Mike Freeman, You’re a Badass Motherfucker

Seriously, if you want comedy gold and topical observations, then your man is Mike Freeman at CBS Sportsline. Let’s look at a snapshot from his column on the Indians losing 3 in a row to the Red Sox. Imagine that! Losing three games in a row! These lines appear in this order with no breaks.

Nice performance, Cleveland.

That doesn’t make sense, you say? Because they lost? Well that’s a little fucking trick we in the writing biz (okay, I’m not a writer) call sarcasm. Look it up, then maybe you can start to hang with us.

What's the matter? Couldn't get a fresh supply of HGH in time for Games 6 and 7?

Bam! Wait, not enough.

BAM! Did you see the news this weekend? HGH, bitches. Mike is on top of this shit.

There's still time to hire Joe Torre, you know.

Ooooooooooohh fuck-ing snap! Joe Torre! The ex-manager of the Yankees! Oh I think HE’S been in the newspapers a lot lately!

Or a new BALCO chemist.

(I’m just dancing now, talk amongst yourselves for seventeen minutes).

If you're looking for the Indians to get a swell pat on the back for a golly-good effort, this is not the place.

Because this is Freeman-land, so you will be ridiculed. Strap yourselves in, Cleveland Bitchdians.

This shouldn't have happened. The Indians had the Red Sox in their mitts and lost. They had them. It was this close.

For about 30 seconds.

This wasn’t THAT close. I mean, this wasn’t 2004 or anything. Cleveland never had a lead in games 5-7.

Then Cleveland quit. There's no other way to say this. That's what they did. They flat out gave up.

Well we all saw that, didn’t we. They weren’t even trying. No other way to say it. They were trying in game 2, when they won in extra innings. They were trying in game 4, when they maybe really won because Tim Wakefield failed to field a ball or even to miss a ball so it could be fielded during Cleveland's one seven-run inning (the only inning they scored in). If that ball is fielded by Wakefield or someone else, it’s a likely double play and the Red Sox are leading by the bottom of the inning (Delcarmen doesn't come in to serve up the three run homer to Peralta). But in game 4, the Indians were trying, so Wakefield just stabbed at the ball and all runners were safe. Mike says, “there’s no other way to say this.” I honestly think the only thing you can’t say is that the Indians just gave up, because that's just lazy, terrible, stupid, retarded, fucked-up analysis. I think you can point to a combination of the following:

- Regression to the mean for certain Red Sox hitters
- Bad-luck in games 5-7
- Good-luck in games 2-4
- Red Sox good luck in games 5-7
- Red Sox bad luck in games 2-4
- Josh Beckett pitched well in game 5
- Fausto Carmona and CC Sabathia couldn’t throw strikes (but they were trying to)
- Lack of home field advantage

Plus like a thousand other things. But not 'C.C. Sabathia did not try'. I don't think that's giving either team enough credit, really.

This was as painful an unraveling amid a comedy of errors as you will ever see in any sport.
In the end, as it turns out, the Indians were lucky to make this a seven-game series. In the division series, they were aided by a swarm of bugs and a pitcher on HGH. Suddenly the bugs and HGH and luck all ran out.

So now the Indians beat the Yankees because of the bugs (that they had to deal with too) and the fact that Paul Byrd has used HGH. HGH doesn’t make those 85 MPH pitches more difficult to hit.

They Indians turned J.D. Drew into a hero. That's how bad this was for Cleveland.

Because we KNOW that J.D. Drew couldn’t have hit a home run all by himself. In fact, I’m not going to look this up but I bet he’s never hit a home run against non-Indians pitching in his career.

Losing three consecutive ALCS games is an embarrassment this franchise might not live down for years.

So, by that rationale, the Diamondbacks are screwed, because they lost 4 in a row in the LCS. What about those ’04 Cardinals, swept in the World Series! They’ll never be back! I personally would be more psychologically damaged by getting my ass kicked/swept then by losing in 7 games.

Scott Miller Is Still Working on His Material

Scott Miller at CBS sportsline is still pounding away the jokes. You may remember this post, where I implored him to be a little bit more economical with is material, because it’s repetitive and sucky. No dice. Let’s take a look at some of his review of the ALCS game 1 from Friday night.

How about next time C.C. Sabathia simply hands over his lunch money to Manny Ramirez before the trouble starts?

Manny Ramirez owns C.C. Sabathia, as the numbers show (Miller give us these numbers, Ramirez is hitting .609 lifetime against Sabathia).

What happened after school at the bus stop between the neighborhood bully and the neighborhood shrimp was civil in comparison.

Got it. As John Kerry would say, Manny Ortiz has been dominating.

And oh, while he's at it, Sabathia might want to just present David Ortiz with the keys to his Hummer, or whatever ride he's cruising around in now.

Is everyone on board with Scott’s line of humor now? Don't worry, he'll drive this home for you more than Ramirez and Ortiz crossed home last night! Ding!

Probably, genuflecting in front of the both of them is out of the question. But it sure merits consideration.

Fuck you.

I think before game 2, Fausto Carmona should just blow Manny Ramirez!

Okay that was mine.

Here we were at the much-anticipated pitching showdown between two of the top American League Cy Young candidates in Game 1 here Friday night, and a Josh Beckett hoedown broke out. Or mow down. As Beckett soared, Sabathia was gored.

Somewhere in Los Angeles, Bill Plaschke just wiped a single tear off his cheek while he read this. “Such poetry!” he proclaimed. Then he chastised Miller for having three sentences in a paragraph. One and done, that’s his motto.

Or before Manny and Big Papi swipe their wallets and wedding rings, too.

Is everyone up to speed? Manny and Big Papi are hitting real good. We have numbers to support this, but that’s not enough color, right? So we need Scott Miller, in the same column, saying that the Indians/Sabathia should just hand over lunch money, keys to a Hummer, wallets and wedding rings, then bow in admiration. Can’t numbers just say this much more effectively.

Actually, let’s look at the numbers. No jokes here, but the numbers are insane, so I had to leave them in there.

And the two of them together? This postseason, Ortiz has reached base in 16 of 18 plate appearances, and Ramirez has reached in 13 of 18 plate appearances.

Together, they've reached in 29 of 36 plate appearances, going 12-for-19 (.805 on-base percentage) with 16 walks, one hit batter (Ortiz) and 12 runs scored. It's ludicrous.

Those numbers are ludicrous, and they speak for themselves.

"I've never seen anything like it," Boston third baseman Mike Lowell said.

"That's kind of extreme," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.

"Would you like some fries with all those shakes?" said the Indians.

Yes, those three quotes appear in order. I’ve read this joke like 50 times and I can’t figure out what it means.