Monday, May 01, 2006

Ozymandias on Baseball

The Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates are bad baseball teams. A quick peek at the standings shows each team in last place in their respective divisions and, worse, they have given up 99 and 100 runs respectively, the worst marks in the majors by a whopping 14%. Kansas City, through 14 games, surrenders an average (!) of 7 runs per game, while Pittsburgh watches opposition batsmen cross home 5.9 times per game. Last year, Kansas City allowed 5 or more runs per game 102 times and, unsurprisingly, won a mere 19 of those contests. Hard to compete for pennants with those numbers. Pittsburgh allowed 5 or more runs in 76 games last year and won only 8!
Why is any of this important, you ask? Well, some of you may remember, shortly after both the plane attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, that some religious know-it-alls suggested the acts might be divine retribution for America's hedonism and homosexuality (but certainly not its rampant overconsumption or We-Da-Best attitude, no). Some of you (sports aficionados you must be) might also have noticed the prevailing trend across sports to thank god for bringing victory to the team. (Tacitly assuming, by process of elimination, He waxed wroth on the other team for its sins) Could the religious idiocy creeping into states like Pittsburgh (
remember this?) and Kansas (all babies are God's babies, dammit!) cast a pall over their beleaguered sports franchises? Couldn't God really be speaking to us, to the sports lovers, and saying "Look on these jerks, ye flighty, and despair!" ? I'm just asking.
Further note: a good counter-argument would be to cite the success of the Pittsburgh and Kansas City football franchises in recent years, though I'm convinced - thanks to Gregg Easterbrook - that a different pantheon influences gridiron gambits.

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