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Schadenfreude Gone Wild

The last two weeks of my baseball season have been consumed by spite. I have followed every pitch of games between a team I hate (the Bosox obviously) and I team I hate a little less (the O’s), delighting in the victories of the team I hate a little less. I have rooted against my own team. I have hoped they would delay clinching their division (only in a moment of weakness did I welcome Jorge Posada’s division-clinching single). I have hoped they’d blow a 7-0 lead. All so that a team I don’t particularly like would overtake the team I hate and hang about its neck one of the great late-season collapses of all time. Was it worth it? Oh yeah.

Tags: MLB

New on Right Field. . .


COMMENTS   19

EXPAND  

LouistheFirst
   09/29/11 11:02

Put down the remote and back away from the TV before someone gets hurt :)

Of course, last night I was rooting for all I was worth for the team (Philadelphia) that I now must root against for all I am worth.

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   09/29/11 11:32

Karl Marx proven wrong - again.

It is sports, not religion, that is the opiate of the (American) masses.

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 Bugg
   09/29/11 13:20

last night was as good as such an opiate gets.

See ya, Sawx.

Let's go Yankees.

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Michael K
   09/29/11 12:13

For a fan of a franchise that has won 27 World Series to take delight in the miseries of others including a franchise that has not even come close to success since a NJ kid was feted by Yankee fans for cheating that team shows the arrogance of Yankee fans. In NY only Mets fans like me have the right to feel Schadenfreude especially when the Yankees lose.

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   09/29/11 13:00

Which team are you referring to? It seems to me that the only team in whose misfortune Mr. Lowry was taking pleasure was that of the Red Sox. And I'm sorry, but they've won two World Series in the past decade and have a budget almost as big as the Yanks. Boston has completely lost the ability to play the "poor, cursed us" card.

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 Huey
   09/29/11 13:15

He was referring to the Orioles, who were skrewed by Jeffrey Maier, who interfered with Tony Tarasco's ability to field a Derek Jeter fly ball in the 1996 ALCS.

The call should have been made, but naturally wasn't. The Yankees and NYC gave this twirp the keys to the city.

I was thrilled to see the BoSox lose, and now turn my white-hot hatred back to the Evil Empire. I hope the Yankees not only lose, but get a good case of jock itch in the process.

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SoxFanInTexas
   09/29/11 14:39

Allow me to mention that I find it really galling that you beg and plead for donations to your admittedly amazing site and then you have a slide show gloating about the Sox collapse one or two stories beneath your pledge drive requests. How is that conservative? How does that help defeat the Obama agenda? My answer -- it keeps y'all from getting my money this go 'round.

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   09/29/11 15:32

There are times when some on NR/NRO seem very parochial and oblivious to that fact.

Last year, David Frum stepped in it from the "FrumForum," impugning Rush Limbaugh's motives, accusing him of deliberately supporting flawed tactics for better ratings and his own personal financial gain. Others questioned Frum's motives, and Mona Charen and even Jay Nordlinger defended Frum's character without even mentioning his own attempts at character assassination.

It's not that Frum is a less prominent and less effective voice for conservatism: he's positively counter-productive, but NRO-niks found it more important to defend their friend than defend one of the cause's most effective champions.

By comparison, their obnoxious gushing over a team that the rest of the country loathes is smallball, but it's still grating.

It's also tone deaf in light of the fact that us rubes in flyover country are the ones who are proving to be the most serious in saving this country.

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 Huey
   09/29/11 17:07

I hate the Yankees. I can't stand Yankee fans. I hate them so much, I bought a cat, named it Jeter, then shaved it bald and fed it nothing but hot sauce and anti-freeze. I'd love to put sugar in the tanks of their bullpen car. I believe pinstripes should be outlawed.

That said:

Y'all are taking the unabashed Yankee-philia here waaaay too seriously.

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   10/02/11 22:30

C'mon..cheering for your home team is one thing that "coastal elitists" and "rubes in flyover country" can both do.

That said..glad I don't have to do anything so complicated..since the Brewers are doing just fine, thank you.

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norbert
   09/29/11 15:54
Mike M
   09/29/11 14:40

Now may your wish bite you in the butt and when your Yanks play the Ray they get swept.

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   09/29/11 15:38

All so that a team I don’t particularly like would overtake the team I hate...

Rich, Rich, Rich, don't you know hate isn't a family value?

I read that on a bumper sticker once, right next to one that said, "Houses - nobody gets two until everybody has one." So it must be true.

I rejoice that the Yankees, the only love of my baseball life from my childhood until 2005, are headed for yet another World Series, baseball gods willing.

And I rejoice that my adopted hometown's Washington Nationals are in the National League, so I won't often have to choose between them and the Yanks until they meet in the World Series, which, baseball gods and Stephen Strasburg's right arm willing, will happen next year.

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Ricky T
   09/29/11 15:41

Insha'Allah.

Just practicing in case Obama and the media manage to steal or cancel the next election.

Cordially...

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norbert
   09/29/11 15:53

Rich,

It is arguably the best loss in Yankees History. I hope to see it on YES as a Classic. :)

awwwww sawwwxx LOL

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   09/29/11 17:16

Seeing a lot of "oh the Yankees will have trouble with the Rays in the ALCS," comments here.

Do keep it going. It'd be great for the defending AL Champs to legitimately be able to the play the "no one believes in us but us" card yet again.

Go Rangers.

(NRO does have a Northeast bias problem. Where's Kevin Williamson? Is he just not a sports fan?)

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   09/29/11 19:49

The guy who usually writes about baseball on this blog is Jason Epstein, a Yankee-hating Mets fan who threw dirt on Derek Jeter a few months ago. Don't worry, there will be other days(maybe soon) for you guys to gloat over Yankee failure.
People hate the Yankees for the same reason that other countries hate the United States - they both have been overwhelmingly successful (and not, especially in the latter's case, because they are an "Evil Empire").
That said, if the NBA ever starts up again, I will be rooting hard against the Lakers. Because I hate them.

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   09/30/11 08:51

The Green Bay Packers have been tremendously successful, and few hate them other than rivals like the Chicago Bears.

No, people hate the Yankees because of an arrogance that far, far outstrips their "overwhelmingly" successful play on the field -- and a comparison between the Yankees and America itself would be just the latest bit of evidence of that arrogance that invites scorn and nemesis.

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   09/29/11 23:10

Sir, from one Yanks fan to another (albeit a Rays fan for three days), you took the words right out of my mouth. Booyah!

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