MLB 2014 season thread

To satisfy the modern sports narrative, it's no longer enough to be a good team playing well. You have to be morally superior, too.

Kind of like Johnny Gomes' wisecrack after last year's World Series about the Red Sox being a team "not built on WAR, but guys you want to go to war with." Nevermind the fact that Boston has won three World Series since it hired Bill James as a player personnel advisor.

 

This is a new conduit for expressing it, but athletes have always believed that they win not because they are better at sports than their opponent or because things went their way, but because they are better people in the ways that matter.

 

Would it really hurt for someone to spend the 30 seconds to Google that instead of looking like a dumbass for asking the question? And even if he isn't from the States, it still can be found easily enough online. Good God some people are lazy.

 

Their fans are even worse.

 

I think it's because God and his only begotten son Jesus Christ want them to win more than the other guy.

 

Athletes and their coaches have always resorted to an "us against them" mentality to keep players together. That's what's taking place whenever you hear worn-out things like, "Nobody believed in us but ourselves."

Players are told from a very early age that the other team is out to get you, the media is out to get you and you need to stick together and fight!

I would love to see another way of motivating athletes evolve.

 

Damn good point. If I didn't have a rooting interest, I do now for Game 2.

 

It's annoying, but it works. There's something in our biological evolution that is coded very strongly to defaulting to "us vs. them."