Monday, March 28, 2005

No Schilling, No Problem

Much to the Junkee fans' glee, it looks like it will be David Wells taking the hill come Opening Night. I say, let them get excited. And I'll be rooting for the Sox, but if the Yanks come out on top, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.

As John Sterling reminded fans incessantly in '98, the Yanks started out 0-3 and 1-4, at which point of course, George Steinbrenner panicked. And at the end of the day, the '98 Yanks still turned out to be one of the best teams in ML history (although the bragging about 125 wins was ridiculous. No team till '95 had 11 postseason games to win, and till '69 all they had were four games; and it's true, the Yankees had more chances than these other teams to lose in the playoffs, but to include postseason wins in their tally is just silly; back in '86, nobody talked about the Mets' 116 wins).

And last year, had Rivera held on in Game 4 of the ALCS, the Sox' wins in April would have proven totally worthless. And even with the Sox winning it all, nobody cares much for those April wins anyhow (and thankfully no one cares for that awful June series when Ortiz did his best Buckner imitation and Jeter made that catch in the stands, part of the $18 million intangibles package).

So I'm looking forward to Opening Night and games that count, but I'll keep it all in perspective. I don't care if Schilling's not there in April. I want him in October, good and ready to send the Junkees packing once again.

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