NL East Infection: Recognition for Barfing

Miami Marlins

With all the hype and pomp and circumstance and losing affiliated with the Marlins these days, you can at least make one pretty positive claim:  Nobody’s died!

Well, the Marlins are looking to change all that.  Team president David Samson, one of those slick, in shape millionaires we can all relate to whose run in 10 marathons and forced his body through an iron man  competition in Hawaii, is all set to perform a personal double marathon.

For those unfamiliar with sweating and/or movement, a marathon is a thing where a guy jogs for a while and everybody claps for him at the end even though he’s puking and pooping all over them.  Which is all good after a “marathon,” but not on “Sunday morning at my niece’s  barbecue.”  All I want is some recognition.

Anyways, he’s not just running away from Heath Bell.  The event will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities, and probably secure Samson firmly in the annals of charitable history, as long as he isn’t driven mad halfway through the run and sprint into the Everglades, spending the rest of his days as Lord of the Snakes and plotting an ambiguous “reckoning” with the rest of humanity.

"“I just had my pre-race physical. I passed every part of it but the psychological test.”–David Samson"

You can’t think your crimes against the legless gods of this earth would go unpunished for so long, foolish mortal.

Atlanta Braves

It’s never pretty getting old, I’m told.  You do all sorts of things you thought you’d never do.  Drink wheatgrass.  Scheduling doctor’s appointments instead of just assuming you’re indestructible.  Not hating your kids anymore.  It’s a vicious cycle.

But the most brutal part can be the denial.  Nobody likes to watch one of their favorite athletes act like the next generation hasn’t arrived and everything is still normal.  No, I’m not just talking about Chipper Jones.  At least he has the decency to retire so we don’t all have to be horrified witnesses to what happens to the human body after age 40.

No, this time, we’re talking about Michael Bourn, who may not me quite ready to accept that a new era of speedsters have arrived in MLB, and the cloud of dust they’re leaving behind is for him to choke in is mostly the work of the Dodgers’ Dee Gordon.

A small person, Gordon is the son of former Phillie Tom “Flash in the Pan” Gordon, whom you’ll remember as that closer/setup man who was great and then wasn’t anymore so we booed him, and assigned him subpar nicknames.  He’s a regular speed demon on the base paths, and naturally, the Braves’ leadoff man Michael Bourn is threatened by his youth and vitality.  Recently asked if he was willing to admit these feelings yet, Bourn obliged.

"“He has the young legs over there. But he’s going to have a battle taking it from me.”–Michael Bourn, clutching a shotgun while standing on a rickety front porch"

So, a public challenge has been addressed to Gordon, who only has to come to Georgia and take the “really fast guy” title from Bourn’s quivering hands, it seems.  Until the next young gun appears on the scene, and the hideous process begins anew…

Washington Nationals

It’s not that the Nats are difficult to take seriously as a baseball team, all the time.  Look at them.  They’re the best in the National League right now, capping off a long and illustrious history as one of baseball’s most honored franchises.

I know what you’re thinking.  “Justin, how dare you criticize this bright young team.  The Phillies have a 100+ year history, and look what they did with it–mostly disgraces!  They’ve got those 10,000 losses, for christ’s sake!”

Yes, but in response to that, wasn’t it Alanis Morisette who said, “It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife?”  Well, in this case, our spoons are losses.  And our knife is a World Series.  What I’m saying is, if I could stab the Nationals to death with the World Series, I would do it.  Immediately.

“Justin, that sounds like the muttered ramblings of an insane person.”

Yes.  Well.  That’s probably why the Nationals are trying so hard to keep us out of their park, still.  That’s old news, I realize, but it doesn’t seem to want go away, and it’s only going to intensify the closer we get to our early May series against them in D.C.  So, have the Nats succeeded in creating a rivalry out of thin air?  No.  But they may have created one out of toxic, highly polluted air, full of the sounds of people swearing.

And that’s our air.  YOU STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM IT, D.C.  I WILL EAT A STRASBURGER AND THEN VOMIT IT UP ON YOUR PORCH.

In conclusion, why do people keep associating us Phillies fans with the same negative news stories from years ago?

New York Mets

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any lower for the Mets–were you thinking that?  I can’t always tell what you’re thinking.  In fact, you probably weren’t thinking that.  The Mets have a way better record than the Phillies.  And they’re only two games over .500.  But that doesn’t make them immune to harsh, unnecessary criticism from the internet.  So shut the hell up and you think what I tell you to think.

Everybody knows how lame AM radio is.  Talking?!  Who needs that.  Not me, certainly.  If you could invent an AM radio where they talk about the endangerment of wolves’ snouts in the lower Yukon due to polluting the local squirrel population with nut poison, but they could hear me when I shout “SHUT UP AND LET ME ENJOY MY DELICIOUS WOLF SNOUTS IN PEACE,” then I would buy it.  Or I would, but a lot of my money is tied up in shipping wolves snouts illegally to the United States.

So AM radio is the worst, I’m saying, and FM is like the cool kid who kicks the classroom door in and gives AM a wedgie in front of all the radio frequencies while even the teacher laughs.  I guess the teacher in this case would be an anthropomorphic radio antenna or something.

The Mets have picked up on this, and are switching from an AM radio station to FM.  The abandoned AM station they’re leaving behind will become a 24-hour Spanish sports channel, which, going against everything I just said but sort of regret, is great news.

Now, Mets fans can listen to the Mets do whatever it is they think they’re doing in 2012 via FM radio.  Which probably means something to people.  But to me, all that matters is that it’s breakfast, and my illegal wolf snouts were held up in customs.  So, naturally, I’m in a furious mood.