Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

In my day, never was longer.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

This blog will pay for itself.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Second rate reporter says what?

After roe, women are no longer free.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cubs vs. Dodgers Open Thread

Reader Interactions

129Comments

  3. 3.

    Gravenstone

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo

    Please. I love ya Betty, but your endorsements appear to be the kiss of death here.

  4. 4.

    JMG

    It’s a great graphic. That is all. I’m a Phillies fan. We’re taught from birth to hate all other teams. No sentimental favorites for us.

  5. 5.

    janelle

    Cuck the Fubs

    Signed,

    -A lifelong fan of the 11-time World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    cubbiescubbiescubbiescubbiescubbiescubbiescubbiescubbiescubbies
    ohplsohplsohplsohplsohplsohplsohplsohplsohpls

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @raven:

    eat shit and die motherfucker

    Cosign. Jesus fuck, I wish I had your way with words.

  11. 11.

    patrick II

    They are talking about bringing Kershaw back in game five, I think that means they will consider using him for game 7 for at least some innings. I remember the Dodgers pitching the hell of out Orel Hersheiser in a world series — and he was fabulous– but he came to spring traing with a sore arm and was never the same. I hope the same does not happen to Kershaw.

  19. 19.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    My mom was a life-long Cubs fan. I grew up in SoCal… Can I root for the guys in the blue and white unis and leave it at that?

  20. 20.

    SFAW

    @patrick II:

    No. Especially not a 28 year old who is going to have some very good years in front of him.

    Well, on the plus side (so to speak), if they burn him, the Mets will be more than happy to pick him up.

    Actually, that’s the Mets of 10-plus years ago, picking up a former-great for top Yankee dollah. (No, not “Yankees.”) They seem to be doing a little better these days, although they do seem to be going through good pitchers at an abnormally high burn rate.

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    @janelle:

    A lifelong fan of the 11-time World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals

    Doubtless they’ll be meeting the 27-time World Series Champion Yankees this year.

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @raven:

    Heh, none of that happened. I grew up in a family with a grandfather who was a Presbyterian minister (although an atheist); he and all the other men in the family disappeared through death or divorce within about an 18 month period (1946-47); and it ended up being a household consisting of a recently-widowed great-grandmother, a recently-widowed grandmother, a recently-divorced mother and aunt, and us five little kids. We owned a bookstore. The only military guy in the family (my uncle, who was at Pearl when it was attacked) might have taught us some salty language, but he and my aunt had split by the time I turned four.

    (Edited to delete an extraneous parenthesis.)

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @SFAW:

    I give a Remedial course in Invective. If you’d like, you can audit it, i.e., free of charge.

    Senior discount? Fuck, I’m in!

  34. 34.

    redshirt

    Since I learned the Cubs ownership is Pure Billionaire Wingnut, I must say my fondness for the team has faded considerably.

    Someone tell me something bad about the Dodgers.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    One of my greatest pleasures — not shameful enough to be a “guilty pleasure” — is listening to the ’40s channel on Sirius XM in the car. Lots of WWII hits, ranging from quirky and funny (The Hut-Sut Song, e.g.) to the great sexy romantic big band numbers, and everything in between. I adore that era of pop culture, if it weren’t for all the, you know, death and destruction that was going on.

  40. 40.

    PsiFighter37

    Why did the DSCC just got bait in FL? Murphy’s within MoE…no love for him, but taking out Rubio is icing on the cake. Surprised that they would rather spend in NC and MO…

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @redshirt:

    Yeah, unfortunately I’ve known that for a while. But I pretty much assume that anyone rich enough to own a sports team probably has wingnutty tendencies to begin with. (I really regret that Ted Turner lost ownership of the Braves. He’s crazy, but he’s our kind of crazy, and I like to think that a lot of the bad stuff in recent years wouldn’t have happened if Ted were still in charge of the pursestrings.)

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JMG: One of the worst fist fights I’ve ever seen was after a Phillies game. This was when I was living in Elkins Park. We were leaving the game and two guys in the parking lot got into it because one was wearing a regular red Phillies cap and the other was wearing the special, green St. Patrick’s Day Phillies cap. We were not there on St. Patricks Day. So the former decided to go after the later because he’d violated Phillies cap protocol.

  50. 50.

    redshirt

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Sure, the odds that some rich team owner will be some Conservative asshole is pretty high. But there are exceptions – Mark Cuban seems pretty cool. But I’ll even take old school rich Republican asshole who’s not a total nutjob over the Cubs ownership.

    For instance, the Patriots owner Bob Kraft as been known to pal around with Trump before he ran for President. I don’t like it. But since he’s run for President, he’s had nothing to do with him, even if he is a secret supporter.

    Just be smart about it is all I ask, I guess.

  51. 51.

    raven

    @Adam L Silverman: I was at a Steelers-Raiders playoff game in the Coliseum in 85. Some dumbass Steeler fan was wearing a Bradshaw jersey and one of those hats with a fuck you hand on the bill. I don’t think he died but they did the three minute motherfucker oh his ass.

  57. 57.

    JMG

    @redshirt: Kraft has also been a big Democratic donor. Don’t mistake pal around photos for real support. Kraft’s late wife Myra was a super big Mass Democrat, and they were a real loving couple.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    Caption is “fivethrityeight. com Senior Political Writer” for guy appearing on Maddow’s show right now.

    Who looks to be 16 or17.

  61. 61.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @raven: She is sure stylin’! Like WaterGirl, I’m very impressed with how well she accessorizes to complete the ensemble. Mrs. raven is a gifted stylist.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I loved the blog article and the photos (130 or so) but I was too late to the threads to say anything. I am blown away by what a success that was, your bride and everyone who put it together must have been over the moon. Probably still are! And raising 4,000? That’s amazing!

  65. 65.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: We just came from the wrap-up pot luck (she made me go). They actually raised closed to $5k. She was great and being at the wrap up confirmed that it wasn’t for me.

  67. 67.

    raven

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Oh yea, she loves this stuff. This is next

    The Wild Rumpus is an annual Halloween Event in Athens, GA… a small city known worldwide for it’s music, art, and creative energy. All are invited to be a part of the Wild Rumpus Parade by showing up in costume and romping through the streets of downtown with thousands of other Wild Things… shouting at the sky, pounding drums, and howling by the light of the Moon in the dark night!!!

  68. 68.

    prob50

    Family moved here to LA in 1959 when I was 9. Bums won WS that year. Been a Dodger fan ever since. 1-0 in 4th, Go Dodgers!

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Everybody has their passions, this just wasn’t yours. Or maybe nothing in common with the organizers? (the ones that weren’t your wife, of course!)

    But it looked like the event was a ton of fun, wish I could have gone.

  72. 72.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I feasted on WNEW-AM 1130 in New York when it was the only proprietor around of that music. Except for indie efforts, varying greatly, there’s little left on terrestrial radio like that.

    I’m not ready to ante up for Sirius, but the 1920s Radio Network is up that alley.

  74. 74.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: Ed DeBartolo Jr, who owned the 49s franchise for nearly 3 decades, treated the players with respect and was beloved by players and fans. He was not a normal person — no one whose net worth is measured in billions is a normal person — but he was close.

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    Another fan of 40s popular music. Also too, 30s and 20s.

    Me too. That entire interwar period in Britain and the US just fascinates me. Literature, social change, music and films and women’s rights, the changing status of the working man, fashion, technology…. Just a mesmerising period.

    If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend Robert Graves’ and Alan Hodge’s The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939. And then, if you’re a Dorothy L. Sayers fan (which I seem to recall you are), follow it up with Conundrums for the Long Week-End: England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey, by Robert McGregor and Ethan Lewis.

    (Edited to fix out-of-control italics.)

  77. 77.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Rich people don’t have to be Wingnuts. Sure, they can be conservative for FYIGM reasons, but actively engaging in the madness is a different ballgame. I have no idea of the politics of Red Sox owner John Henry for example. He’s super rich and I assume a Repuke, but I never hear about it. There’s a difference.

  78. 78.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: I had my fill of community events. We used to have what was called the C-U Parks Classic. It was a 10k that started in front of the stadium and, before they fucking ruined it and took out the track and grass, ended inside. We had 5,000 runners and 147 intersections in the Twin Cities. Like the dog parade it was a year long planning process. When you are in Parks and Rec you do that shit all the time. I did mine.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    I’m still kind of crushing on this little one from a link or a BJ post earlier this week.

    edit: she really knows how to accessorize, who knew a sock could look that good?

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @ThresherK

    No Sirius either. Do find many of the choices of channel on the free AccuRadio stream available through the Roku quite listenable.

  87. 87.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I attended a game at Wrigley once, back in 1990. The devotion of Cubs fans is something to see. They’ve been waiting so damn long, have been on the verge so many times, and disappointed, my heart goes out to them. I hope the Mariners do not think of them as role models, even though both teams both won 116 games in a single season.

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Cute kitty with dead chipmunk, now that’s not a combination I would have thought of pairing together. Link?

  89. 89.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: I went, put out all the recycling containers, carried tables, picked all the stuff up and walked the dogs. I just am not interested in the interaction it requires to put the thing together. The princess is great at it.

  90. 90.

    Schlemazel

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
    I love big band swing. My folks got a box set of Glenn Miller sometime in the late 40s and I wore those records out as a kid. That led to Arti Shaw, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and many many others. The best is just fun to listen to, I have a bunch on the iPod.

  91. 91.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @redshirt: Knows better than to deliberately offend potential paying customers. Unlike a guy with a hotel chain that is in the process of going bankrupt.

  92. 92.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @redshirt:

    Just be smart about it is all I ask, I guess.

    Oh please. We’re talking about sportsfansmanshipdomhood here. There’s no “being smart” in sportsfansmanshipdomhood. FFS.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I probably wouldn’t be able to tolerate all the meetings it would take to pull that together. I had more than enough meetings when I worked at the university.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Schlemazel:

    I do a lot of long-haul driving, and the swing and big band music of the 30s-40s is the best road trip music you can imagine.

  96. 96.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @NotMax: I don’t Roku ( or even Netflix or Hulu for the TV so every year at Emmy time it’s like looking thru a pastry shop window). But I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.

  99. 99.

    M. Bouffant

    Current Dodger ownership:

    Guggenheim Baseball Management
    (Mark Walter, Magic Johnson, Stan Kasten, Peter Guber, Bobby Patton and Todd Boehly)

    No obvious baddies there, ‘though Patton looks like a Texas oil billionaire, which isn’t usually good.

  100. 100.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @raven:

    I got a shot of the cute little kitty across the street in my yard with a dead chimpmunk.

    Oh no. Did the kitty invade the chipmonastery?

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Oh my gosh, I pictured the kitty quizzically looking at the chipmunk, but she’s taking that baby off somewhere to eat it, isn’t she?

  107. 107.

    mellowjohn

    @redshirt: not quite pure. one of the Ricketts is a lesbian and a big Hillary supporter. in fact, she wore a Hillary ball cap to one of the first playoff games.

  108. 108.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @raven: That’s cool! I (we) are invited to a Halloween party, and I’ve wanted to be the Notorious RBG since I saw someone in Cleveland do it last year. I can get big glasses and a lace collar and borrow a spare robe from one of my judge buddies. But when I told the guy who invited us, he said “who?” and that’s when I knew a bunch of 25-35 year olds were not going to get it. So I need to see who’s having a dealio with people who will! I imagine I’ll find one at either the of the upcoming juvie court CLE or non-profit MH advocacy coalition meeting.

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    My own mix tapes are eclectic and idiosyncratic, to say the least. Lots of Gilbert and Sullivan, a ton of classical music (mainly, but not exclusively, 19th-century orchestral and chamber music), some pre-1965 Broadway musicals, traditional folk songs, jazz and pop standards from the 1920s-60s, including the bulk of the Great American Song Book, and a lot of British regimental marches, just because I like the tunes.

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    Yes, absolutely to both! There’s an album’s worth of Joplin rags and much of “Treemonisha,” which breaks my heart every time I hear it. And I adore Gottschalk, and yes, he is well represented. As is Ives. And as is Delius, another underappreciated composer.

  114. 114.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    Another I neglected to mention is Alan Hovhaness. I never tire of listening to him, even though there’s always a whiff of “Ah, Hovhaness has composed a new title” about his works. But I love him, love his orchestration and that Scottish-Armenian fusion.

  115. 115.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @NotMax: Oh, Coleman and Comden and Green were on fire for that show. But it was something of the good old school of musical comedy, wasn’t it? Certainly loads of fun, but not mindless, pre-Oklahoma plotlessness.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    @ThresherK

    Yup. Pulled out all the stops, but with style and panache.

    Was fortunate to have seen it on stage before Madeline Kahn left early in the run. Not that her replacement was in any sense inferior, but Madeline Kahn.

  118. 118.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NotMax:

    That Andrews Sisters 45 was one of three non-polka tunes on the jukebox at a tavern we sometimes haunted

    Late to the thread, but why the fuck would you hang out a place like that???

  120. 120.

    Steve in the ATL

    @redshirt:

    Someone tell me something bad about the Dodgers.

    A lot of poor people of color were forcibly removed from Chavez Ravine so the Dodgers could build a stadium there

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @NotMax:

    Turina and Satie are both great in smallish doses or as palate-cleansers. They get a bit tiresome when unrelieved for more than 20-30 minutes at a whack, especially Satie.

  124. 124.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NotMax: Ok that’s cool. I retract my earlier comment.

    Cheapest beer I ever had was 25¢ at the Memphis Chicks stadium watching, among others, Tim Raines and Bo Jackson playing AA ball. Good times! That awful stadium organ music, but no polka.

  126. 126.

    Tehanu

    @redshirt:

    Someone tell me something bad about the Dodgers.

    Well, how about their greedhead ownership fixing it so only 40% of the fan base in LA can see their games on TV? Or the last time Hubby Dearest and I went to Dodger Stadium and paid forty-five freakin’ dollars for 2 hot dogs, 2 fries, and 2 soft drinks? Or the fact that now that Vinny’s retired, we only have Charley Steiner and Rick Monday to listen to? (To be fair, Steiner isn’t too bad, but Monday is a total idiot). Also what Steve at 124 said about Chavez Ravine.

  129. 129.

    janelle

    @Villago Delenda Est: And ironically, neither of them won the World Series in the seasons in which they won 116 games. To be fair to the hated Cubbies, their 116 win season was more impressive, because they did it in 10 fewer games than the M’s.

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