Freethought Blogs’ own Gentlemanly Physiology Professor spent the late summer months giving exquisitely nuanced baseball commentary, favoring his beloved Yankees but also being gracious and good natured as he gently ribbed their rival Red Sox. And he showed a gentleman’s magnanimity towards the Red Sox fans when they ultimately lost the wild card in a historic collapse. When the Yankees lost he was a model of magnanimity who agreed to root for the Tigers even as (or even because they beat his team fair and square). At the beginning of the World Series he had qualms with the Rangers that led him to root for the Cardinals.
Now that the Cardinals have won the World Series he is more than just happy in the demise of the Rangers but seems to have seen through the thick haze of hateful Yankee privilege and entitlement which clouds his dark and twisted mind to actually delight in another team’s victory. A first for a Yankees fan:
What an awesome way to win the World Series!!! Game 6 will go down in history as one of the most thrilling WS games ever. As a little kid, I was at one of the others–Reggie Jackson’s three-homer game–and it turned me into a lifelong die-hard Yankee fan. I bet there were tons of kids at the extra-inning game 6 Cards’ win that have now become lifelong die-hard Cards fans.
Sigh, that’s how they corrupt them these world-destroying championship hoarding Yankees and Cardinals. As a ressentiment-addled Mets fan who instinctively roots for underdogs it is a sad day whenever either those insufferable franchises hoists another banner and humiliates another long-suffering franchise and fan base of some poorer and harder lucked team.
This is especially hard for me having been born in 1978. My first year of baseball fandom was 1986 and I followed the Mets and Blue Jays obsessively from then through 1992. I remember vividly the whole glorious late season and playoffs of ’86. I remember 25 years ago like it was last week—the whole experience of the 11th inning of Game 6 of the World Series (and not to mention Game 6 of the NLCS!). I remember feeling the inherent superiority of my team, that it was as great as they could possibly ever be. I remember running around the upstairs of my house reenacting that ball trickling through Bill Buckner’s legs and reenacting Ray Knight’s triumphant leap onto home plate and into the ecstatic arms of the team greater than which no other team could be conceived.
In subsequent years, the Mets slowly began breaking my heart by dismantling that magical mostly homegrown team and replacing it with overpaid career-downside flak after overpaid career downside flak. Steadily they grew worse until 1992 when they began their current 20 year run as the worst team money can buy. When I was a kid I was deceived by a brief period when the Yankees were at their nadir. I was like the Gentlemanly Physiological Professor and like those elated Cardinals kids are today. I thought the world belonged to my Mets to rule in perpetuity. I didn’t always have a heart wrapped in hatred and ressentiment, <ressentiment>just as we learned from his new post the Gentlemanly Physiology Professor did not always believe the world revolved around his Yankees and their obscene sense of entitlement.</ressentiment>
Who can predict what will become of those Cardinals kids.
Your Thoughts?
