There’s 200 days or so of baseball to come this season and it can be quite intimidating to jump into the deep end of the baseball viewing pool.
To help, Refrigerator Logic is providing a list of reasons to watch every Major League Baseball team for the 2008 season. Anyone that’s read all the team lists should be able to pull up the MLB schedule on any day in early June and find reasons to enjoy any contest on the board that night.
Please join in the comments to add your own reasons. Tell everyone why your team is worth three and a half hours of their lives on any given day. Make us care and we’ll be there with a tasty beverage and an appreciation for what you feel each time your team takes the field.
Best. Anthem. Ever.
Biggie Hurts
As a Cubs fan growing up, my grandmother taught me that showing anything but visceral hatred for the White Sox was an abomination against Cub-kind. Therefore, I rooted against the White Sox as often as possible. (Hawk Harrelson always makes that easier.)
However, it was awfully hard to disagree with my White Sox friends about one topic: damn, Frank Thomas is good. Whew. Dude can crank. Yeah. Your team still sucks, though.
Though I can’t quite muster the same disdain for the Good Guys in Black crosstown and the Big Hurt has long since moved on, I still can’t help but admire Frank Thomas’ effortlessly graceful power and ability to work the count. Maybe Frank doesn’t make the best decisions outside the batter’s box, but you’ll find few in baseball history that have consistently made better ones inside it.
Last year, I probably tuned into a dozen Blue Jays games just to see Frank Thomas hit. I’ll likely do so again this season.
The Last Name in Hitting
…and then there’s Gregg Zaun. It’s inexplicable that he still holds a job in Major League Baseball that doesn’t involve answering the bullpen phone, but there he is. His next extra base hit may involve a gas leak in the outfield. It’s a mesmerizing mystery of nature, like bumblebees flying.
Actually, it’s entirely possible that Canadian law requires Gregg Zaun to stay employed because his at-bat song is “Limelight” by Rush and this meets Canadian content requirements needed to keep Blue Jays games on the air.
I would probably be more excited to see him play this season if he still had this haircut.
White Flight
Blue Jays Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations J.P. Ricciardi has taken the true Moneyball strategy of identifying cost efficiencies in the market to the next level this season. He’s run the numbers and discovered an amazing fact: all World Series winners in recent years* have one thing in common: a left side of the infield that girls coo over.
Is Canada up there, Daddy?
If you can’t identify your own supermegainfinity cute infielders, take Tony LaRussa’s word for it: these two young men are championship material. Certain members of the viewing public are welcome to use this as their reason to tune into Blue Jays baseball.
*We’re not looking at Julio Lugo. Would you?
Call the Doc
Finally, Roy Halladay has hopefully stopped inventing new ways to rest his shoulder for a few starts each year (broken leg by hit ball, appendectomy, falling Skydome pieces, etc.) to provide the final kick needed for the Blue Jays this year.
His almost three-quarters delivery provides the casual baseball watcher with a slightly different viewing experience, requiring patience to see the results. His deceptive…
…do you hear that?
Okay, probably nothing. Anyway, his deceptive release hides the ball’s seams for just a moment longer, making it diffi…
You had to hear that. What was th…
Oh no. She’s come for Halladay.
We have a situation here. Code Blue Jay. Code Blue Jay. Milanus, Devourer of Athletes, is in the country and bearing down fast.
Close the borders. Lock down the Skydome’s hotel. Move the package to the safe house. Go go go! This is not a drill, people. If we don’t see him pitch 35 times this season, all is lost. Move!
(Seriously, though, you probably haven’t seen Halladay pitch three times in your life if you’re not an AL East fan. Aren’t you the least bit curious about the man with the 3.63 career ERA while pitching his entire career against the Red Sox and Yankees?)
Tags: toronto blue jays