It’s time for the bagpipers to strike-up a mournful version of Amazing Grace and the obligatory wide shot of uniformed people crying . That’s right ladies and gentleman; the Cleveland Indians 2009 season is dead and in the ground. Their complete lack of any testicular fortitude in yesterday’s game against the Rays put the last nail in the proverbial coffin for the Indians, or as I like to call them: The Cleveland Pussy Farts.
On a side note: The Rays are a phoniest team in baseball. They’ve been anointed by our over-lords at ESPN to become the obligatory feel good underdog story of the year, frankly, because Disney needs to sell shit to you. Lets be honest, Tampa Bay are a bunch of thugs. Carl Crawford has a neck tattoo for fuck’s sake. And Andy Sonnanstine is from Wadsworth. Trust me folks, I grew up near Wadsworth. Wadsworth is what happens when trailer parks become so large they’re told by the Government to form a township or stop squatting on the land. I Digress.
Let’s re-visit the sad and shameful death throws of the 2009 season. The tribe entered the month of May after a piss poor April. Every thing that could have possibly gone wrong did. No clutch hitting, terrible starting pitching, and a bullpen that needed to be treated for whiplash from the dozens of times their heads snapped back to look at one of their pitches land halfway up the left field bleachers. It was a Murphy’s Law of epic proportions (the last person I would have thought to invoke an Irish curse would be our jewy GM). Lets just say that the first part of the Indians season was about as successful as Glenn Beck trying to say he’s not a chubby-Mormon-babylooking-albino crazy person. After losing the first 5 games of the season, Cleveland went on to end the month of April with a record of 8 and 14 leaving, them last in the AL Central. But May could have been a turning point for the dickless team. In fact, Cleveland managed to start off May with a nice win in Detroit.
Carl Pavono stopped being a faggot and actually made a quality start for the first time in literally 5 goddamn fucking years. And, surprise! Jhonny Peralta actually made contact with the ball, a homerun no doubt. Ok, I thought. Time to turn the page. They’re just off to one of their notoriously slow starts. The team’s too good on paper to do this for the rest of the season.The Indians, however, decided to collectively stick their thumbs up each other’s asses for the next two weeks. They followed that nice little win by losing 7 of their next 9, including the bullpen’s 12 run cluster-fuck of biblical proportions in Boston, which actually broke an 84-year-old AL record. Following that, they even were swept by Detroit at home, digging themselves deeper into the grave. Then came the Chicago series and a glimmer of hope.
The Tribe actually won their second series of the year, (nearly a quarter of the way through the season), and, miraculously, followed that with a series-opening win against our beloved Rays. But of course, Friday night, reality set in. With a comfortable 7 run lead entering the 6th, Cleveland had a chance to put together a four-game winning streak. A four-game winning streak? Perhaps it’ll be the spark that they needed to turn this shit-storm around. Maybe the governor actually granted a reprieve on the execution just as the warden was going to pull the switch. But the tribe turned back into the tribe as the Rays scored 8 unanswered runs capped off by a B.J Upton walk-off homerun.
Even after that embarrassment, and the next day’s embarrassment, Cleveland still had a chance to earn a split of the four-game series. But Sunday was the day that the tribe finally lost the will to live. Nothing went right on Sunday. A terrible first outing by Huff, an attempted hit-and-run that resulted in a double play, lack of hitting in the clutch, and even a hit taken away from Garko after a terrible call by the umpires. If this team had any balls at all, now was the time to flash a little fucking sack. In the bottom of the 8th, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the team had the vaugest inkling of fucking fire. Victor suddenly threw off his mask out of frustration, and started walking over to Tampa’s dugout. Both benches cleared and a shouting match ensued.
Finally. Perhaps they were just as sick of their shitty play as I was. This is the fucking season right here. Its time they do something about this. I turned to my friend. “They have to hit the next guy,” who coincidently happened to be the trash-talk spewing Carl Crawford. There are defining moments throughout a baseball season where championship teams refuse to lose. One recalls teams like the 2004 Red Sox, the 1996 Yankees, and the 2001 Diamondbacks. Shit or get off the goddamn pot. And in their 3 am phone call moment, the tribe collectively pissed their pants.
After not hitting Crawford, the Rays smelled the blood in the water and jumped at the opportunity. Old man River Troy Percival threw the first two pitches in the 9th inside to Derosa, sending a clear message to the hapless overpaid pick-up team. The Rays were not afraid to whip out their cocks. The complete fucking opposite of what should have happened. Having a clear case of short-dick-syndrome, the tribe got put in their place and quietly went one, two, three. Series over. Rays take 3 of 4. Indians fall to 14-25, the worst record in the AL.
Despite all of this, Cleveland has one last fucking chance to turn this season around. The Rays come back into town later this week. If the tribe doesn’t take 3 of 4 from them at their own house, there is no reviving this corpse of a team. To be embarrassed to that extent and not get fired up about it speaks volumes to the make-up of this team.
Why should I, or any Indians fan for that matter, care? Because if the tribe had won 3 of 4 this weekend, it would have made my traditional Sunday afternoon of dreading the week ahead, just a tiny bit fucking better. Yeah I have to go to a soul-crushing, mind-numbing, nausea-inducing, zombifying job, but you know what, if the fucking team that I waste my free time caring about actually gave a shit and showed up to earned their ridiculously obscene paycheck, it would have been a ray of goddamn sunshine to cut through the bullshit of real life. So here’s to yet another wasted summer of watching meaningless games and seeing a revolving door of “prospects” and minor league journeymen butt-fuck their way to another sub-.500 season. Well there’s always next year. Lets hope the Mayan’s were right and we only have to deal with this shit until 2012
