Person #1: “Did you hear that Bill Buckner tried to kill himself yesterday?”
Person #2: “No way – how?”
Person #1: “He jumped in front of a train.”
Person #2: “How did he survive that?!?!”
Person #1: “It went right between his legs.”
The sports moment that spawned that terrible joke did two things – first, it reminded Red Sox “nation” once more that they had sold George Herman Ruth (and most of their team) to the Yankees… secondly, it ruined my life. Instead of growing up on Long Island, New York believing the truth (that the Yankees actually were the franchise that didn’t habitually suck), as a six-year old I was duped into blindly following a franchise that would do nothing but crush my soul from that point forward. A fluke play is the only real highlight in my lifetime that my beloved/hated team has provided me.
The Mets are the laughingstock of baseball yet again this year. We needed to borrow money from major league baseball. We got absolutely screwed by Bernie Madoff and our own stupidity. Carlos Beltran is on our squad. We spent tens of millions of dollars just so that Oliver Perez and Louis Castillo wouldn’t be. Our big off-season acquisition was Chris Capuano. The Onion makes fun of us more often than it does of Joe Biden. My only way to stay positive is by thinking that maybe, just MAYBE, we’ll be able to finish ahead of the friggin’ Nationals (and even that won’t happen). Our own TV station played a clip from Family Guy declaring our season over on opening day.
I work in an environment where smug Phillies fans just smile at me on days after our bullpen melts down (usually any 24-hour period that’s name ends with “day”), and obnoxious ones regularly ask me how last place feels. The “nice” Phils fans usually just say something like “hey… our fourth best starter is pitching today. His name is Cole Hamels.” When I try to think of positive memories, I can come up with only these:
1) Having talented superstars like Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden… and then watching them destroy their careers with more coke than a broker on Wall Street.
2) Robin Ventura hit a walk-off grand slam single in the bottom of the 15th in game 5 of the 1999 NLCS vs. Atlanta… only for us to get eliminated the next game.
3) We made the 2000 World Series… and lost to the Yankees in 5 games. Roger Clemens threw a splintered bat at Mike Piazza – at least that was funny.
4) Sidd Finch. Who’s that? Read this: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/news/2000/07/24/finch_flash/
5) Signing players like Carlos Beltran and Johann Santana – and then watching them never do anything of any value ever again.
6) Dominating the NL East for two straight years in April, May, June, July, and August. September can suck it.
I hate you, Bill Buckner.
Where Was It 
April 16th, 2011 at 9:58 PM
Not trying to play Tommy Topper but when you are a Pirate fan, you have little sympathy for anyone else. The Pirates are mired in 17 straight losing seasons…with little relief in sight.
Should professional sports mimic our country and the world at large? NFL football is the number one sport in the world…is this because any team, any given year, can succeed? Should baseball follow a similar suit with a strict salary cap, much like the NFL has? Would this generate interest in baseball? Or, is there interest, just not from me because the Pirates stink?
…but I do feel your pain. Let’s hope we have football this year!
April 18th, 2011 at 7:21 PM
Did my best to leave the name calling out of this post…we will wait for the next post. What’s on your mind?
April 17th, 2011 at 2:56 AM
I agree, it would be terrible to be a Pirates fan… but I almost feel like your team sucking is, well… expected. You know you’re a small market team that for some reason is going to virtually give away any young, talented player that it has. We went on a spending binge that put us in the top 3 most expensive line-ups a few years back. We were openly believing/stating that we would be competing to win the NL East and the league for years.
But yeah, the more I think about it… when your franchise’s best player dies in a plane crash, you win the contest for now – until a Cubs fan writes in.