have on any team.  I’ve sat through, in-person, as the Braves were no-hit once, and let me tell you, it’s a humbling and disheartening ride, as the outs tick away, and you realize that the 9th inning is going to be like the 8-9-1 hitters having the last chance to break up the no-no.

And as much as I still think the Phillies just might win it all, for one cool night in Philadelphia, I can take sadistic satisfaction at knowing that 44,000 people in Citizens Bank Park who were raucously hoping for a 3-1 series lead, instead got collectively owned as their team was, as 29 motherfuckers stepped to the plate that night, and not a single one of them were able to notch a hit.

No matter what happens in the rest of the World Series, I’ll always remember this as a positive memory.

Now this is actually just like old times

A little while ago, after I wrote about the amazing finish to the regular season, where the Braves caught the Mets on the final weekend of the season and literally stole the NL East crown right from underneath them, I had this sneaking suspicion that I was tempting fate by doing such, and that once the playoffs began, the Braves would be ripe for a good old fashioned, first round NLDS* collapse, like they had done countless times in the past.  Baby luck was no longer in play, and by acknowledging in text that the Braves were anything other than a garbage organization not worth two pennies rubbed together, I was clearly pressing the boundaries of the universe that my feelings of high on the Braves were doomed to come crashing down once the playoffs actually began.

*can’t call it first round anymore thanks to the new wild card round

The fact that the Braves did in fact, get bounced from the NLDS doesn’t bother me; after all it’s something I’ve seen happen so many times that it’s more of an aberration when it doesn’t happen.  What actually does suck is that it came at the hands of the Phillies, which is a team that I’ve never liked at any point in history, so that part does give me some sour grapes.  If it had happened against the Cardinals, I would’ve been salty but unsurprised because it seemed like the Pujols and Yadi farewell tour would’ve been very appropriate to have had run over the Braves along the way, but when they failed to close out the Phillies in the first game of the wild card series, it was pretty much all downhill from there.

More than any other sport, baseball playoffs has and will always be a game for the team that gets hot at the right time.  Because games are played so closely together, momentum can really hang and maintain in baseball, and throughout the history of the playoffs since the inception of the wild card, so often times is the World Series winner the team that just catches fire and stays on fire for a month.  Aided by the magic baby luck brought on by #2’s birth, the Braves were that team that got hot, and stayed hot, and won it all last year, no matter how unworthy of the playoffs the 88-win team really was.

The Phillies appear to be that team that’s caught fire at the right time, and amazingly they did it in the midst of a game, where they looked all but defeated against the Cardinals, but the switch flipped, they came back on the Cardinals, put them out to pasture, rolled into Atlanta, and put the Braves out of their misery too.

As much as I dislike seeing the Phillies succeed, especially at the expense of the Braves, there’s a sadistic part of me that really wants to see the Padres advance on the Dodgers, so that we have an NLCS between the #5 and #6 seeds, with hopefully the Padres going to the World Series to play against the Seattle Mariners,** in a barn burner of a World Series nobody in the world wants to see.

**at the time I’m writing this, the Mariners have just blinked first in the 18th inning of their elimination game and are on the cusp of getting eliminated  🙁

But as for the Braves, it’s back to being the Barves all over again, getting bounced in the NLDS.  Yes, it’s something that does suck, but honestly?  The good thing about a fairly fresh World Series victory, or any championship for a favored team, is that it always creates a cushion of absorbing the disappointment of future defeats.  I can still say I got to see the Braves win a World Series in my lifetime as a Braves fan and as an Atlanta resident, and because it happened pretty recently, this year’s fuckup doesn’t really irk me at all.  Being a Braves fan, it’s mostly just kind of business as usual, losing in the NLDS.

All the same though, woof, what a shitty day to have been a sports fan.  This really was kind of like a bloody Saturday as far as my casual fandoms go.  The Braves get bounced from the playoffs by the Phillies, Virginia Tech takes the L against an equally unimpressive Miami squad.  Normally Alabama getting upset is always kind of amazing, but the fact that it happened against Tennessee is irksome enough, but then realizing that their quarterback is Hendon Hooker, who used to be Virginia Tech’s QB before he transferred out and has developed into this Alabama-beating Jesus motherfucker, leaves a little bit of bitter in my mouth.

Also, I learned that Dikembe Mutombo has a brain tumor and is undergoing treatment, which hopefully is successful.  Those who know me well enough, know of my fandom of Mutombo, so this isn’t just sad because he’s kind of a meme, it’s sad because I genuinely have always been a fan of the guy.

And the cherry on top?  #25 JMU, my very literal hometown school in Harrisonburg, nationally ranked in probably like the first time ever, immediately loses to Georgia Southern, and undoubtedly that ranking.  Heavy is the team that wears a ranking, and even the Dukes couldn’t salvage this turrible day to be a sports fan.

Also, the Mariners just lost and are bounced, so there goes the hopes for a Padres/Mariners World Series. 😭

Feels like old times

But this is one of those situations where I feel like the narrative of the Braves charging from behind to basically (almost) steal the division in the last week of the season, by also vanquishing the Mets in the process is something that’s happened before, but a little bit of fact-checking myself shows that even during the streak of 14-straight division titles, the only times the Braves have pulled the magic act of winning the division at the end of the regular season has only happened twice; and only once during my lifetime, barely, in 1982.

All the same, there’s something magical feeling about how the Braves’ season has been, because it feels like something that shouldn’t have happened at all.  The Braves were in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons at the start of the year, most notably with the Freddie Freeman drama which I still feel some salt over, but like in all things sport, winning tends to make people forget about bad things pretty quickly, and winning 100 games definitely eases the sting of losing a franchise guy because the ownership is too, Braves-ey, which is to say stick up the butt cheap as fuck.

Matt Olson, the replacement to Freeman, has basically shrugged off all the expectations and the act he had to follow and delivered everything he was hoped to contribute with a 30HR/100RBI season.  Impending free-agent Dansby Swanson has gone bonkers this year is playing very much like he knows he’s about to get paid this winter, more so, the better his statistics look at year’s end.  Austin Riley has rewarded the Braves’ faith in him by delivering another monster season, and much like some of the Braves of old, the kids have come to play, with rookies Michael Harris, Spencer Strider and Vaughn Grissom playing like they hated the minor leagues and absolutely refuse to get sent back down.

There was a point in the year where the Braves were literally 10.5 games out of first, and I’m thinking, welp, we’ll always have 2021, baby luck, etc, etc, and feeling kind of liberated that the Braves sucked, and that I didn’t have to give any care to them.  But then everything started clicking, the Braves won 14 games in a row at one point, and have been playing over .650 ball after the all-star break and suddenly every day now warrants casual glances at the standings to see where the Braves stood, as they closed the gap on the Mets, who honestly never seemed like they were ever losing in their own right.

It became apparent that this final weekend series was going to be the season for both teams, and if the Braves wanted any chance at all to win the division, they were going to have to take care of the Mets themselves.  Leading up to the weekend, it didn’t seem like either team was willing to blink, and most every day was like Braves win, Mets win, no change in the standings, except when the Braves flubbed some games against like the Mariners and Giants.

And even though the records were tight, with only six games remaining, it was pretty clear that the Braves had to win the series in order to have any chance at winning the division, because the Mets’ roster is good enough to where the paper their lineups were written on were more than competent at beating the rebuilding Nationals to end their season.  Frankly, like all Braves fans, I was hoping for 2/3 games, but mathematically that was still dicey and would require a little bit of help on the back end.

But a sweep?  No fucking way.  The Braves have become a good team again, but the Mets have been the torch bearer of the division all year long.  It’s actually kind of flabbergasting that the Mets would have shit the bed at such a critical point like this, because with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer pitching the series alone, those two should have been automatic wins in their own right.

Like, the Mets getting swept and basically losing the division in the final week of the season, almost makes me feel bad for the Mets and their fans, and I actually kind of feel bad for wanting to go into my metaphorical storage bin of past fandoms, opening it up, opening the folder for baseball, and pulling out a sheet of paper with LOL Mets on it, because usually the meme in the past was when the Mets sucked, and they did stupid shit, not when a dominating Mets squad did stupid shit and shot themselves in the foot.

But whatever.  Dramatic comeback aside, this is still the Braves we’re talking about.  This might have felt like something that might have happened in old times, but technically the season still is not over.  The Braves have to beat the Marlins once, or the Mets have to lose a game to the Nationals for the race to be officially over, and anyone who’s watched as much baseball as I have has seen it all before, and nothing is over until it is truly over.

And with the Braves in the playoffs, there’s no telling that something that has happened in old times, could very well happen again, with the Braves getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs, and it looks like the Braves will be paired up against the Cardinals, whom usually always has their number in the playoffs, especially with Albert Pujols having a magic final season in his own right.  Or, the Braves make it to the NLCS, where they’ll meet up with Freddie Freeman and the Dodgers, and we’ll have a storyline for the ages, to where Freeman gets the sweetest revenge on the organization who scorned him, and he sends the Braves packing en route to the World Series.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, seeing the Braves have a pretty magical run to (basically) steal the division right out from under the Mets, by sweeping the Mets is something that was pretty noteworthy.  After all, it’s made it into the brog, and I definitely cherish my time and could have been watching the final episodes of The Walking Dead instead of writing, but fucking baseball is time sensitive material, since there’s games every god damn day.

Nobody hates baseball more than baseball fans.

The most bittersweet bobblehead

When I saw this bobblehead on preorder, it was during a time when it was all but assumed that Freddie Freeman was going to re-sign with the Braves.  After all, he helped deliver a World Series, he loved Atlanta, Atlanta loved him, and there was no logical reason why he shouldn’t stay with the team.

The thing is though, I’m really bad at spending money, and I often times don’t pull the trigger on things that I want, despite the fact that I’ll have a tab open for something for eons and refresh it daily, hoping for god knows what, maybe a fucking free button or something.  But more often than not, I wait too long, something goes unavailable, and I’m left wondering why I didn’t just purchase it from the onset.

Such, was the case with this one, and after weeks of looking at it and telling myself that I needed to get it, I didn’t, and then the preorder window closed, and I was left wondering why the fuck I didn’t pull the trigger on something again.

But then a strange thing happened, the Braves traded for Matt Olson, signed him to a massive extension and then Freddie Freeman signed with the Dodgers, shattering hearts all across the state of Georgia.  For some reason, I still hadn’t closed the tab to the Freeman bobblehead, and on one day after the Freeman departure, I refreshed and it looked like preorders were suddenly available again.  Despite the fact that I was sad as hell that Freeman was gone, I still felt that I needed this bobblehead, to cap and commemorate an occasion I had waited my entire Georgia-residing life for.  I might more or less be out of the bobblehead collecting game, but this was still something that I felt I needed for the small collection that I’ve actually kept on display.

And it finally arrived this week, rekindling all of the emotions and thoughts of the whole Braves-Freeman separation.  The Braves are playing pretty well, and the Dodgers are leading their division, with Freeman playing well himself.  It is a distinct reality that the two could end up meeting up in the playoffs again this year, which would be all sorts of a drama bomb if it happened, but I’m in a position in my life where it doesn’t really matter anymore.

But still, as happy as this bobblehead makes me feel, to remember the instance where I finally bore witness to one of my teams winning a championship, it’s still also a reminder of the sad events that occurred afterward that closed the window on what should’ve been a memorable and maybe successful title defense and an open window of Braves success.

There are no winners in the Freddie Freeman saga

Man, despite the fact that it’s pretty well known that Freddie Freeman is about the most likeable human being to ever play the game of Major League Baseball, I wouldn’t ever have imagined him being the center of one of the more dramatic baseball storylines to have occurred in, well, this generation, so to say.

To quickly summarize, as quickly as a wordy blabbermouth like myself can do: 2021 was the last season of Freddie Freeman’s contract with the Atlanta Braves.  Inexplicably, the Braves win the World Series, everyone is on cloud nine, Freeman is all but expected to re-sign with the team.  Over the winter, baseball actually goes into a labor-centric lockout, where teams are prohibited  from negotiating contracts with players.  Lockout ends, everyone maintains that Freeman is guaranteed to re-sign with the Braves.  Somewhere along the path, negotiations don’t seem to materialize and suddenly news breaks that the Braves have made a trade for Matt Olson, the all-star first baseman from the Oakland A’s, effectively dropping the mic and saying that they are moving on from Freddie Freeman, sending shockwaves throughout Braves Country™.

It was reported that Freddie Freeman and the Braves were unable to come to terms of a deal, citing that Freeman wanted a six-year deal, but the Braves were only willing to offer a five.  It wasn’t long afterward that the Los Angeles Dodgers would sign Freeman for six years, and in terms of business, the saga was complete.

However, in the media, the saga continued as after all the involved teams started buttoning up their rosters, words would emerge from the Braves’ camp, and Freddie Freeman himself, and a very sad and almost tangible sense of hurt feelings from both parties would continue on.  The Braves blathering on about how they’re a business and that no one person is above the team, Freeman insinuating that he felt slighted that the Braves didn’t pursue him hard enough, and all over the place, be it other baseball peers, fans, legends, everyone’s taking sides on who they backed in this surprisingly public beef between the Braves and the former face of the team.

Regardless, the dust would settle fairly quickly because Freddie Freeman is better than everyone else and allowed it to resolve and said all the right things, because he’s just such a good fucking human being, and the 2022 season would begin with the Braves embarking on a life post-Freddie, and Freddie suiting up for the goddamn Dodgers of all other teams out there.

Needless to say, the weekend of June 24th was earmarked heavily by the Braves and their marketing department, because it would mark the one and only visit of the Dodgers to Atlanta on the season, and the first-ever visit of Freddie Freeman as an opponent.  As the date drew nearer, I heard that the team was resorting to standing-room tickets because the demand was so high.  And as the team had been doing all through the year, which is something that I thought was pretty cool, was doing individualized ring ceremonies for any contributors from the 2021 squad who had moved on to other teams.

So the weekend came and went, with the Dodgers taking the series 2-1, in three fairly heavily contested games.  As expected, Freddie Freeman’s return was an emotional event for pretty much everyone, as he was given a hero’s welcome and all the respect in the world, numerous standing ovations and cheers no matter that he was a Dodger.  Freeman cried at least 57 times throughout the weekend, basically every time he was behind a microphone while he was presented his World Series ring, and any time he had a moment with a former teammate.

It’s clear that there was and always will be a tremendous amount of mutual love between the Braves and the city of Atlanta and Freddie Freeman, and the games themselves were kind of an afterthought compared to the giant lovefest of Freeman’s return.

But then just a day later, news broke that seemingly out of nowhere, Freddie Freeman had fired his agent, Casey Close of Excel Sports Management.  The timing of it happening right after the visit to Atlanta raised eyebrows everywhere and next thing we know, the book of the Freddie Freeman saga is being reopened.

Continue reading “There are no winners in the Freddie Freeman saga”

Figures

Figures Freddie’s Freeman’s first Dodger home run comes against his former frugal fiscally fixated failure of a franchise that he was the face of.

No knock on Matt Olson; I’m sure he’s an okay dude, who is doing his job of starting off positively with the Braves, but I can’t help but feel it’s poetic looking at this picture of Freddie Freeman home run trotting past his replacement after hitting his first homer for the Dodgers.

Yes, I will be salty about this for a little while.

The Braves didn’t deserve Freddie Freeman, anyway

In short: Braves’ Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman takes a second out of a game to share a moment of compassion and empathy for an opposing player with a hug and comforting words upon finding out that his dad had recently passed away

If people outside of Braves Country® were not that familiar with the kind of human being Freddie Freeman was, playing in big fuck you market Los Angeles will definitely help spread the word, of just how loveable and more or less perfect of a human being that he is.  It took all of what, 5-6 games into the season for Freddie Freeman to already get noticed for, being the Freddie Freeman who was the heart and face of the Atlanta Braves over the last decade?

Just like that, Freddie Freeman reminds everyone that baseball is still just a kid’s game, and that it’s okay to have fun, but also the importance of sportsmanship, humanity and just being a good person.

I haven’t followed baseball enough over the last few years, but I do know who Jose Iglesias is, primarily an elite glove guy, which at a premium position like shortstop is usually adequate to always have a job in the big leagues, but already my heart goes out to him, for hearing of the news of his father’s passing.

Freeman is no stranger to being everyone’s best friend, regardless of if they’re a teammate or not, and upon finding out about Iglesias’s dad, and his general reaction, he wasted no time in Freddie being Freddie, and offering up a hug and comfort, regardless of if it were an opponent.

This right here, is what Freddie Freeman brings to the table, regardless of his batting average, slash stats, WAR and other tangible evidence of baseball talent.  Aside from being a legitimate MVP-caliber player, he’s just a guy that gets the game of life, and that there are always things that are bigger than just baseball.

As for the Braves, they just didn’t deserve him.  Yes, I’ve read a lot of the scuttlebutt about how the whole thing transpired, and all the of the actual salt and fabricated sugar at the end of the journey.  But the reality is that the Braves really could’ve tried harder prior to free agency, but they didn’t, because they’re the Braves and everything the team does has to be fiscal this and shareholders that and it always boils down to money, in spite of the fact that baseball is a ridiculously lucrative venture that has revenues in the legitimate billions on a yearly basis.

No disrespect to Matt Olson, who is doing his job and starting his career with the Braves as the successor to Freddie Freeman pretty hot, but there’s not a single part of me that still wouldn’t wish to have Freddie Freeman on the team instead.  But the Braves couldn’t get over all the numbers swirling around Freddie, as far his age versus Olson’s age, the dollars, and the years asked for, and this is where we are as a result.  Short of winning a Roberto Clemente Award for exemplary citizenship, I can’t imagine there’s much Olson can do to replace all the intangible and little things that Freeman brought to the Braves for all his years.

I know it happens to every sports fan at some point(s) in their lives when they have to watch a beloved player go elsewhere, and sure the Braves are primed for potential success all the same, but losing Freeman, a guy I legitimately watched grow up with the team, all the way in the minor leagues, all the way to a World Series championship, that’s one that the sting is going to linger a long time.