June 10, 2011

Schadenfreude 113 (A Continuing Series)

We'll crawl through your back yard
And whack your yappin' dog
We're having much more fun


Mark Feinsand, Daily News:
After dropping the first two games against the Red Sox this week, players arrived at the Stadium Thursday night to find a piece of paper on each of their chairs - one containing a message of togetherness and inspiration:

"A championship team is a group of individuals that has committed themselves to handle all the highs and lows throughout the season, knowing the ultimate goal of winning comes from each and every one and more importantly, together as a team." ...

"It's frustrating to lose five games in a row to the Red Sox, your biggest foe," Joe Girardi said before the game. "We need to win, that's the bottom line. We need to win a game. There's a lot of pride in that room. You don't like having your pride put down." ...

"We need to win every day we take the field," [Brian] Cashman said. "We're trying to fight for a W. They've had their way with us for a few days and we need to push back and win back."

It didn't happen.
Joel Sherman, Post:
Joe Girardi opened his pregame news conference yesterday by saying, "I have some bad news and then I have some positive news."

Joba Chamberlain has a torn elbow ligament that almost certainly will necessitate season-ending Tommy John surgery and Phil Hughes had thrown two strong innings in a simulated game.

Girardi certainly needs to work on his proportionality. Hey, a planet-ending asteroid is hurtling toward earth, but on the positive side my last meal was splendid.
George A. King III, Post:
The Yankees day opened with terrible news about Joba Chamberlain's damaged right elbow.

And didn't improve.

That's because ace CC Sabathia spit out a late lead against the Red Sox ...

Through six frames Sabathia threw 82 pitches and faced just three batters with runners in scoring position.

Eleven batters later the Red Sox had a 7-2 lead and what was left of the crowd was howling.
Ben Shpigel, Times:
Babe Ruth was a 17-year-old pitching prodigy at the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys. The Red Sox had yet to win a World Series, and the Yankees did not exist. They were still called the Highlanders, playing not in the Bronx but in Manhattan, at Hilltop Park and the Polo Grounds.

The Red Sox won all 10 games in New York during that 1912 season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. But over the last 99 years of their rivalry, they had yet to win as many as six in a row. ... It took almost a century, but the Red Sox snapped that streak in the early hours of Friday morning, stunning the Yankees, 8-3.
Ian Browne, MLB.com:
The Red Sox have turned the normally hostile grounds of Yankee Stadium into their personal playground.

For the second time in less than a month, Boston has departed the Bronx with a three-game sweep. ...

The Red Sox are the first team to win six games in a row at the new Yankee Stadium, and this is the first time they've taken six consecutive road games from New York since 1912. It's also the first time since '12 that the Sox have swept two road series against the Yankees in one season.
Tim Smith, Daily News:
[T]he pillars of the team - the things that they thought were strengths coming into the season - are shaken.

There is nothing warm and fuzzy about that feeling that your bullpen is missing the seventh-inning guy and the eighth-inning guy and the bridges to your sure-thing closer, Mariano Rivera, are as shaky as your theories on the care and feeding of young pitchers. ...

[Sabathia] served as the big enforcer when he nailed David Ortiz in the thigh with a fastball in the fourth inning ... [I]t was what they needed most from one of their strongest performers. It will reverberate long after this series is over. ...
Brian Costello, Post:
The theory that hitting David Ortiz with a pitch might make him uncomfortable has been floating around this town for years?

Better come up with a new plan. ...

Since Ortiz began tormenting the Yankees in 2003, there has been an idea that he is too comfortable in the batter's box an drilling him might change that.

Ortiz disproved that theory by getting two hits in the seventh inning, starting and finishing the Red Sox's seven-run rally in that inning.
Matt Fortuna, MLB.com:
[A]s Thursday gave way to Friday, and as Ortiz recovered from a hit-by-pitch, the all-too-familiar scene of the Red Sox celebrating in the Bronx became inevitable. ...

Ortiz led off the inning with a single and recorded the Red Sox's eighth and final hit of the frame a short while later with a two-run double, this after hitting homers on Tuesday and Wednesday. He finished the series with four hits, four runs scored and six RBIs.
Mike Lupica, Daily News:
Of course you don't judge the Yankees on the 13-13 baseball they have played lately anymore than you judge the Red Sox on that 2-10 start that seems to have happened to them a lifetime ago. But right after the Yankees win six of their last seven on the West Coast, they look like crash dummies against the Boston Red Sox.

Again. ...

Making their fans worry more than ever about the rotation, the bullpen, the lack of a bench, the general age of the baseball team.
Surviving Grady:
And Now This Brief But Important Message from Puppet Red to the New York Yankees

22 comments:

Kathryn said...

Ahhhh, it's a good morning.

Thanks, Allan.

Tom said...

All these Schadenfreude's are nice, but they mean nothing if we don't win in October.

BklynSoxFan said...

In 1912, "the Red Sox had yet to win a World Series..." It would be nice if this guy from the Times knew his history and that the Sox franchise won the FIRST World Series...

Jere said...

This stuff.

Amy said...

A very good morning indeed.

allan said...

All these Schadenfreude's are nice, but they mean nothing if we don't win in October.

I do not agree.

Any time the Yankees have misery - small misery or large misery - you laugh at it. Even if the Red Sox are in the midst of a 30-game losing streak, when something goes wrong for the MFY, you wear a bit of a smile for the rest of the day.

Each Schadenfreude exists unto itself. Things may change tomorrow, but we enjoy their torment today.

A Red Sox fan who does not relish the blunders and bad luck and fuck-ups and sadness and epic chokes in the clutch of the Yankees is but a shadow of a Red Sox fan.

Jere said...

"All these Schadenfreude's are nice, but they mean nothing if we don't win in October."

Well, Allan beat me to it, but I was just gonna say, "that's your opinion." Because it certainly isn't mine.

Jere said...

Quinn, good catch. From the same Times article:

"The 1912 Highlanders were 2-19 against the Red Sox, dropping 102 games over all. No team in franchise history has reached the 100-loss mark, and the 2011 Yankees are not about to, either."

Actually, they have, twice, once in 1908...and once in 1912--AS YOU JUST SAID.

(Also funny how he feels the need to say that the Yanks won't lose 100 games this year. So they won't play .284 or worse the rest of the year? Goin' way out on a limb there!)

Tom said...

I'm sorry Allan - I understand you're joy of misery for the MFY and totally agree - however, look what happened in 2009. I'd rather this Schadenfreude be after ALCS Game 4 when we sweep them there. This is nice, but in 2 weeks if we're 3 games behind the MFY in the AL East, this sweep means very little.

Let's beat Toronto!

allan said...

however, look what happened in 2009

Okay. ... So?

Tom said...

So, we killed them for the 1st half of 2009....absolutely rocked them, like what 8-0, 9-0....then came August when we started losing, and then came the playoffs, and they won the World Series.

I just hope this series (along with the other 2) can set the tone for a great run.

allan said...

I didn't mean to imply I was ignorant about what happened in 2009. I don't see how that matters - at all. So they won a WS a few years ago. And ...?

What will happen in 2011 will happen no matter what I do, or what you do, or what anyone else on this blog does. Therefore, I intend to revel in any and all of the Yankees' misfortune, no matter when it happens. You may chose to do otherwise.

Tom DePlonty said...

At the risk of being crude, this moment sums up the whole series for me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UfArA_8mPs

(No, I didn't post it to YouTube.)

FenFan said...

Wonder if there is a Yankees blogger who publishes schadenfreude posts on his or her blog whenever the Sox are struggling?

They had 86 years to give us grief. Payback is a you-know-what. :-)

laura k said...

Personal Playground: my new name for what you folks call The Toilet.

laura k said...

1912??? WTF??

If we cannot relish each joy - each game won, each series won, each NYY loss, each S'freude - until/unless we win in October, what's the point of following a team and enjoying a sport at all? Might as well just check in in September, see if they're winning, then jump on the bandwagon.

What's more, this --

they mean nothing if we don't win in October.

-- sounds exactly like the stereotypical NYY fan.

Zenslinger said...

I also don't agree with Tom -- it's the journey, not the destination and all that -- but maybe he just means we shouldn't get too cocky.

allan said...

-- but maybe he just means we shouldn't get too cocky.

We've had that discussion in previous years also (including 2007!). I think my comment then was: "Why not?" Not crowing in June will not make an October collapse hurt any less.

And after 2003 (and then after 2004), my days of being crushed by baseball games are over, so I'm going to enjoy what I can as much as I like.

Simon Chapman said...

Well, I love the Schadenfreude posts. The first thing I look after a victory over the MFY or some other MFY misfortune is a detailed breakdown of their misery thanks to Allan.

BklynSoxFan said...

"A Red Sox fan who does not relish the blunders and bad luck and fuck-ups and sadness and epic chokes in the clutch of the Yankees is but a shadow of a Red Sox fan."

I LOVE this quote, Allan, and I must put it on my blog under "Words to Live By."

Sweet.

allan said...

Aw shucks....

John Burgess said...

Thank you, Allen. You've summed it up exactly.