i was just thinking about hot dogs
Okay, so I don't listen to sports talk radio for high level insights and profound philosophical debates. I mainly listen to distract my brain from obsessing about politics and/or the woeful state of the world we live in and life in general. But every now and then someone says something so mired in cliché and so poorly thought out that it can't go unremarked. Driving along yesterday I heard a long ramble on how this year's baseball standings were upside down, topsy turvy. I half expected him to start invoking Bizarro World or announce that Ron Paul had won a primary. Y'know, I can accept that for a lot of media yakkers (sports or otherwise), the best they can manage to support their point is just to repeat it over and over and over. And I don't know why, on May 31st, it's necessarily time to take stock of the standings. Still, it apparently is and things are just crazy, he tells me, kuh-rayzee. The evidence? If the playoffs were to start right now, the teams involved would be: (AL) Angels, White Sox, Red Sox, Devil Rays; (NL) Diamondbacks, Cubs, Phillies, Cardinals. So that's 6 of the last 7 World Series winners (Sawx have won twice). The Cubs, while carrying a long history of epic fail, have been in the playoffs twice in the last five years. The Phillies (ditto but not nearly as epic) were in the playoffs last year. So apparently the mere presence of the Devil Rays, who admittedly have never even come close to making the playoffs before (and, yes, I know they de-deviled last winter... whatever, they're still the Devil Rays to me), is enough to drive sports commentators insane and see chaos and upheaval all around. 1 out of 8 is not "upside down" or "the craziest season ever". It's a fluke. Or a refreshing change of pace, depending on how you look at it.
Go D-rays!