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Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Atlantic: I’m So Glad the All-Star Game Is Over

Having the All-Stars in KC also meant celebrating the Royals’ glory days. A lot. But that brought tons of attention to just how very long ago those glorious days were—and how monumentally inglorious the team has been since. The many 100-loss seasons are one indicator of team’s decline, as is not making the playoffs since George Bush was in office. The first one. More galling is the uncomfortable fact that several of last night’s All-Stars once wore Royal blue. Game MVP Melky Cabrera, for instance, who was traded last off-season to the Giants. He’s hitting .353 with 44 RBI.

If the team has floundered, though, the city has soared. Everybody with a microphone or word processor has praised to high heaven how KC handled the All-Star week. Which is nice. But it all started to seem a bit condescending—like Joe Buck telling a local news anchor that events like the All-Star Game is better in Midwestern cities because “they are a big deal” to people who live there. That’s right, Joe. We’ve never seen a baseball game before. You got the sense that some of these people were shocked to find that a city in flyover country had indoor plumbing or paved roads.

bobm Posted: July 12, 2012 at 08:24 AM | 17 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: all star game, royals

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1. Bob Tufts Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:10 PM (#4181033)

The many 100-loss seasons are one indicator of team’s decline, as is not making the playoffs since George Bush was in office.

If you are talking about 1985 and George HW Bush as VP during Reagan's second term, the statement is accurate.

2. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:12 PM (#4181036)

Everybody with a microphone or word processor has praised to high heaven how KC handled the All-Star week. Which is nice. But it all started to seem a bit condescending—like Joe Buck telling a local news anchor that events like the All-Star Game is better in Midwestern cities because “they are a big deal” to people who live there. That’s right, Joe. We’ve never seen a baseball game before.

Well, for many of us in KC, we've never seen a Major League baseball game before.

3. Shooty is in the Trust Tree

Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:16 PM (#4181043)

If you are talking about 1985 and George HW Bush as VP during Reagan's second term, the statement is accurate.

Has it really been than long? Holy Toledo!

4. PreservedFish Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:32 PM (#4181064)

Which is nice. But it all started to seem a bit condescending—like Joe Buck telling a local news anchor that events like the All-Star Game is better in Midwestern cities because “they are a big deal” to people who live there.

This might be condescending, but isn't it also, you know, accurate?

5. Dale Sams Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:42 PM (#4181075)

When something nice falls in your lap...A Cabrera, a Beltre...ride that horse until he turns into glue. Quit trying to be Criswell, and stop worrying that their walk-up music will be "The Old Gray Mare" in a year.

6. Joey B. has ignited his October #Natitude Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:53 PM (#4181084)

Say what you will about Joe Buck, but it's not like he's a Manhattanite discovering for the first time that there are people west of the Hudson River who can read. The guy spent most of his formative years in St. Louis; I think he knows what the midwest is like. Some people need to lighten up a little.

7. Harveys Wallbangers

Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:54 PM (#4181087)

i think folks who take remarks like that as condescending just have a chip on their shoulder

folks in the midwest like baseball. folks in the midwest make a big deal about major sporting events. everyone raved about indianapolis hosting the super bowl when originally folks who go regularly were dreading indy as the location.

8. Shooty is in the Trust Tree

Posted: July 12, 2012 at 01:57 PM (#4181092)

Say what you will about Joe Buck, but it's not like he's a Manhattanite discovering for the first time that there are people west of the Hudson River who can read.

Yeah, stereotyping is wrong.

9. The Long Arm of Rudy Law Posted: July 12, 2012 at 02:12 PM (#4181112)

Being condescended to is a big deal to people who live in the Midwest.

10. Fred Lynn Nolan Ryan Sweeney Agonistes Posted: July 12, 2012 at 02:25 PM (#4181130)

I'm glad it's over, too.
But it happened Tuesday. Today is Thursday. Why aren't games happening today? This sucks.

11. The Clarence Thomas of BBTF (scott) Posted: July 12, 2012 at 02:25 PM (#4181131)

Being condescended to is a big deal to people who live in the Midwest.

I lived in the Midwest for roughly a third of my adult life. They get used to being condescended to.

12. Mike Webber Posted: July 12, 2012 at 02:30 PM (#4181136)

Hampton Stevens - you are a whiny #####.

13. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: July 12, 2012 at 02:39 PM (#4181147)

Like yesterday before the game, when they held a red-carpet parade with players through the city's ritziest shopping district. The average fan elsewhere in the country experienced the march of cars on carpet as a few seconds of cute video. Here, the parade was also a massive, traffic-snarling, afternoon-ruining lump in the middle of town about twice the size of a Presidential motorcade.

WAH. The traffic was really only bad in the Plaza, a small part of mid-town in a huge, sprawling metro, that actually has lots of transit service so that anyone that had to get there could have taken the bus. Hampton is proud of his paved roads, but apparently any kind of traffic hurts his delicate sensibilities.

I hate it when people have fun and gather in our downtown urban areas!

14. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: July 12, 2012 at 04:44 PM (#4181261)

The All Star game was a fairly big deal when it happened here in New York, too.

15. Gonfalon Bubble Posted: July 12, 2012 at 06:38 PM (#4181326)

Bring back the Curtiss heavier-than-air "Jenny," and the midwest will stop being flyover country.

16. Don Malcolm

Posted: July 12, 2012 at 06:50 PM (#4181332)

Hampton Stevens - you are a whiny #####.

Mike W., you are, really/truly, one of the nicest guys in the whole wide world...

...and you're being way too nice to Stevens.

17. cardsfanboy

Posted: July 12, 2012 at 08:11 PM (#4181377)

I took Joe's comments to be pro-midwest, anti-big city. Isn't his comment basically saying "see we can do a good event in the flyover states, there is no reason they have to be done on the coasts"

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Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Atlantic: I’m So Glad the All-Star Game Is Over

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