Rocktober #5: Warmup music, Cavalier style
October 15, 2011While We’re Waiting… More Browns-Raiders, Uniform talk, and Tribe Fall Leagues
October 16, 2011Over the years, between the Indians’ run of the late nineties plus the 2007 blip and the Cavalier era of success from ’05-’10, I’ve become pretty accustomed to watching one of my Cleveland teams in the playoffs. Now, with that not being the case, I find myself having to struggle to enjoy playoff baseball again.
Take the Tigers, for example. We spent all year battling them in the AL Central, so I clearly do not want to see them succeed. I will always respect and admire one of my favorite Indians, Victor Martinez. Other than that, the whole team irks me really. Jose Valverde is arrogant and I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of witch doctor. Miguel Cabrera is a cocky, plump, whiskey-wielding goon. Jhonny Peralta is having a career year after seemingly phoning it in and playing with such little emotion here in Cleveland near the end. I respect Justin Verlander’s greatness, but I cannot STAND the Tigers. Period. It should be the Tribe there, and I think it will be next year.
Then, there’s the National League. My fantasy league is AL-only, so I know next to nothing about the NL, but I’ve caught at least parts of most of the NLCS. I kind of like the whole story of the Brewers and the Cardinals. The Brewers grew their own team for the most part, but Nyjer Morgan could be the worst thing to happen to baseball since steroids. That type of showboating, arrogant, “all about me” attitude is something not often seen outside the NBA. The guy is at best mentally unbalanced, and rooting for a team that has its 12th best player acting like he’s the MVP of the league is not possible for me. As for the Cardinals, who only got in because of Atlanta’s late season collapse, they’re pretty much being held ransom by Albert Pujols, which reminds me all too much of what we went through as Cleveland fans in the 2010 NBA playoffs. More than anything, it’s the media’s “Is this Albert Pujols’s last home game?” crap that I’m just so utterly tired of.
The same goes for playoff basketball, especially with Boston, the Lakers, Orlando (all former Cavalier foes) as well as the South Beach Slumber Party occupying nearly all of the games. I feel like I had a hard time putting old grudges aside to enjoy often really entertaining playoff basketball. However, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Oklahoma City, Chicago, and Memphis in the playoffs last season. I can’t get enough of the more humble superstars like Rose and Durant, and I hope they are the wave of the future instead of those cut from the cloth of James, Wade, Bryant, Pierce, etc.
With the NFL, somehow, it’s different. Maybe it’s because I’ve only seen the Browns in the playoffs once with my own two eyes. Perhaps, it’s because for three years if I wanted to watch any football at all growing up, I had to watch other teams. Maybe football just lends itself to watching other teams play more with the one game per week. I feel the same way with college football. With college basketball, the Buckeyes had no sustained success until I was in college, so I had already long suffered from March Madness without having to worry about how far to advance my team, just enjoying the wall-to-wall games and watching my bracket crumble.
Maybe I need to take a step back and just watch good baseball (and basketball) being played. This ALCS has been one of the best series I have seen in quite some time with all of the rain delays creating starting pitcher drama, overused bullpens, and extra innings heroics.
How about you guys? Do you watch playoff games if you’re team isn’t involved? If you do, how closely do you follow them? Is football an easier sport to watch teams other than your own?
(Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP)
3 Comments
Don’t worry Kirk, the Tigers will be eliminated tonight. I love Verlander and Victor but that is it. By the way is Leyland insane for saying bullpen guys weren’t available for the last game when your season was on the line? I have loved the AL playoffs, never was a fan of the NL. Also didn’t care for the NBA playoffs except the Western Conference a year ago. Memphis, OKC, and Dallas were easy to rally behind.
I’m a Cleveland fan living in St. Louis and I have to tell you that I am dying for the Cardinals to lose – and lose bad. I’ve lived in a few different places, and these fans out here are ridiculous – in the bad way. I have never been in a place where people actually think that every other baseball fan in the world think that they really are the greatest fans. Every city has great fans, every city is passionate about a winning team, yet Cardinal fans really think that everyone else in the world talk about them being the best. It’s a sick disease that is out of control and annoying beyond belief. I don’t like Nyjer Morgan’s antics either, but I find myself cheering for him because I know it pisses Cardinal fans off like no other. I need St. Louis to lose now for my own sanity…please, please, please make it happen…I can’t live here if it doesn’t.
On one hand, I want Detroit to succeed because it’s a rust belt town like Cleveland. On the other hand, as much as I like Victor Martinez, I don’t want to see him and Peralta win a championship playing for an AL Central rival. Then, you add the $100+ million payroll and Jim Leyland (who won his championship with the Marlins in 1997)… yeah, I didn’t want them to win it all.
I’m pulling for the Brewers at this point, even though Prince Fielder is basically their version of Albert Pujols.