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DaddyO brought the house down with his "Next Team Up!" flowchart. Obviously, the post is one of the best ever in the Mariner blog-o-sphere. But it's even more relevant because we've been considering a second SSI team.
You didn't default to the Dodgers amigo, where you could have come full circle. But that's very understandable for me at least - any resemblance between The Big Red Machine and today's Cincinnati Reds is purely coincidental. I tried rooting for them and couldn't, even with Griffey there. So maybe today's Dodgers would taste like diluted root beer to you. But it seems to me like they've got enough of a rotation to claim title to their grand heritage.
Let's see, to follow your flowchart to the M's your personality is ... Hmmmm ... Have a heart still; winning isn't the real point of baseball; 116 wins spent all our karma. That's not too bad. But I warn you most soberly, DaddyO. Our AOL STATS board amigo Justin followed the Mariners hysterically from 1995 to 1999, became disgusted with LincStrong during the 2000 season, and then firmly divorced them in the winter between 2000 and 2001. We spent the entire summer of 2001 rubbing his nose in his own disloyalty. He was absolutely miserable, and we loved every second of it.
Are you SUUUUURE you don't want to see what Paxton, Diaz, Haniger, Segura, and crew can do this season?
.....
If not, we wish you a hearty fare-thee-well. And Dr. D is two inches away from declaring the Boston Red Sox our SSI Team B. There is also some sentiment for the Giants, maybe, and we could be talked into any broad-consensus pick. But the Red Sox are tough to beat. Reasons:
1) They're cool. And their uniforms look cool, being retro and up-to-date at the same time... what's the word for it ... Timeless! The Red Sox are timeless. They have had Mookie Betts step out of the cornfield at least twenty times.
2) They play in the greatest venue in all sports. By the time ten TV games went by, you would never think of the Kingdome again.
3) They don't make as much revenue as the Yankee$ do, so it is NOT cheating like it would be to jump on a Real Madrid bandwagon. Swapping to the Yankees would be outrageous, of course. Swapping to the Red Sox is still kind of like picking an underdog.
4) Their historical players are similar to the Dodgers' of similar eras. For example, Fred Lynn and Dewey Evans would have been great Dodgers.
5) Dustin Pedroia is a "lifer" with a great unselfish personality, similar to Edgar and Seager.
6) Sometimes Bill James puts out fascinating tidbits on them. And their front office has always been far more benign than some orgs'. You could go watch Moneyball again, too. They took Dipoto in out of the rain until he scored his Seattle gig. Oh, also you could watch that Jimmy Fallon movie ... like 100 times until the emotional transplant "took."
7) They always score lots of runs. Get them on TV and things are happening. If you're going to arbitrarily select a team to root for after you're already an adult, which of course you have zero right to do, but if you're going to, why not pick one that's super fun to watch?
8) You can still go to home games ... in Seattle.
9) If there were four guys guaranteed to comment on postgames, you'd get Dr. Detecto postgames. What more do you need.
10) They have baseball's #1 prospect.
11) You might experience a World Series win. That's kind of big. If you dare to dream even bigger, you might experience a Red Sox defeat of the Yankees in the playoffs. Ponder carefully how much the Yankees hate the Red Sox. Right there is the "sincerity" factor you are looking for. Even if you find you can't root for a new team, you most certainly can root against New York. And we're talking about the roster, the brass, the ballpark, the Bronx, hey, the greater metropolitan era. The Yankees and Red Sox are a zero sum game to die for.
12) Let's see, according to the flowchart:
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As a Red Sox fan, I have a heart --- > I love to win --- > Baseball stadiums should not feel like prison cells --- > I'm not a bandwagoner --- > I don't choke --- > I don't think I own baseball --- > I don't care about tailgating --- > I love my team except for the media.
:: mic drop ::
Dr. D
