29 August 2011

Blame Game

What is the nougat at the center of the American obsession with scapegoating? Why must there always be someone or something to blame for our misfortunes? Are we that full of ourselves? Is it so incredulous to think that sometimes shit just happens, without judgment or discrimination? I don't think so, and I've got a lifetime of experience to back me up.

But if you want to play the blame game, then let's play...

Let's blame management for fielding virtually the same team that won the World Series and expecting to catch lightning in a bottle twice. We all know that baseball is a fickle sport and prone to unpredictability. Mssrs. Neukom et al. would have been better served jettisoning the entire team for prospects and fielding a lineup full of awkward rookies. The audacity of a such a move may have humbled the gods enough to punch the Giants' ticket to a repeat. It's not like the National League West was going to be infinitely winnable with a league-average offense and stout pitching, anyway, right? And where was the front office when Buster Posey and Freddy Sanchez went down for the year and took their bats with them? Why didn't they make moves on the trade market to fill those holes? And who cares if the Zito deal was a Magowan decision? Brian Sabean is a horrendous judge of talent and deserves to have his contract extension revoked...

Now that I think about it, let's not blame management. That's just too easy. Let's blame Bochy. After all, if Bochy had only started Brandon Belt at first base and batted him cleanup in every game so far, the Giants would be on their way to back-to-back division titles. Instead, he let 2010 thong spokesman Aubrey Huff spend half the season working  himself off the schnide and kept letting players like Posey, Sanchez, Zito, DeRosa, Sandoval, Ross, Burrell, Tejada, Belt, Schierholtz, Romo, Wilson, and Sanchez on the field, knowing darn well this would eventually land them all on the DL. And to top it all off, he's managed the team with the worst run production in baseball to within a handful of games of first place heading into September. Seriously, who needs this guy? Time to bring up Steve Decker...

No, no, no. We're going about this all wrong. It's not the guys in the suits or the dude with the big dome and the monster goatee. When push comes to shove, it's the players who perform or flop. So let's blame them. Let's blame Huff for following the ebb and flow reflected on the back of his baseball card. That kind of consistency really pisses me off. Let's blame Ross for being the same streaky hitter he's always been. That kind of inconsistency really pisses me off. Let's blame Sandoval for swinging at everything in site. We all know his numbers are a fluke. Let's blame Tejada. Just because. And yes, let's blame the pitchers, especially those starters. One game, they give up one run, the next 0, the next 2, the next 1... You just never know what you're going to get with this bunch...

But let's not stop there! Let's blame Henry Meulens, Dave Groeschner, Dave Righetti, Ron Wotus, and Tim Flannery. On second thought, let's blame Scott Cousins, Phil Cuzzi, Johnny LeMaster, Showtime, and Lou Seal. Or, if we really want to get to the bottom of this season's woes, let's blame 2011 itself. I don't know about you, but I had a bad feeling about that guy from the minute I saw him. Any way you slice it, it's salty lemon juice in an open wound on the bottom of your foot. The sooner you wash it out and dress the cut, the sooner you can start healing up for the next journey 'round the wheel of pain.

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