If you’re a baseball fan right now, you’re in 1 of 3 emotional stages. You may be disappointed with how your favorite team’s season went but you are no longer depressed; apathy rules within you and you will just wait out the season and hope for the best next year. On the opposite end of that spectrum, you are a fan of an elite team that is cruising towards the playoffs (Phillies, Brewers, Red Sox, Yankees). You still tune in because it’s fun to watch them kick ass but you aren’t too worried if they win or lose. Right now, it’s all about staying healthy for the postseason.
Right in the middle of these two groups of fans at peace is the maniacal, live-or-die world of pennant races. Though you cared in April, the games now are magnified and your emotional well-being hangs on every pitch, every swing, every degree Fernando Rodney’s cap is off center, every flailing Adam Dunn swing.
It is a time for complete irrationality for baseball fans. If your team is currently in a race to make the playoffs, you are likely well aware of the toils of scoreboard watching. Unlike other sports leagues (notably the NBA and NHL where over half of the teams make the playoffs), reaching the MLB postseason is an accomplishment in itself. Also unlike other sports, any team that makes the playoffs can get hot and win the World Series (just ask the 2006 Cardinals and 2010 Giants). The best team rarely wins the World Series. But to have a shot at October glory, a team first has to make the playoffs, which is no easy feat.
Therefore, baseball fans will often simultaneously monitor their favorite team as well as well as the team their favorite team is battling for division supremacy. In order to help, I’ve created a list of ways to help you efficiently Scoreboard Watch as well as point out what it and isn’t acceptable.
For the sake of ease, I will write this from the perspective of an Angels fan. As of writing this, the Angels sit 4.5 games behind the first place Texas Rangers, not an ideal position but also not an insurmountable deficit.
#1 – During a pennant chase, friends and family are more or less irrelevant
By this, I mean it is OK to ignore your loved ones in favor of watching a crucial game. Family is overrated anyway, right? Remember that time Adam Kennedy hit 3 home runs to send the Angels to the World Series? Pretty exciting stuff. What has your family done? Supported you and gave you the tools necessary to succeed in life. Boring!
If your team makes the playoffs, it will provide you with a lifetime full of memories you will cherish. Well maybe just until next season. Yeah, so what if you guys won the World Series, what have you done for me lately!? Bums!
#2 – During a pennant chase, significant others are more or less irrelevant
Similar to #1, just more specific. Ideally, you want to find a girl (remember, my perspective) that likes baseball, or at least can tolerate it (but not some beefcake girl that can name the Game 7 lineup for the 1985 Royals while beating you in an arm wrestling match). But even if a girl says she likes baseball, she still doesn’t understand the full ramifications of what that means.
Guys LIKE baseball. Girls like going to games and dancing to get onto the JumboTron and checking out the hot players wearing tight pants. The outcome of the game isn’t life or death. But to the superior, more intelligent gender, there is absolutely nothing more important than vicariously living through 18 millionaires throw a ball, swing a piece of wood, and run. That’s why guys are better. We just get it.
Every guy knows how to tune out a chatty girlfriend. Usually, a well placed “oh really” and “yeah?” are enough to keep a guy from getting in trouble. The girl is satisfied as well because she doesn’t have to breathe for 10 minutes (I’ve learned this is how women survive). But when the playoffs are on the line, the guy has to be more forceful. I can’t be bothered hearing about your “promotion” or “second thoughts about our relationship” when the bases are loaded.
So if you’re watching the game at home and your significant other starts talking, I find it effective to say something along the lines of “you know, can this wait? I really don’t care.” She’ll get the hint. Now, it’s possible that she may be upset about this for whatever reason, which is ridiculous since she was the one that started talking and she knows Talking Hours are 5 minutes before first pitch and 5 minutes after the final out. If it was a game against the Orioles in May and you decided to give her some extra talk time during the game, that’s totally your call. But during the pennant chase, that’s rude of her to interrupt.
If you live with your significant other, this could result in you sleeping on the couch (totally unreasonable on her part but a possibility). While this may seem like punishment, this in reality is an awesome perk. Now, you can watch the game replay or watch the same highlights on SportsCenter for the next 8 hours. If you’re lucky, the Baseball Tonight crew will quit giving sexual favors to the Yankees and Red Sox for just long enough to talk about the Angels.
#3 – Don’t be shy to utilize your phone’s entire battery reserves
#3 can also be connected to the first two tips, since it is probably the most effective method of ignoring others.
Your phone has several hours of battery power…don’t be afraid to use it all. If you find yourself out in public during an important game, simply keep track of the pertinent games on your phone. ESPN Gamecast can be an effective method. It’s likely that seeing pitch descriptions like “in play, out(s) recorded” is more riveting than whatever company you’re keeping. Great Grandma will have another 100th birthday party next year anyway.
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| This Gamecast must be fake if it has the Angels beating the Red Sox |
If you’re fortunate enough to be at a game, still feel free to use your phone to track out-of-town scores. We all know that scoreboard on the right field wall isn’t updated quickly enough. It’s probably some high school dropout pressing buttons anyway. Do they even know how to count? Better not risk it. Knowing the 1st inning score 30 seconds earlier is worth it. Your ignored company will understand.
Another phone benefit is it works as your very own replay booth. All you need is someone watching at home. At Angel Stadium, if there is a controversial call, they never show it on the JumboTron, probably because they don’t want to rile up the Orange County fans and cause them to accidentally spill red wine and foie gras on their Ed Hardy T-shirts. If it looks like a ball down the line was fair but the umpire calls foul, angrily text your scout and ask them what TV replay says. I find that texting “FAIR OR FOUL?!?!?!?!” does a nice job or relaying your exasperation. This won’t change the call and your knowledge of a blown call will likely only piss you off, but now at least you can shout at the ump from the upper deck and tell him how you feel. That’ll teach him.
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| - "Baseball season!" - "Duck Season!" - "Baseball season!" - "Duck season!" |
#4 – Expect the impossible…and be pissed when it doesn’t happen
Yeah the Rangers may be playing the Royals. Yeah Bruce Chen may be pitching against them, and yeah he may be one of the worst pitchers of the last decade. But dammit, why can’t he throw a no-hitter today? It’s baseball, anything can happen.
While following said Rangers-Royals game, it is perfectly acceptable to get overly excited if Jeff Francouer hits a solo home run in the 2nd inning to put the Royals up 1-0 (a big if, but remember, dream big). They’re a big league team they know how to play (unless they’re name is Luke Hochevar). It’s also acceptable to throw a temper tantrum when the Rangers score 8 runs off Chen in the bottom of the 2nd. I thought that lead would hold!
Cut from similar cloth, it’s reasonable to expect the Angels to go undefeated over the last 6 weeks of the season. Each day is important. Whenever Texas loses to the Royals (and damn Abner Doubleday in his grave if they don’t!) the Angels must win to gain ground. If the Angels lose then they just wasted another chance to gain ground. Taking 2 of 3 games each series is loser talk. That loss represents one step closer to a long nihilism-filled winter.
#5 – Don’t be ashamed to root for Satan
Satan’s spawn rather, that being the Red Sox and Yankees.
If either of these teams play the Rangers, don’t feel bad rooting for them. They’re both going to make the playoffs anyway so rooting against them is pointless.
And when the Yankees get to the playoffs, it’s not like they’re a threat. I mean, have you seen their pitching staff? C.C. Sabathia is a legitimate ace, but Bartolo Colon (!) will start a playoff game. And who is going to start Game 3 (this is assuming the mound hasn’t been flattened after trying to support Sabtahia and Colon two consecutive nights)? A.J. “Next Year I’m Going to Make As Much Money As Jered Weaver, Even Though I Pitch More Like Jeff” Burnett?
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| Witty remark not required |
Even under the wild assumption that anyone other than Sabathia is going to force outs, who’s going to catch the ball behind them? Derek Jeter’s Hoveround can only move so fast and A-Rod prefers to only bend over when injecting a syringe into his ass.
One thing working for the Yankees is the short porch in right field, which makes Yankee Stadium look like a joke. Oh yeah, real prolific offense you guys have with Granderson and Teixeira hitting pop ups for home runs. I’ve seen bigger dimensions at a local softball league. Though I’m sure Sabathia wouldn’t mind if there was a keg at the mound and every base (A-Rod would prefer if there was a cocaine-riddled poker game at 3rd base).
The Red Sox are a little tougher to root for because they’re, ya know, built to succeed in the playoffs. And like the Yankees they play in a stadium that could probably host the Little League World Series. And like the Yankees their fans are obnoxious and stupid (“how much for an obstructed view seat? Fak yah I’ll go! Go Sawx!”) and think that because their teams have been around for 100 years and won the majority of their World Series titles before black people were allowed to play and when you only had to beat like 8 teams to win, their teams are full of “tradition” and “history” (back in the day, winning the World Series meant you had the only fat, drunk, Irish immigrant on the field that could make contact with the ball after the previous night’s bender).
Yeah, it might feel dirty to root for Josh Beckett’s seaweed necklace and Kevin Euclis (source: Lewis, Michael, Moneyball. 2003, officially dated in 2005), but remember that the key is your team makes the playoffs.
The Rangers play the Red Sox 7 times in the next couple weeks. You’re a fool if you don’t think I’m rooting for the Red Sox. I’ve put too much emotional investment into the Angels for them to not make the playoffs. If they don’t make it I don’t really see the point in living. It will be a cold, remorse filled life. I might start studying Nietzche, or begin a quest to search for the meaning of life and why bad things happen to good people.
Or I could just wait until next season. I never really thought the Angels would do much this season anyway.
