As Andy Williams mistakenly sings about December (a time when there is no baseball), it’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Join me, as I ponder, predict, and pontificate about what is sure to be am amazing day. I have laid out herein a timeline for those of us who are not impartial, who know there are heroes and villains, heels and baby-faces, decency and obscenity. Perhaps these will not be the most storied matchups, but they certainly will demonstrate if there is goodness left in this world. I will always root for goodness to prevail, and I invite those of you who care about peace, justice, and rational thought to join me on my viewing/rooting journey.
The day begins at 10:05 am PDT: San Francisco Giants at New York Yankees
Sometimes, the villain is easy to recognize, and any case in which the San Francisco Giants are involved, you’ve got your villain. If the Giants are playing baseball, we have a moral obligation to root against them.
There are many decent and rational people who would argue that the New York Yankees are just as villainous, if not more so, than the team from the Bay, but they are simply misguided. If I may make a comparison to the situation at hand: In 1992, The Ultimate Warrior and “Macho Man” Randy Savage were embroiled in a bitter feud over the WWF Championship. Enter Ric Flair, an entity so horrendous, so vile, that the first two men were forced to set aside their difference and focus on eliminating Flair. In this instance, you might consider your team to be the Ultimate Warrior and the Yankees to be Randy Savage, but certainly, you recognize the value in joining together, however briefly, to terminate the affronts to morality that are the San Francisco Giants. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The Yankees do something that all professional sports teams should do: they f’ing care about their fans and about winning. They will spare no expense to put the best team on the field, year in and year out. They always have a plan. Teams and fanbases with shoddy ownership get upset, or cry poverty, but it doesn’t faze the Yankees. They play for their city and their team, and let the haters keep on hating. I respect it.
It is almost always fun watching the Giants because of how loathsome they are. It is easy to get hyped up to watch a villain fall. However, I strongly recommend the New York Yankees audio feed, as Michael Kay is a warm breeze for the ears. ESPN is carrying this game, so you’ll probably get Karl Ravech, but you’ll also have to deal with A-Rod. Which will make it difficult to cheer for the Yankees.
Not for nothing, but Gerrit Cole is pitching for New York. He’s a bit of a hero, himself, since he is a long-time rival and ethereal tormentor of Trevor Bauer, and is usually a Cy Young favorite. Aaron Judge will be playing in the Giants game for the first game of 2023, but hilariously, he’ll still be playing for the Yankees. Here at AFSL, Jon Heyman is well-loved. Logan Webb is going for SF, and he looks like Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story.
On paper, the Yankees are heavy favorites, but the Giants always seem to get that big hit they need it. It’s annoying, and even though I am heavily biased (because I care about justice), I have to admit they always play better when they are up against the MLB standard-bearers (Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals, Red Sox).
Also at 10:05 AM: Atlanta Braves at Washington Nationals
I haven’t liked the Braves since 1991, when they had the temerity to go from worst-to-first and play against the Minnesota Twins in one of the most legendary World Series matchups of all time. Save for Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett, there was no star power in that series, and it was still riveting. I felt sick each and every inning, watching these milquetoast, nouveau riche’ underdogs annoyingly tomahawk chop their way to game 7, only to fail mightily. That spot, that Game Seven (in which to emerge victorious), should have belonged to Darryl Strawberry, Orel Hershiser, Brett Butler, Eddie Murray, and Tommy Lasorda, but nooooooo…. the Braves just had to win on the last day of the regular season to finish with 94 wins. The Dodgers were thwarted by that eternal enemy from the Candlestick Park, the Giants, finished with 93 wins, and had to watch from home as the Braves blew it. Why were the Braves even in the NL West!?
After winning the West again in 1992 (thwarting the Pirates and a young MVP named Barry Bonds), they were rightfully removed from the NL West, signed Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux, and went on to dominate the National League for the next decade. It was excruciating.
After falling off the map for a few years, the Braves roared back in 2021 and won the World Series, and rewarded their players with the tackiest, most nauseating, flip-top championship ring I’ve ever laid my sore eyes on:
The Braves square off with the Washington Nationals, another hateful underdog that had gall to win the 2019 World Series, after a miraculous NLDS victory led by the odious Howie Kendrick.
This is not a fair fight, though. The Braves have Ronald Acuna, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, 2022 Rookie of the Year Michael Harris, and a fully healthy Ozzie Albies in their lineup, not to mention Cy Young runner up Max Fried taking the mound. The Nationals have… my fantasy catcher, Keibert Ruiz.
The Nationals are not good at all, and given the history of the two teams (the Nationals were FKA the Montreal Expos, the most likable baseball team not based in Los Angeles, and the Braves were everything mentioned above), we should probably be pulling for Washington. However, speaking of fantasy baseball, let me just check my lineup for tomorrow here… yep, that says Max Fried is pitching not only for the Braves, but for me. So, the outcome that does the most good in the universe would be for Keibert Ruiz to go 4-4 with 4 RBIs after Fried leaves the game with a 5-0 lead in the 7th. Quality start, W, 7 IP for Fried, maximum points for Ruiz. It’s the right thing to hope for.
At 1:10 PM PDT: Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds
When Tommy Lasorda took over as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1976, he banned his players (and their wives) from wearing the color red. The Cincinnati Reds were coming off back-to-back World Series victories, and Tommy needed his players to get used to hating them. It worked, the Los Angeles Dodgers thwarted the Cincinnati Reds in back-to-back seasons (1977, 1978) to reach the World Series as the representative of the National League.
In 1995, The 85-win Cincinnati Reds swept the 78-win Los Angeles Dodgers (Peeee yooooou) in the first ever LDS, an absolute bloodbath.
While these two instances are not examples of a full-fledged rivalry, if Tommy says we need to hate the Reds, I suggest we do so.
This might be the worst game of the day, as far as on-field talent, but there are three things that make this game worth watching:
- Hunter Greene is pitching for Cincinnati. Hunter Greene was listed as the Reds’ top prospect last year, and after getting called up on April 10th, got absolutely roped his first few games. However, he finished the season with 164 strikeouts in 125 innings, and he’s only 23. This young man throws flames. That’s the kind of thing I love to watch. Go get ’em, kid.
- For the Pirates, Mitch Keller takes the hill. Keller is not the pitcher Greene is (a career whip of 1.57 isn’t bad, per se, though he doesn’t miss a ton of bats and has a career era of 5.00), but it might be impossible to better summarize why we love baseball better than Keller did when he was told he would be Pittsburgh’s 2023 Opening Day Starter.
- The Pittsburgh Pirates are owned by Bob Nutting. Nutting is one of MLB’s top 10 richest owners, and runs the Pirates like he can’t afford to pay the peanut vendors. The Pirates rank 27th out of 30 in payroll, and Nutting has consistently complained that the CBA (and the profit-sharing aspects of it) do not benefit the Pirates enough. The Pirates have stunk for almost 3 decades. Essentially, Nutting argues that he should get paid by the rest of the league for intentionally running a franchise badly and cheaply. Perhaps the worst owner in baseball, if not for Oakland’s John Fischer.
So today, we root for Cincinnati (sorry, Tommy) in the hopes that Greene shows and proves, and that Nutting keeps losing so badly that he gets the Frank McCourt treatment.
At 4:00 PM, we turn off MLB in protest of the Astros ring ceremony. Sickening, awful, terrible, vile, horrendous. We watch the Boston Celtics battle the Milwaukee Bucks as the Celtics attempt to take their fate into their own hands and win the Eastern Conference. A day on which we can honor Tommy Lasorda and Larry Bird is a wonderful day, indeed. Bonus points for showing the Astros our backs. Pigs.
Finally, the main event, the creme de la creme, at 7:10 pm:
Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Dodgers
Ah, the Arizona Diamondbacks. The jerks who built a swimming pool in their ballpark and got upset when people went swimming in it. The insecure little brothers who make Dodgers fans take off their jerseys if they are sitting in good TV seats behind home plate. The Worms. The place where Madison Bumgarner’s career has gone to wither up and die, and to a nicer guy, it couldn’t have happened. This red-assed hick must be living a miserable existence, as he gets vewwy sad when people have fun playing baseball or score off him, but he carried an ERA of 4.88 last season, so it’s happening a lot.
Look, I do not expect the Dodgers to win 111 games again. They were playing unbelievable, video game baseball last season. A regression is inevitable. Losing Trea Turner might cost them 8-9 victories, alone. So that knocks the Dodgers down to 103 wins. The absence of Gavin Lux, who was scheduled to take over for Turner until he went down with a season-ending knee injury in Spring Training, might cost them 3-4 more games. 99 wins? Even if we factor in regression after all that, the Dodgers are still hovering around 90 wins. Walker Buehler is also out for the year, but is being replaced by Noah Syndegaard, a development that would normally not inspire confidence if the Dodgers didn’t have a fantastic track record of turning pitchers around. If they can coax All-Star seasons out of Tyler Anderson, Alex Wood, and Rich Hill, surely they can expect a significant contribution from Syndegaard, who was a co-ace on the Mets just a few years ago. Dustin May is back for a full season, and if you don’t have confidence in Urias, Gonsolin, and Kershaw at this point, you might be an anti-Dodger.
How could you not root for the Dodgers? The franchise gave us Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, Tommy Lasorda, Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser, and Yasiel Puig. They’ve developed back-to-back Rookies of the Year twice since moving to Los Angeles, and in fact, had 4 in a row from 1991-1995. This year, they’ll be throwing two more rookies out to prove themselves, Miguel Vargas and James Outman, revealing the lie that the Dodgers only buy their talent for the farce that it is. It is fun to root for the next generation.
When they do buy talent, it is top notch. Mookie Betts, an American hero due to his performance in the WBC, and Freddie Freeman are each top 10 players. Like the Yankees, the Dodgers respect their fans and treat them with a reverence normally reserved for royalty. They care about winning, and will pull out all the stops to build the best team money can buy, without apologizing for it. There is no better place to be than the confines of Dodger Stadium with 56,000 of your closest friends. It is a pilgrimage.
Since the dawn of the modern era of baseball (1958; the Western expansion of the league, new rules creating the modern game), only the Yankees have won more World Series.
It is good for your health to root for the Dodgers; it increases happiness and helps purge jealousy, envy, and anger. Lord knows, there is enough of that in the world today. Join the bandwagon, and live a fuller life.
Yes, I most certainly am biased. I want goodness to prevail. I cannot stand idly by while dark forces lay siege to righteousness. So I will follow this rooting schedule on Opening Day. I invite you to join me. Play ball!
A Fool Speaks Loudest 