Eleven Things I Like About LAAAAAAAAA*
by 0157H7 on Oct 7, 2009 12:00 PM EDT
in Fun Stuff
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PrintIt is a well-known fact that there is a strong bond between the people of California and the Boston area. From politics to economics to race relations, both regions are at the forefront of liberalism. In the realm of baseball, California is a place where many Red Sox stars finish their careers, from Mo Vaughn to Manny Ramirez. Look at the Dodgers - Manny, Doug Mientkiewicz, Mark Loretta - and our perennial trade partners the San Diego Padres, where Theo Epstein started his baseball career.
But for some reason, all these natural similarities and East Coast - West Coast connections have not improved relations between the fanbases of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Boston Red Sox.
Accordingly, in the spirit of cultural exchange, I'm listing the ten things I like about the Angels.
1. Steroids.
As a devoted Sox fan, I'm a big fan of steroids. A huge, ripped fan. So when I heard that 16 current and former Angels, from HGHary Matthews Jr. to Brendan "Drug Donkey" Donnelly (briefly a Sox player) to Troy "World Series MVP" Glaus, who had used steroids, my respect for the team grows immensely. I can't even think of that many confirmed Sox users. You've got Manny Ramirez, Ortiz (although what he tested positive for remain unclear) and um... Eric Gagne. The Halos deserve massive, bloated, engorged props for out-steroiding us.
2. Humility.
When I read Halos Heaven, my favorite Angels fansite, one word can sum up the overall feeling there: humility. Not only are Angels fans not proclaiming how their team is the best ever and will run roughshod over the Sox, Yankees and Cardinals to win its second World Series; they are modestly declaring why this will not happen. [My personal favorite reason is because of Umperialism, the clear East Coast bias evinced by the ironically named Joe West, crew chief of the ALDS.]
This is also true on a corporate level. While other teams are named for their region (Yankees), their footwear (Sox), their fishiness (Marlins), their connections to the occult (Devil Rays), or their plunderous and rapacious treatment of fans (Pirates), the Angels are named for their service and devotion to God. As the Puritan settlers of Boston would readily tell you, few things are more humble than annointing yourselves the Chosen agents of Divine Will.
[FOR 3-11, CLICK CONTINUE READING]
3. Regional Fealty.
When the Angels added 'Los Angeles' to their name, some claimed that the move had all the grace and subtlety of the Mexican-American War. Not me. The unfurling of the Angel flag over the conquered denizens of LA was a true sign of progress. Sure, the insurgent Dodger fans and the millions upon millions of SoCal Sox fans might reject the benevolent divinely-chosen authority that rules them, but those dead-enders will eventually knuckle under. I've got a "Mission Accomplished" banner for just that occasion.
4. Salt-of-the-Earthiness.
Some people who make huge amounts of money in a brief period of time behave in a way unbecoming of their acquired station. Boston Blueblood Brahmin derisively refer to such individuals as the 'Nouveau Riche,' when they talk at all to commoners.^ While the Angels and their $100+ million payroll might have changed the organization and its fanbase, they remain committed to their proper station. Rather than behaving like a major market team chasing marquis free agents, they content themselves with hiring 2nd-tier outfielders. They show true respect for the Yankees and Red Sox, the Barons of Baseball, by not having the indignity of competing with them for the Mark Teixeiras of the world.
Meanwhile, their fans continue to emphasize the scrappy, underdog nature of their team, and never demand more from it. For this they are to be commended. I mean, imagine the controversy if the Angels were a legitimate playoff threat!
5. Mike Scioscia.
This man is one of the true cavaliers of baseball. Not only does he guide his team to October, year after year, but in the finest spirit of medieval nobility, he gives the opposing team every opportunity to win. Sac bunts, squeeze bunts, suicide squeeze bunts, bunting with two outs, telling the pitcher to bunt instead of throw the ball, Scioscia is a true gem.
6. Great farm system.
Here in New England, we're great at growing rocks. So farming talent is something we appreciate. And the Angels' farm system is one of Baseball's most productive. Kudos.
7. Monkey in Diaper.
This needs no explanation.
8. Allowing Boston to get Casey Kotchman.
He's a standup guy, and hopefully a walk-off guy too.
9. Memorable late-inning home runs.
Only an Angel closer could set up a Boston left fielder for a towering home run. Brian Fuentes has big shoes to fill here - will his blown save, walk-off losses be as memorable as K-Rod's? Only time will tell.
10. Chone Figgins.
Just when I think I've learned all the multifarious ways to spell this name (Shawn, Sean, Shaun), LAA of A throws a curve. This guy has tremendous command of the strike zone, and his high OBP and great speed make him one of the few legit lead-off hitters in baseball.
11. Obedience.
"Stand!" "Shake!" "Sit!" "Speak!" "Roll over!" "Play Dead!"
"Good boy! See you same time next October."
____________________________________________________________
* Insider sources at MLB tell me that the Angels are planning on renaming their team to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Austin, Acapulco, Athens, Augusta, and America.
^There's a great epigram for this: "And this is good old Boston / The home of the bean and the cod / Where the Cabots talk only to Lowells / And the Lowells talk only to God."
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Awesome.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
still clapping.....
"Hating the New York Yankees is as American as apple pie, unwed mothers and cheating on your income tax." -- Mike Royko
by sox-inda-south on Oct 7, 2009 4:50 PM EDT up reply actions
When I read
the Halo Heaven people bitching about Joe West and his OBVIOUS bias towards the Red Sox…I said, well at least Angel Fan has the excuse why they lost the ALDS in 2009 all ready to go when they lose.
If the Red Sox win it will not be bc of better players, better pitchers, better hitters, Terry Francona, etc, etc. It will be bc of the umpires.
hilarious and so true.
We have a .352 wOBA to your .346
So the hitters are about even, and your baserunning likely makes up for whatever small difference there is.
Sox have a team FIP of 4.11 to the Angels’ 4.45. The difference in pitching abilities will probably be erased by better defense on balls in play though.
In short, we have better batters and pitchers, so you’re wrong there. If you meant that you have a better run-scoring and run-preventing team, then you might be right.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Also if the Angels lose,
it wil be because of BaseballProspectus.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
The wierdest thing about the whole “rivalry” we have with the Angels is that I have only known one Angels fan in my entire life. Not until I became a little active in the blogoshpere did I even give the Angels a second thought. I even spent a summer in Southern California and never came in contact with anyone that gave two shits about the Angels. There is no way anyone could be anywhere in New England for any amount of time and not have the Red Sox be a significant part of their experience. I find it so bizarre the amount of anger these fans aim at the Sox. Just bizarre.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
What surprises me
is how serious, biased and angry they are. Especially the anger. Guys-this is a baseball game we are talking about! You listen to these guys and it seems like they really believe in vast conspiracies of MLB, sabermetricians and everyone else who is out to wrong them and take what is rightfully theirs. I really doubt all Angel fans are like this, and they give the fans fo their team a bad name. The are always trolling on this site, making crap up (like we made Adenhart jokes…), insulting people from another region (eg calling Bostonians racist), showing thier ignorance about baseball (like Pythag somehow has to do with OBP or a team that gets thrown out on nearly 30% of SB attempts is a good running team), or they bitch and moan about things that are random and happen to all teams (my all time favorite was when Lackey got booted for twice throwing at someone [and somehow didn’t get suspended, even though all of HH is still up in arms about Beckett who got suspended for 6 games for not hitting someone] and Rev not only tried to argue that it was not intentional but also that there was k-zone bias, until someone from the Rangers site had to post the Brooks k-zone and he was forced to amend his sad, angry rant). I don’t know-can’t those guys just enjoy their good baseball team and root for them like normal fans do?
The talk on most of the SBN sites is generally so thoughtful and level-headed, that Halos Heaven comes off closer to an espn.com message board or something. They are definitely an outlier.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
Although, they have a good point about OTM never getting anywhere near as many comments.
As much as Randy may not like it, I prefer this smaller group of smart fans to some huge community where every other comment will require more fact-checking than the average politician’s address.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
I would like OTM to be big
But to keep what it already has intact, in terms of discussion, etc. Which, in all honesty, would be hard. But you make a good point.
If the discussion around here was like in HH, there is no chance I would ever even come near the site.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
Dammit, now it's a hostage situation.
Don’t do it, BT. It doesn’t help anyone – pull the cursor down from the address bar.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Can't use the "it's only a game" cliche with them.
They ripped someone for it.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Yeah, but I think we want to be as far opposite them as we can
After all, remember this post of not so long ago? Direct your attention to this part:
No marketing scheme, be it a Rally Monkey, thundersticks, dollar hot dog Wednesdays… no marketing scheme is as lame as one that attempts to mimic National Socialism
in the name of selling jerseys, hats and teeshirts. If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, “The Nation” is the tacky souvenir shop at the train depot of that final refuge.
Emphasis added. But that’s right — they compared Sox fans to the Nazis. I know this is a somewhat family friendly blog, so I won’t write the words that accurately describe the kind of person who invokes the Nazis to describe something to do with baseball. Suffice it to say that if my late grandmother — who once strangled a Nazi to death with her bare hands in order to save her own life — were still alive, she’d be out for blood.
by RSNexile on Oct 7, 2009 7:10 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Theres a solid chance that Rev did not know that he was making a Nazi allusion. But those guys are a little hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
Anyone who knows of National Socialism
(a rather obscure term) probably knows that it’s the official name for the doctrine that Nazism is an abbreviation of.*
*Awkward sentence ending in a preposition. My grammar teachers would be proud…
"It's just a tiny little nick, but it hurts when I get champagne in there."
- Jason Bay, on getting spiked scoring the winning run in ALDS Game Four.
PSAT practice:
Anyone who knows of the term “National Socialism” probably knows that it’s the official name for the doctrine that is abbreviated as Nazism.
Didn’t you do SAT prep help or something, E-Coli?
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Ah, but this way I get to teach readers and poke fun at myself.
Frankly, I think the prohibition on ending with prepositions is silly, much like the ban on use of the passive voice. Great writers routinely bend and break stylistic rules like those.
I’ve done some SAT tutoring, although I don’t usually edit kids’ sentences in the essay section. It’s rather depressing reading essays by average students. I’d wager 90% of US students, both those in high school and those in college, are unable to express themselves effectively with their writing.
I’m guessing you’re going to score well on the standardized tests, but if you need some advice on the SAT, let me know.
"It's just a tiny little nick, but it hurts when I get champagne in there."
- Jason Bay, on getting spiked scoring the winning run in ALDS Game Four.
A wise man once said
" Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. "
I do not read/visit HH because the anger was just ridiculous however, I honestly believe that sometimes people reference things that they do not fully understand. The true meaning of words, phrases, ideas, etc get misused or watered down over the years that people often forget the true meaning.
Not to make light of your observation but some examples : words like ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ are saddled with negative connotations ( depending on which side for which you root) but by defintion they are not “bad”. Also, Seinfeld fans recall the “indian giver” episode.
Something as heavy as " national socialism" is indeed code but how many really will dig to find the history—maybe people who follow politics but what percentage of the population is that?
I think Rev is extreme and paints an ugly face on LAAAAAAA fans but he is no different ( in a sense) than the idiotic Sox fans shouting YANKEES SUCK , in their drunken stupor, back in the day when the MFY owned the Sox. He makes the entire neighborhood look bad but if you just ignore him, it is almost like he does not exist- going toe to toe with him won’t work, he is not going to change.
"You know," Girardi said, shrugging his shoulders, "it didn't work."
( Joe Girardi on pitching to Manny Ramirez with first base open)
True.
Although YANKEES SUCK was built up after nearly a century of hate. I realize we’ve played them in the playoffs a lot recently, but they’re taking the familiarity = contempt thing a little too far.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Yeah.
I used to tutor the SAT’s a bit too and am a former grammar Nazi, so friends ask me to help proofread their shit sometimes. And it is depressing how poorly most 25 years olds write and I’m usually just correcting resume’s and shit.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
Grammar Nazis are awesome.
Always pays off on tests.
@bs_uf15bosox9be The Original Gameday; Learn to use SB Nation
Please don't generalize all Angels fans by a vocal few.
There are those of us who aren’t angry or make excuses for losses other than player performance. I make fun of the Sox on our blog, because it’s fun…not out of spite. That’s just part of being a fan.
We’ve had trolls come to our site and post “F&^% Nick Adenhart” and I don’t think of them as typical Sox fans.
BTW, did you really write all of that using just 4 sentences?
That was exactly my point
I don’t think the usual crowd at HH can be representative of Angel fans. I think this is just an example of follow the leader-when it starts from the top, the group usually is self-selecting. As for trolls, I do know a few people that post on this site have stirred up things there, so what you say is fair. I know no one posting here ever made Adenhart jokes. We were as shocked and saddened as the rest of the country.
I think it is great that you make fun of the Sox on HH-that is you duty as a fan. We have fans of other teams including division rivals that come here. We expect them to hate the Sox but we hope they are civil here on our site and to contribute something interesting when the do pass by. BTW-I have noticed from going to HH that you are most definitely not of the ilk of fan that I was discussing.
Was that only 4 sentences? A new record for word/sentence ratio I guess. As you can tell from my spelling/structure I am using my 2 fingers as fast as possible, not rereading what I type, and often listening to some one talk at me while typing..so I am not surprised ;).
Nice response, but meh on the words per sentence.
When you write a 375-word, 4-sentence paragraph, then we can talk.
I disagree
I think the majority of the usual crowd at HH do represent typical Angel fans. Most are pretty knowledgeable about baseball outside of Orange County, and respect other teams.
Most of Rev’s shenanigans are intended to cause controversy. There are tons of blogs that rehash the same old stories without anything new to add. Rev’s motives are to stand apart from everyone else. I do agree that some get stirred up by what he writes, but most know the motivation behind it.
I wasn’t picking on your writing. Your 4 sentences were very easy to read. I’m probably one of the worst writers at HH, thankfully a few people find my comics somewhat funny.
Thanks for letting me post here, you’re always welcome at HH.
Thanks
that is good to know. My limited experience there has led me to a different conclusion, but that experience is…limited.
I like you comics. This one was my favorite:
http://www.halosheaven.com/2009/5/13/874021/angels-the-lost-frontier-5-12-09
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