Rob Dibble, Shut Up.
I haven’t blogged at all this season because honestly there’s not much to blog about besides Zambrano’s tantrum (vented on Twitter and LJ about that) and consistent failure.
This, however, I felt the need to blog about. I’ve been watching baseball for my entire life, and I’ve never been told that girls know nothing about baseball. On the contrary, my father, brother, grandfathers, and male friends support and appreciate my love of the game and always made me feel more than welcome to offer analysis and opinions on baseball. Imagine my surprise when I came across this garbage from Rob Dibble, then, who should know better. Even if you still subscribe to the antiquated notion that women at baseball games are just there to ogle and yap about “woman things,” you are a sportscaster. You do not say those things on air. Unfortunately, my experience is not universal, and many women that I care about have faced discrimination because of their gender and love for the game. It’s people like Dibble who keep these archaic and utterly disgusting stereotypes going.
And if you do believe those things? I pity you. Women have been going to, enjoying, and understanding baseball games for longer than Dibble’s been alive. My own future mother-in-law used to sit in the Astrodome with a pad of paper, writing down every possible statistic, because she loved the game. That’s beside the point, however – even if the ladies in front were talking about “Desperate Housewives” or whatever other stereotypically feminine thing that Dibble created in his own mind, does it really matter? We here of the xx chromosome do tend to have varied interests. Why, we might even discuss them at baseball games! And you know what really freaking bothers me? NOT EVERY MAN AT THE GAME IS DISCUSSING THE INTRICACIES OF BASEBALL FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, YOU JERK. But no, let’s rail on the women at the game… for what, exactly?
Women are forty-five percent of the MLB fanbase. Forty-five percent! None of us are exactly the same, but we are united by a love of baseball and an understanding of how it works. We all feel the ups and downs, the excitement and the frustration, just as the male fanbase does. Why would Rob Dibble choose to alienate all of those people? His apology was just as infuriating as his original comments, and basically amounted to “I’M JUST GOING TO SAY THIS RIGHT HERE AND IF YOU GET OFFENDED IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT. OH, SORRY.” He took no responsibility whatsoever for remarks that were incredibly offensive to a large chunk of MLB fans, and it’s disappointing. I don’t think he knows the gravity of what he said; I doubt he cares. I have to wonder, does he have a daughter? Would he be upset if some man made some misogynistic comments that made her feel like human garbage simply for being a woman?
Over the past couple of seasons, I have grown to adore a group of dynamic female bloggers I met via Twitter. Each of them has her own strengths, her own convictions, her own team, but they all know baseball inside and out and are absolute joys to converse with. I dare Rob Dibble to even try to talk ball with them in a condescending manner – he would be destroyed in a matter of seconds. They have all posted responses to Dibble that are far more coherent than mine, and with permission, I’d like to link them.
The incomparable Julie DiCaro, from A League of Her Own: here
The wonderful Amanda, the OCD Chick: here
The amazing Dana from Edge of Brooklyn: here
and last, but certainly not least, the fantastic Caryn from metsgrrl.com lets it rip: here
Wrigley should stop selling beer for a while.
So, everyone knows that some idiot dumped beer on Victorino’s head while the Phils were up by ten last night. That was shameful, embarrassing, and disgusting to be perfectly honest. For the better part of twenty years, I’ve defended myself from the “********* fan” label and tried to explain that not all Cubs fans are obnoxious, that every team has its jerk fans and blah, blah, blah.
I put the video up on YouTube earlier (here) and ugh. I’m just irked. Why should the rest of us, good fans who enjoy baseball, have to get reputations because of these morons? I said last night that I’m much more embarrassed by this stupid fan than by the loss, and I stick by that.
Apparently, others agree:
via Yahoo
via LJ
via ESPN
Seriously, forget how bad our pitching is right now. Forget the slim chance of the playoffs, forget the fact that inexplicably Aaron Miles is still on the team while Micah Hoffpauir got sent down. No, the Cubs are in the news because one stupid guy chunked beer at an All-Star player and his stupid friends defended him when the wrong guy got taken out of the bleachers. That’s cowardice and it’s getting annoying that the real fans have to deal with it. So I agree with the ‘Duz. Ban beer at Wrigley for a while. Let everyone know that one idiot ruined it for everyone else. There’s been a lot of shame in being a Cubs fan over the years but this is seriously ridiculous and embarrassing.
(I will probably get into our horrible pitching/mediocre fielding situation during or after the game today.)
The Catch
I think I’m in love with Reed Johnson, too.
Just a few things
I’m a little sad about Shea being gone. My grandfather was a huge Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and when they left – and all through my childhood – he was a HUGE Mets fan. Whenever we’d go visit him, we’d go to Shea to watch the Mets play. I had the great pleasure of watching the Astros play the Amazins in 1986 – what a fantastic year for baseball. I still remember being three years old, and Grandpa telling me that Mets fans would dump beer on my head for wearing an Astros shirt.
(this picture is from September of 1988, but still slightly relevant!)
My big brother is the kiddo with the controller, I’m (of course) the only girl. He, unlike me, is lucky enough to have a birthday that falls during baseball season. There were many, many times growing up that my mom would load up her huge Chevy van full of my brother, me, and god knows how many of our friends and hit up the Dome for some baseball. As we got older and kind of got our own lives, ballgames were one of the very few things we did as a family anymore.
When I was sixteen, I spent the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school in California. I got to go to Edison and see the Angels play the As, which was amazing. Yet when I came home to Houston, even my dad showed up with my mom and brother (who was in college at Maryland at the time) to pick me up and haul me over to the Dome to see the Astros play the Dodgers. This was 1999, the last year of the Dome. It was freaking amazing. Baseball has been such an important part of my life, ever since I was a little kid.
Even now, with my brother in Phoenix, me at Oklahoma, and my parents not speaking, baseball is huge among all of us. I talk to my brother at least once a week about baseball – we talk about the Cubbies, the Dbacks, the Astros, and the good old days. My mom and I are planning on going to Minute Maid during a Cubs/Stros series this year. My boyfriend has gotten over his “baseball has sucked since the strike” attitude. Some of us are in a fantasy league together; some of us chat online or talk smack on Facebook.
I feel so lucky to have gotten to go to Shea with Grandpa, but I feel even luckier knowing that when I have kids, I’ll be able to pass down all of these awesome stories and memories to them. So thanks, Grandpa, Mom, Ryan, Dad… you guys are amazing.
Gameday, 04/11/09
That was a hell of a nailbiter.
First things first. OUR BULLPEN SUCKS. We need help, badly. Marmol is looking awesome, and may I please start a petition for him to be our closer? Pretty please? I also liked how in the seventh, it was a battle to see which pitcher could suck more. I guess the Brewers won, I don’t know. The thirteen-pitch walk to Fontenot followed by a one-pitch Theriot grounder made me want to stab things. STAB STAB STAB. But we won, somehow.
The Brewers looked good, actually. I was pleasantly surprised. They looked great last night, as well (I wasn’t able to write about the game, don’t think it’s just cause the Cubs lost haha.)
NL Central predicitons, week of 4/11:
Cubs
Cardinals
Brewers
Astros
Pirates
Reds
Cubs vs Astros, 04/08/09
Welp, that was bonkers.
Starting off with the fact that it had the attendance of a Marlins game (which is sad; Milo Hamilton has a part of the street named after him now!) and continuing into the first inning jaw-dropping WHAT of Moehler… what the heck happened in the first three innings?
I’ve got the flu + a mountain of homework, so I couldn’t go to the game. I did watch it from my deathbed, however, and it was just ugly. I love Ted Lilly, but he looked a bit shaky out there. I was very impressed with Astros pitcher Russ Ortiz. There was nothing he could really do about the three-run homer, but after that he was quite solid.
Carlos Lee sucks. I will continue to say that until he does something of note.
Fukudome – wow! Look at him go. It’s almost as if the Cubs of early 2008 are returning. A girl can dream of the playoffs, right? Ah, well. For the most part, we looked great out there – a lot better than we looked last night. It was almost like we were playing with something to prove. Hmm!
I’ve been following the #cubs hashtag on Twitter, and it leads to some pretty funny stuff. I suggest you try it with your favorite team.
All right, I am hopped up on NyQuil and making no sense, but great job Cubbies! First opening series win since that fateful year…
Marie Olbermann, 1929-2009
I just wanted to say a few words about the passing of Marie Olbermann, world class Yankees fan and mother of Keith Olbermann. I was what, seventeen years old when the Knoblauch incident happened, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Mr. Olbermann gave a touching tribute to his mother on Countdown:
;
I can only hope that in 2052, I will be front and center at Cubs games come hell or high water. In Mrs. Olbermann’s name, I’ll be donating to the Susan B. Komen foundation and hope that someday, this horrible disease will not be as horrible as it is today.
Cubs Win!
I think, all things considered, that the Cubs looked great tonight. Soriano and Ramirez did what they couldn’t do in the playoffs, and even though Cotts gave me a bit of a scare for a minute, the two new pitchers looked fantastic. And how about Micah!? That was amazing. My Twitter is going bonkers with CUBS WIN insanity right now. Theriot’s arm looked GREAT tonight, and we looked very put together. Obviously there’s room for improvement, but the Cubs look to be very, very strong in the NL Central this year. I’m quite proud.
Somewhat off-topic: this Jack in the Box commercial is FREAKING ME OUT. Seriously, stop it with the little people in burger commercials. It’s insane.
The Astros looked decent, yet the batters looked nervous and I’m not quite sure why. Berkman of course looked beastly and will probably have a hell of a season. Roy O did great, but it’s the same old story of “good pitching with no run support” that the Astros have been dealing with for years.
I just came across something cool on chron.com about the Ike debacle:
The game was only controversial from the Astros standpoint. Drayton
McLain forced the issue when a mere 24-hrs before Ike hit he claimed it
was going to miss Houston. He refused MLBs efforts to find a neutral
site as early as the middle of the week before,and MLB offered to fly
the team and their families to safety in those locations.
Drayton, dollar signs in his eyes at the thought of three sell-outs
with the Cubs, refused. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too
late. The parks he had to choose from had narrowed to one – Millwaukee.
The families were stuck dealing with the aftermath and the players were
distracted. None of this had anything to do with the Cubs, Bud Selig or
MLB. The fault is clearly Drayton’s and everyone outside of Houston
knows it.
There was a national (ESPN I think) story about the whiny Astro’s
fans lamenting their cruel fate when it was all their owner’s doing.
What really bothers me is that the Chronicle has perpetuated this
myth and stoked this pseudo-outrage at the Cubs and Selig. I’m no fan
of Chicago or of the commissioner, but I am partial to the truth.
Drayton Mclane and his greed are the only things to blame for the team
not getting out of Houston with their families in plenty of time to
play the game in Seattle, Pittsburgh or Atlanta or some other city.
But if they were in Seattle, or some place else, does anyone really
believe that the majority of the fans would have been Astros fans? Come
on! If they had played here in Houston half the crowd would have been
for the Cubs. What do you think it would be like anywhere else?
I hope the Astros beat the living tar out of the Cubs this week, but
not out of any fake revenge scenario. Let’s all grow up a little and
start looking at the truth rather than what we want to be the truth.
How very true. Please stop blaming the Cubs and Bud Selig for YOUR owner’s mistakes!
One down, 161 to go. Let’s go Cubbies!
Opening Day 2009, now with more McLane rant
I love Opening Day, even in Houston. There is this aura of a spring awakening (hurr!) where everything seems new and refreshed, people are in great moods, and it’s usually the perfect weather to head out to the ballpark and catch your team. I’m lucky this year, the Astros are playing my team at home on Opening Day so I get to catch them. Yay! Zambrano is pitching against Oswalt, so it might be interesting. Who knows, the Astros might even have a winning record for a minute!
There was an article in the Chronicle this morning about how the Astros will pretty much suck this year and gave factual evidence as to why they will be under .500 for a majority of the year. Oh, the bandwagon Astros fans just can’t have that! The Cubs suck! Our fans are classless! We don’t know how hard it is to be an Astros fan (SERIOUSLY, SOMEONE SAID THIS.) I guess 101 years of suffering isn’t enough…? Ah, well. In a few weeks, people will fall off of the bandwagon, and it will be enjoyable to go to Minute Maid, have a beer, and watch baseball rather than obnoxious fans being obnoxious. The Astros are a good team to go see when there’s nothing else to do at 1pm on a Tuesday afternoon and you have $10 to spare. It’s kind of like going down to watch the Hooks, except without having to drive four hours to do so.
Last year, I posted reasons why even though I was born/raised/live in Houston for now, I’m a Cubs fan and have been for almost twenty-seven years. The only things keeping me loyal to the Astros were Biggio and Bags, and they are long gone. I liked Berkman, until he opened his big, stupid mouth. Now I have no loyalty to the Astros, no reason to hope for their success. Until they lose, and lose BADLY, Drayton McLane will continue to run the franchise into the ground and alienate their fans. I can take losing, and I can take being a joke (hello, I’m a Sooner,) but I will not take the management doing to its fans what the Astros have done to theirs. Absolutely disgraceful.
tl;dr go Cubbies
Question
Can someone please enlighten me as to how releasing the names of everyone else implicated in the 2003 steroids tests will help anything? I honestly think it will just piss off the union even more, and rightly so. This has become absolutely ridiculous. Priorities, folks.
Carolina
Recent Comments