Two Week Notice

Random thoughts with less than a fortnight remaining in the 2008 MLB regular season:

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I sympathize with my poor brother-in-law (even though he's a Yankee fan). Missing the playoffs after years of taking those appearances for granted hits you pretty hard.

I can say this from experience, what with will now be my third consecutive October without the Atlanta Braves playing baseball. And while at least the past two years of third place finishes offered at least a little in the way of optimism toward the end of the season, this year was just plain brutal.

Initially thrilling, Chipper Jones' early flirtation with hitting .400 ultimately finds him in a race with Albert Pujols for the batting title. While the injury woes of Mike Hampton and Tom Glavine were hardly surprising, the timing as well as the impact (possibly career-ending?) of losing John Smoltz was particularly devastating. Unlike the years past when it felt as though the team was never truly out of the game, I can't recall watching or listening to a single contest where I wasn't overwhelmed with scenarios of how a lead would be blown or such. And I was usually right, as the Braves have an abysmal 9-29 record this year in one-run games. I try to ignore the bitterness of watching Mark Texiera head out to Anaheim in an essentially white flag trade only one year after we included "Salty" in the deal with Texas—a move made with the hope of using Chipper and Tex to be an intimidating switch-hitting combination that was supposed to lead us back to the playoffs. Oh, and Skip Caray died.

In years past, being a Braves fan in the Chicago area meant catching a lot of shit. "Bandwagon fan" was a popular term, although one I found not very accurate, seeing as most everyone I knew or met hated Atlanta. I remember actually thinking how when the year finally came that the Braves didn't make the playoffs, it would be easier for others to accept my choice of fandom. And perhaps it has, but I'd be willing to go back to the way it used to be in a heartbeat.

I actually came into the season with hopes Atlanta would at least contend in the wild card race, but I now find myself very fearful for the prospects of the future. I'm not really sure where the silver lining is to another season passing, and I'm only now coming to grips that these aren't the Braves of the 1990s. Welcome to the new century.

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Quite obviously, it has been a good year to be a baseball fan in Chicago this year. While there's (justifiably) more talk of a World Series appearance for the Cubs, I still can't fathom what the city would indeed be like if both clubs make it to the Fall Classic. (I still don't think the White Sox can get out of the American League.)

Still, regardless of the post-season outcome, I've enjoyed watching the fans in the area become more vocal in declaring which side of town they support. I was raised in a Cubs household and consider the designated hitter to be sacreligious, so I naturally root for the North Side when the interleague series goes down and in other games throughout the year.

This year, however, I followed the White Sox much more closely than I have in years past. I attribute this entirely to the addition of Steve Stone to the broadcast booth—and the fact that the flagship station for the team is the sports radio station I listen to anyway. If I'm given the option of listening to a baseball game on the radio, I'll take Stone and Ed Farmer over Pat Hughes and Ron Santo every time. While Cubs fans understandably champion Santo as a legend for the team, his broadcast skills are, at times, unbearable.

When it comes to television, the opposite holds true. The Cubs team of Len Kasper and Bob Brenly was named by the Sun-Times as the best announcing pair in town, while the Sox' team of Hawk Harrelson and Darrin Jackson can either put me to sleep with the lengthy periods of dead air or make me want to scream when the duo goes into complete silence as a stadium is going nuts in a road game.

One way or another, I've caught most of both teams' games and have enjoyed following them this year. I look forward once again to the atmosphere created by post-season baseball in the area, so two teams could get pretty rowdy—unless, of course, both teams get knocked out in the first round and that would actually be somewhat fitting.

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The biggest surprise, by far, this year has to be the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I was just so sure that this was the year somebody else besides Boston or New York made some noise in the AL East, and the scrappy little bunch they got down in Tampa is the kind of story that has me pulling for them, even with that ugly stadium and the fact that were talking about Tampa here.

Had Toronto brought on Cito Gaston sooner (they really came on when it was too late), perhaps I could tell you I told you so. But instead, I'm actually talking about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays winning a division title. It really hasn't sunk in that this franchise is going to be in the playoffs this year.

It's strange because I typically hate it when an expansion team in any sport becomes successful. Usually, it's because of a collection of free agents whose careers I still preferred elsewhere. But I guess my little bit of misplaced loathing disappeared last year when Colorado rolled to the Series.

I still find the thought of the Devil Rays defeating the Cubs in the World Series to be highly amusing, for the record.

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I'm not sure anybody could be more disappointing than the Detroit Tigers, picked by many to win it all this year. Come to think of it, the AL Central was just kind of a WTF sort of year in general. Oh, except for the Royals, of course. "That train's never late."

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When it comes to the matter of deciding if I want the Mets or the Phillies to win the NL East, I'm still torn. That collapse they had in New York was awfully entertaining to watch unfold, but I really do get a kick out of Jerry Manuel. I'd like seeing him lose in the playoffs.

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I don't know why I picked the Padres, either. Entirely out of spite for the Dodgers, I assume.