At first glance, I thought Dr. Morneau and Sweetcheeks were holding hands *blush*

It seems like I'm always trying to hate A-Rod, and at times, I feel like I've accomplished it (e.g. after the slap), but then he goes and surprises me by saying something astonishingly mature and sometimes even kind of humble-sounding. Maybe I should just give up and admit that he's not all bad.

Okay, I take back all the mean things I said about A-Rod last year.

I still hate Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter, though.

Art really couldn't be a better photographer, could he? We should fly him up to Minneapolis for the season!

Dear Goober,

Great idea, but you better start buying those Batgirl T-shirts.

Love,
Batgirl

Isn't it time to get over the evil Yankees stuff ?
Can't we all just get along ? What have Matsui & Jeter done to be hated ?

Why do dogs hate cats?
Why do kids hate liver?
Why did Skywalker hate Vader?

It is what it is.

Morneau and Torii totally look like they're holding hands, yup.

I also thought it was cool of A-Rod (gasp!) to do what he did for Mr. Bob Casey. Nice move.

And I do love the Johan pictures and the bitches he sat down, of course. Thanks Art!

While I dislike the Yankees about as much as anyone, I have to take exception to the argument of "Me":
Why do dogs hate cats?
Why do kids hate liver?
Why did Skywalker hate Vader?

Dogs and cats do not inherently hate one another. In most situations, they cohabitate very peacefully.

Kids mostly hate liver because their parents dislike it and so they are naturally inclined to automatically think it is "yucky". Also, the taste buds of children are more receptive than those of adults. And the unique, somewhat strong flavor of liver is something of an acquired taste.

And finally, Luke hated Vader because he was told by Obi-Wan that Vader had betrayed and murdered Anakin. When he learned the truth, Luke loved Vader because he knew there must still be some piece of the good Anakin still inside the iron lung.

Dear Mr Double A,

Thank you. I think we all learned something.

Appreciatively,
Batgirl

While I am a lover and not a fighter, since we are on the subject of hate, read what CC Sob-athia has to say about starting the season on the D.L.

Sabathia will make his season debut on April 17 against Minnesota. ``I'll just look at the 17th as my opening day,'' he said. ``It's against the Twins, and you know I hate them. And they know it. I'll be fired up.''

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=250328105

I like liver. I've always liked liver: avec, bacon and onions, yum. My 100 lb black lab loves my cat, whom I can't stand. I don't know Darth and Luke, but, I'm sure they could learn to get along, if they tried.

DiggityDino, thanks! It'll be extra fun when we beat them then.

C'mon al, tell us the truth: what if you had to eat liver all alone, without the bacon and onions. Then how much do ya like it, hunh???

ok, just how far away was Rivas when he began that slide???

Was Rivas sliding? From the looks of it, I thought he just tripped rounding first.

"What have Matsui & Jeter done to be hated ?"

Matsui was a jerk to everyone a couple years ago as he was boarding the team bus outside the team hotel in Downtown Minneapolis before one of the ALDS games. As were all of the Yankees, except for Aaron Boone, who stopped to sign my school ID.

Of course, I wasn't actively seeking out the Yankees outside their team hotel. I was downtown for the Twins playoff rally that afternoon, and stumbled upon a velvet rope with Yankees fans crowded around it waiting. How could I pass up such a golden opportunity to heckle the Yankees? Except all the Yankees fans waiting for the players were even bigger jerks than the players, and one of them even told me "if you mess this up for me, I will personally kill you." Imagine that, a supposedly mature 40+ year old threatening a helpless little 15 year old. I thought about telling him to get a life, but he seemed pretty serious about the killing me thing.

Jeter I have no real problem with, although I could see him easily pulling a Kobe Bryant at any time.

Personally, I don't dislike the Yankee players. I've always kind of liked A-Rod, Jeter, and Giambi. Randy Johnson, too. Ok, I'm not a Sheffield fan, but that's not uncommon. It's The Yankees, I dislike. Why? Because they're perrenial winners.

I've had this conversation with a friend many times. His point is that parity ruined the NFL. I agree. Leagues need teams to hate. It's good for baseball to have the Yankees. It was good for basketball to have strong a strong Lakers team. It was good for football when there was a powerhouse or that other sport, the one with the stick and the rubber Hostess Ding Dong. It's good to have a team that fans of other teams could love to hate. A team that other teams could shoot for, to hope to knock off. It brings more to the game. "Professional wrestling" has known this for years. Having a bad guy makes the whole thing more interesting.

I know Minnesota Twins fans should only sit behind the Red Sox as Yankee haters (small market v. big market, Senators v. Damn Yankees, etc) but I've always rooted for the Yankees if it doesn't have a negative impact on my beloved Twins.

I think it has to do with the "Yankee Mystique" as I grew up reading books about Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. Also Steinbrenner may be Darth Vader, but you gotta love his attitude about winning. He gets what his baseball people tell him are the best players available and expects them to win. If they don't he replaces them (both management and "talent") with others who will win. This is quite different than most teams (Twins included some years) that are merely content to compete, sell some hot dogs and t-shirts, and cash the checks.

NYY:

I have my reasons.

Hideki Matsui tried to kill me at the Metrodome during the playoffs in 2003. He hit a home run directly at my face in the upper deck above right field and if I hadn't ducked, I'd be dead. As it was, I lived to tell the tale, but the kid in the seat behind me caught the ball and wouldn't throw it back and that's why the Twins lost that day.

There were witnesses.

Jeter I just hate on principle. Anyone who would date Mariah Carey is just beyond my capacity to like.

Although, I will amend my opinion just slightly, since my grandma always said it isn't polite to say I "hate" anything, not even the Yankees.

So what I meant to say was, I still "don't care for" Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter.

I'm very sorry if that hurts your feelings.

mmmmmm---I agree with you about parity not being as cool as it sounds, but I think there's a big difference b/w the NBA, where ANY team can build a dynasty and MLB, where a team can become dominant simple through spending til they drop. I hate the Yankees b/c they get to play by different rules than everyone else and they act like they should be loved b/c they "try to win" and Steinbrenner "spends his own money". Now, I can't prove this, b/c no team opens their books, but I would bet you that Steinbrenner is still taking home a tidy profit, even with a $200 million payroll. And once he stops making enough profit, he won't spend as much, just like anyone else (why do you think Beltran's wearing a Mets hat). So Steinbrenner gets the best of all worlds--he gets to compete, sign free agents, the whole shebang AND make a tidy profit. I think even Ebenezer Pohlad would act like Steinbrenner if he could do it while still making money.

I don't like A-Rod either (but I'll lay off for now), Jeter's the Brett Favre/Duke of baseball (the announcers act like he's a god and even when he's doing wrong, he's somehow doing right), Giambi and Sheff took steroids (and Sheff's just not a nice guy). Randy Johnson's a sell out. I respect Rivera though. He's the only one I hate in a "I hate seeing you b/c I know you're so good" kind of way. I'd love to see him setting up for the VP. Maybe we can trade some prospects for him--I hear the Yankees need those.

I made a vow this weekend to never make for of A-Rod again after that article. That was seriously amazing. We'll see how long I last on that, but I will sure try.

>>...the kid in the seat behind me caught the ball and wouldn't throw it back ....

Ok, I have a question. What the HELL is with throwing the ball back? Seriously? What does it show other than a major league lack of class and sportsmanship? What does it get you, besides maybe thrown out of the 'Dome? If we're talking hate, then there's a fine example of something that I absolutely hate. Keep your souvenir, or better yet, give it to one of the kids sitting around you that would appreciate it.

mmmarkiep, with all due respect, throwing the ball back would have shown how much more the kid loves the Twins than the money he would earn by selling Hideki Matsui's homerun ball on Ebay. To me, the major-leage lack of class is cheapening the game by trying to turn it into a personal profit.

It's not about hate or souvenirs. It's about loyalty.

You're assuming everyone that catches a home run ball is selling it on e-bay? I guess I'm assuming that orinary home run balls don't really sell and that you just keep the ball as a souvenir of a day at the park. I guess I don't see how throwing a ball back, and getting kicked out of watching the team you're professing to love is showing loyalty.

Head...exploding...must...comment.

Okay first I would like to note for the record that I had absolutely nothing to do with this thread and the direction it has taken.

mmmarkiep has brought up a point I feel very strongly about (though my knowledge is by osmosis and not according to fact, so grains of salt for all, on me). Throwing the ball back was a Wrigley Field tradition meant to jab at an opposing player who hit a home run. It's saying "not only could I care less that you hit a home run against my team, but I wouldn't even want the souvenier." To me, that's pretty close to the ultimate heckle (the UH being someone throwing back Barry Bonds' 756th because of the steroid thing, but I digress). Needless to say, I love it. Have I ever done it? No. Would I? Yes, if I caught a home run ball at Wrigley. You see, it is a Wrigley tradition and should therefore stay at Wrigley. I don't want to go to Shea or the Dome, etc., and hear the right field crowd chant out the starting lineup for the home team. That's a Yankee Stadium thing, and should remain that way. Each sporting venue should keep its traditions (Flying octopii in Detroit anyone?) and that's that.

As for all the Yankee-hating -- mmmarkiep is right that every sport needs a bad guy. That's what makes the rivalries so fun. Some people are on the top end (see, e.g., me and the Yanks) and some are on the bottom end (see, e.g., me and my New York Rangers). I will say that I can always get up for a Boston/Yanks or Rangers/Islanders game no matter what the standings show. Having a natural rivalry (Knicks-Heat for a while comes to mind too) makes things more intense and more fun to watch, talk about, and enjoy.

Of course, there are about 930480293 more things that I can (and want to) comment on (like Freealonzo's Mystique thread), but, you know, they pay me to do SOME stuff here.

Less than
One week till they dress for me
cock they're bat to the side and say "i'm ready"
5 days till they win for me
unless david wells parties and forgets to get his z's
3 days till the afternoon
get out of work humming that favorite tune
then today a smile comes to me
but it'll still be a few days till i hear "YANKEEES WIN THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YANKEEEES WIN!"

YankeeFan
(Yeah, I had a little trouble with the end of the song...)

One other point about "cheapening the game for personal profit." Isn't that what Koskie did when he left for Toronto, to an extent? And what free agency is all about? Or am I missing something?

So what should Steinbrenner do ?
Not spend the money ?
Put even more of it his pocket ?

Every owner in the league voted for the current rules accept for one, Steinbrenner. The Yankees aren't the problem. How is it his fault that his team makes more money ? The owners don't seem to mind the fact that he is the only one giving them money in revenue sharing.

The rules are the rules and what the Yankees do isn't against the rules and all of the other owners voted for them and the players sure don't mind his money either. Randy is a sell out because he went to NY ? What about Vlad he left small market Montreal and went to LA ? Schilling screwed over the Phillies last year to get a better deal in Boston. Are he and his dirty sock sell outs ? He didn't pitch for free and certainly didn't go to a small market.

"Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!"

I'm with TwinsGoddess on this one, and everyone else who has returned an enemy home run rather than pocketing the souvenir. It's a playful show of disrespect in a society in which too many such displays are hurtful and cruel.

In fact, it was cool to see the 3-year-old girl at the Twins-Yanquis exhibition game on Saturday chucking a souvenir that her mom handed to her. (TV showed it several times, almost as often as I saw the Blake Hoffarber butt-basket the previous weekend.)I don't know the details, but I'll pay for the little girl's upper-deck ticket anytime.

I believe I can speak to the genesis of throwing it back.

RD is old enough to remember Wrigley Field during the horrible 1969 season -- toward the end of the season when the Cubbies were going tankward and giving up homers by the dozen -- when a visiting team's home run was greeted with chants of "Throw It Back! Throw It back!" until the fan who caught the ball had no choice.

RD, who was quite young at the time, remembers sitting in the bleachers for a couple of those games and finding out that the budding tradition extended to BATTING PRACTICE. In other words, when the visitors were taking b.p., balls were flying in and out of the bleachers.(RD does NOT endorse this practice at the Metrodome, however.)

Others may have stories of baseballs being thrown back that pre-date mine, but I'll bet a Barry Bonds home run ball that critical mass for the practice was achieved at Wrigley Field. Hmmmm, wouldn't it be cool if the owners of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa home run balls gathered somewhere and staged a mass throw-it-back party?

American Leaguers, beware. If I catch your home run ball, it's comin' back at you. You wanna put your own souvenir on eBay -- "I hit this home run off Kyle Lohse, starting bid 39 cents" -- be my guest.

I'm not making assumptions about anybodoy except that kid who was sitting behind me. When the people sitting around us urged him to throw it back, he made it clear that he was keeping the ball so he could turn a profit on it later.

And dragging Corey Koskie into it, well that's just low. He has a family to feed, and as much as I miss him, I totally understand why he felt he had to leave. And did I not read that he could have gotten more money from the Dodgers, but went with Toronto because he wanted to play for his childhood team?

Besides which, he is a baseball player. That's his job. Nobody pretends that the players are going to play for free. And he did everything he could to stay with the Twins and their tiny payroll when he surely could have been paid a lot more somewhere else.

His situation is completely different from a kid in the stands cashing in on Hideki Matsui's success and selling his "souvenir" to the highest bidder.

Solution to the "Throw the HR ball back" dilema. Bring an extra ball to the game and throw that one back. keep the souvenir, its meant to sit on your mantle, no matter who hit it.

Also, on any given day in the baseball season the average fan has two favorite teams. Their hometown team, and whomever is playing against the Yankees.

I love the Yankee players, Mantle, Ruth, Berra, there are so many. Maris is my favorite player of all time. I dislike the Yankees ability to spend more resourses to "buy" a championship caliber team. Luckly it hasn't worked out as well as you'd expect lately. Having more money to spend in free agency makes every other team the underdog, and America likes the underdog.

Then again, if you are from NY, you should like the Yankees. What a great team to be a fan of. And it's not a "I hate you, I want you to die" thing, like mmmarkiep said, we need the villans as much as the hero's. Geez, some of the Yankee fans are the best contributors to this site (and who'd have thunk a Yankee fan could write?).

And to think this discussion started because some idiot wrote "dogs hate cats".

Oh, that was me. Sorry.

That "family to feed" thing sure caught on in Minnesota, didn't it? ;)

RD, nothing about the tradition staying in the place where the tradition is born? I really thought I would hear some support on that one.

YankeeFan

My mixed comments are as follows:

My favorite Casey moment (I realize this is in the wrong comments section) is when he called Torii "Torii Harry" in his first at-bat coming off the DL last season. Torii turned around and gave him a smiling "what the heck" look.

Even though A-Rod made a classy comment about Mr. Casey it only proves he is not completely rotten all the way through. I will continue to think he is an overpaid baby. Mostly because it is way more fun to think that than to actually know it for a fact.

Which brings up how I feel about the Yankees in general. I hate them too. Mostly because they keep eliminating us from the play-offs, but also because its fun to have an enemy. I hate the White Sox too - they are my closer to home enemy. I was in NY last month and ended up at a bar talking baseball with a bunch of Yankee fans. It was great to hear all the respect they had for the Twins brand of baseball. They are in awe of Santana and said it would be nice to watch guys come up from a farm system. The also liked how the Twins play like a team and have a lot of heart. I countered with how I loved it when the Yankees came to town so I could see the shock and awe of some of the best hitters in the game. It's a mutual respect for different brands of baseball and it is great fun to see how the other guys do it once in a while. I told them I hated the Yankees and they said, "as you should".

I can't wait for opening day!!

Blue

YankeeFan,

I'd like to think the throw-it-back tradition followed me from Chicago! Feel free to consider it the exception that reinforces your point.

And no fair comparing Cordel Koskie to Latrell Sprewell, darn it. :)

Yours, RD

>>he made it clear that he was keeping the ball so he could turn a profit on it later.

That's just sad.

>>And dragging Corey Koskie into it, well that's just low.

Heh. Yeah, you're right. Although, if he were really thinking of his family, he would have signed with the Twins to stay close to where his family now lives, no? I mean, it wasn't like he was going to be living on public assistance with what they offered, right? But, no, I harbor no ill will toward Corey. I wish him only the best as one of the true class acts in the game.

>>its meant to sit on your mantle, no matter who hit it.

I agree completely. Here's a twist. Say you throw back a home run ball hit by a player that later gets traded to, and becomes an integral part of, your hometown team. Then what?

Different strokes, I guess.

MP, I do have an opinion about the player love vs. team love issue (go figure), but I think everyone has heard enough out of me for one day.

You'll have to save that bit of debate-bait for another day, my friend.

YF, I meant the "family to feed" thing figuratively, of course. And I find the fact that you want to keep the ball-throwing tradition at Wrigley where it started most charming. But a tradition like that is just too good to limit to one stadium and the fans of one team. It's a little bit like Batgirl that way.

Nothin' but love for you both.

TG, I wasn't trying to bait you. Honest. And any day with a little Goddess in it is a good day. Post away.

Anyone who rags on Corey Koskie is obviously bating me. The only thing that would get my hackles up faster would be picking on Lew Ford or Gardy.

and mmarkiep is the master...

Sorrily yours,
Yankeefan

You guys crack me up. Now everybody has kissed and made up, so see, NYY? We CAN all just get along!

No, no, no. YankeeFan, YOU'RE the master.

Admiringly,

mmmarkiep

(That Chip and Dale always did crack me up.)

Aw, TG, I was just being extreme to try to make a point. Upon further review, I don't think it's a valid comparison. Plus, we're almost on the same side of the issue. At least, we agree on one thing. It saddens me that profiteers have taken over the memorabilia market. Whatever happened to getting an autograph because you admired the player? I'm starting to sound like an old fart, I guess. One thing I know, I'll never, ever, EVER sell my autographed photo of the San Antonio Missions mascot Henry the Puffy Taco. (Or my Tony Oliva autographed baseball, neither.)

Oh, and if you think I'm baiting you, then you've grossly overestimated my intelligence. I've got all my teeth, but I'm not that bright!

There. Now everybody hug! That's an order.

-Batgirl

Aw thanks...wait a sec... i'm the master baiter!?!?

Hey!

YF

Hoo boy. See? I told you I'm not that bright. I never even got that one 'til now.

I feel compelled to respond to batgirl's caption under the Johan Santana picture. "God, I love him." Well, he only turned in last season one of the most dominating pitching performances in the history of the game. He also happens to be a beautiful man who is nice to us Twins fans. Honestly, what's not to like???