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Monday, 17 April 2006, 19:51:21 EDT

"People called it Ozzie Ball. It's not Ozzie Ball. It's fucking baseball." — Ozzie Guillen in an interview for Playboy (May 2006).

The interviewer was questioning Ozzie about the way the White Sox played ball, and won, last year (2005). They were the first team to lead their league from opening day to closing day (of the season) since the 1927 Yankees, the only other team to have done it, did it. That is seventy-eight years, by the way. Why were they able to do this amazing feat? Because they played "fucking baseball." I absolutely love this quote. It seems to me that people are more worried about whether or not the players are going to blast homeruns all night instead of play baseball. Baseball isn't about the homeruns. Oh, they are awesome. Who doesn't love a homerun? But they aren't the whole game. A well timed, and executed, bunt is infinitely more important than a single homerun nine times out of ten. Fundamental baseball is beautiful when it is actually played. A team playing good fundamental baseball will make a homerun reliant team look silly.

That's what my favorite team does year after year. They play good baseball and win. They are the most consistent, constantly different, team in the history of all sports. The Atlanta Braves play baseball. That is why I get sick when I hear people like guys on Baseball Tonight on ESPN talk about the Braves. They are infatuated with the homerun, not baseball. For example, I was eating dinner at Smokey Bones last night (everything else was closed) and so I decided to listen to the baseball highlights over their table speaker. That was a mistake. They, of course, started a segment where they showed nothing but homeruns from the day and said little comments about them. When they showed Andruw Jones' homerun the moron at ESPN said "It looks like he is going to have to carry them again this year," in reference to Jones' mounting homer record and the Braves' rocky start. I turned the speaker off at that point and questioned why I turned it on to begin with. We are two weeks into the season. That comment doesn't even make sense; there are over ninety games left to play in the season.

Any way, I just read that in the interview and had to share it. It boils down all my feelings about modern baseball and the moron media that is following it now. Back to working on some Numerical Methods homework.