We Have Matt Garza And You Don't

I feel like I should brag or something.

So, I will!



TAMPA BAY RAYS!!!


For some reason, I've forgotten how to enjoy sports. Ever since crying my pre-teen eyes out after Nayim scored the luckiest fucking goal in human history (a cry exacerbated by stubbing my pre-teen toe on the doorframe while angrily storming out of the room; I'm not sure which hurt more), I've kind of detatched myself from the emotion of sport. I expect Arsenal to win every game that they play, but get around the emotional aspect of it all by never talking about football in real life and by rarely watching the games. I expect England to underachieve at everything that they participate in, and get around the emotional aspect of it all by having those expectations continually fulfilled. And I expect the Bulls to disappoint me endlessly, getting around the emotional side of things by spending so much time following the sport of basketball that I am nothing but a passionless wreck. (Readers note: I'm single. Being passionless and going to bed at 6am every day will do that to a man.)

Baseball is exempt from this bland unemotive behaviour, though. Despite it being far from the sport that I enjoy the most, it's the only sport in which I can enjoy sport. Maybe feeling like that makes me insane, or maybe that sentence was just codshit. The grammar certainly doesn't suggest that I have any idea what the hell I just said. But I stand by it nonetheless.

When it comes to basketball, I'll watch any old shit that I happen to come across. (Giggidy.) I'll watch ABA games, and a few years of doing so has bettered my understanding of Ace Custis's defense, Darryl Dawkins's wardrobe, and Olden Polynice's maverick free throw routines. I'll watch Cameroon versus Angola, if it means I can get a Cucumber Amootay player profile out of it. And I saw more of the women's basketball during the Olympics than the men's, although this wasn't really my fault. (See also: previous post about crappy basketball coverage in England.) But with baseball, I can only watch games that the Rays are in. It's just not that interesting of a game otherwise. You can tell what happened in a box score, without watching a single moment of the action. It's arguably the only sport that it's more enjoyable not to watch.

Watching the games of only one team allows me something that other sports just don't offer: I can be a fan again. As deeply and obsessively as I follow the NBA - and the Chicago Bulls in particular - I learnt how to stop taking losses personally about five years ago. (Tip: don't talk to other fans.) Without that, I had lost the most important part of fandom. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it will allow for a far easier time when I get that assistant general manager's job with another franchise that seems so inevitable to a man of such pedigree and qualifications, but it also sucks a little in ways that I shouldn't need to explain. Not so with baseball. I only know and care about one team. That allows for blind passion. And blind passion is awesome when it goes right.

I don't know why I support the Rays. I just sort of do. My first few years of casually watching baseball drew me towards the Atlanta Braves, mainly because they were the only tesm on telly. But after becoming an avid box score watching nerdy old sadarse back in 2005, I found myself always checking the Rays boxscores first. I don't know why. Maybe I'm heavily depressed without realising it. Or maybe I just love false hope.

Either way, it's false hope no more. The Rays are now, officialy, the best team in the American League. I was there for it, watching every minute of almost every game. (I fell asleep during the seventh inning stretch of game 5, which turned out to be an piece of accidental genius.) And I've never had more fun as a sports fan than game seven just now.

In a matter of days, the Rays will soon be the unequivocal best baseball team in the world. Join the bandwagon now, before people start hating you for it. Pink hats not available in the foyer.