Dancing On The Kingdom

With all of the jabs I've taken at you Braves fans and your inability to attend playoff games (and I know you're visiting tonight), you probably think I'm going to blog the equivalent of a jig on your 2005 grave after yesterday's elimination. Well despite what you all think of me, I'm actually cut from decent cloth and I'm not going to do that.

Well, not to all of you.

I will say this...Sunday's eighteen inning classic is a matter of all the Braves' success working against them. If the Braves had won a couple of more World Series in the last 14 full seasons...or even if the Braves had spent the last couple of seasons in the second division where the Mets have languished the last few seasons, 2005, and the 18 inning game that ended 2005, would be looked upon as a heroic effort by the vanquished. After all the turnover they've had, the fact that they hung in for 9 innings after a horrible collapse (OK, so maybe Kyle Farnsworth isn't the best option for the eighth inning at Shea next year) would have been a badge of honor for a team that had 17 rookies play important roles for them at one point or another, including one that pitched a scoreless 17th inning.

Instead, this is just another in a long line of first round defeats for the hated Braves, and Braves fans one and all, are now concentrating 100% on Georgia football.

Except for one...

Now I don't make it a habit of attacking other blogs, and take the following in the spirit that it is intended...but my senses have been so mortally offended over the past couple of weeks that I feel I must say something. You see, Darth Marc, noted Yankee fan and Star Wars geek, has a link on his blog to Peaches Kingdom...as lists her as a "Friend of the Yankee Empire", even though she grew up a Braves fan who has put together such poetic words about her beloved Braves as this:

Today the Braves clinched their 14th straight division title. And what's great is I remember that first one like it was yesterday. I was just a little girl, but I remember sitting there with my father and crying because I was so happy. They had seriously gone from worst to first. And you know what? I must admit that after getting home tonight and signing onto the internet to find these pictures, I got teary eyed again. So much has changed since 1991, but so much is the same. You still get just as excited...So many people lost hope this season, but the Braves refused to. I just think this is so special. And I couldn't be prouder of them.

But...this same supposed "Braves fan" apparently moved to New York recently, and not only adopted the Yankees (I'm not dumb enough to expect her to adopt the Mets), but is apparently their number one fan. How can she not be, when the same person who made the above words dance off the computer screen, also was the author of this:

Now I'm going to concentrate on the Yankees win. They have won nine out of their last 10! How amazing is that? They know it's crunch time. They know what they have to do. And they are doing it. They want to beat the freaking Sux as much as we all want them to. I was telling Tonya and Karen a few days ago that after that Red Sox game I went to, I feel my love for the Yankees intensified so much. I seriously love these boys. When Boston lost tonight and the Yankees sailed right into first, I was ecstatic, texting away. I bought a Sheff shirt today and I can't wait to wear it with pride Friday night at Yankee Stadium. And you know what? He's no longer the guy I love because he's my former Brave...he's my Yankee.

What?

Now don't get me wrong. As a person, I don't know her from Adam. I'm sure she's very nice.

But as a baseball fan...and let me direct this at you personally Peaches...I hate your guts.

Don't take it personally.

I mean, rooting for the Yankees and the Braves is like rooting for the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles. She's the fan equivalent of Annie Savoy, who romanced both Nuke Laloosh and Crash Davis. How can someone have such emotional baseball fan moments in relation to two teams? And not just any two baseball teams...the baseball version of Romulus and Remus! Can you pick one, please???

To me, you can be a die hard fan of one team who adopts a bandwagon to jump on during the playoffs when your team bites the big one (like mine does every season), or even have a team in another league that you kind of root for when your real team stinks. But there's a difference between that, and being the number one fan of the two most sucessful franchises in baseball, and alternates between crying tears of joy for both of those teams and referring to players on both teams by their cute little nicknames.

You see Peaches, if it was up to me, there would be a picture of you at every major league stadium with the words "Do Not Admit" under your face.

Lucky for you, I don't make policy.

Now the last thing I want to hear is "oh, cut her some slack, she's a girl". Wrong!!! First off, there are plenty of guys that pull this garbage too so this has nothing to do with the fact that she's a she. They're all guilty. Second, if girls jaunt into the foray of being die-hard baseball fans, they should follow the basic unwritten rules of being a fan just like everyone else. She gets no slack for being a girl, just as she should get no less credit than anyone else as a baseball fan because she's a girl. She should, however, get less credit than everyone else because she's a bandwagon jumper. Devoted as she may be, but still a bandwagon jumper...and maybe a highly devoted bandwagon jumper is the worst kind.

But seriously Peaches, I'm terribly sorry that your Braves lost a heartbreaker and got eliminated.


(wait for it...)


(wait for it...)


Guess you'll have to go home and put your Yankee stuff on!