Hello and welcome to Football Friday, a baseball column (by Connor). I am Connor. Each week I will dive into the previous seven days of baseball news, shout my opinion into the void, discuss some Rockies things, and eventually answer your emails. Well, some of them. Others offend my delicate sensibilities too greatly for me to publish, especially during this holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving.
Please email connorsmailbag@gmail.com to be seen and responded to by me, Connor.
The Internet is at it again, you guys.
After Matt Gross' ranking the Rockies on former Rox shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, several people decided to tweet, comment, email, and barf to us that we need to "get over Troy."
You know what? Nah.
People experience things different ways, you guys. It's why I get so frustrated when people try to tell me my music taste is bad, or that the movies I don't like are actually good. Guess what? I don't care. I'm not here for your pretentious takes on what is good and what is bad in this world. I'm experiencing media, entertainment, sports, and music to relax and be happy, not to learn how to play the guitar like that weird guy from Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's completely emotional and irrational and I'm fine with that, and life will continue just fine. Stop trying to convince me it's not OK.
Our irrational, emotional response to sports is what makes us human. Baseball, at its core, has no space for emotion. It's a game evaluated by numbers and determined by physics and geometry. The emotion and passion, which is the reason we love the game, is filled by the humans that play and watch it.
It's always been strange to me, the vitriol people have when someone experiences the game differently. The passion some fans showed for Tulowitzki and the despair they felt that night he got traded is not something to attack, but rather something to cherish. We're not throwing a tantrum; we're allowing our emotions and feelings to exist in a space that rarely has the room for them. Sports, like literally everything else, would be boring without passion. Let it thrive.
The real world hardens us. It tells us not to take things so seriously, that everything breaks your heart once in a while. It prizes snark and sarcasm, humor and emptiness that lacks depth over really feeling something, because feeling—regardless of the target attached to the emotion—is painful as hell.
You'll never fall in love quite the same way you did in high school, because you've learned by now that kind of love leads to incredible pain. For so many reasons, in so many ways, you learn to guard and mask your emotions. It's how you survive in America. Corporate America. Baseball evaluators America.
It's not something we choose to have happen, it's just something that happens. Matt's love for Tulowitzki and the pain felt when he was traded will be something Gross never experiences again. That isn't an experience we should cynically demean with old man logic and annoying, pretentious comments. The same way we shouldn't tell a teen girl not to like celebrities, the same way we shouldn't act like everyone who has ever felt emotion is stupid for feeling that emotion, whether superficial or deep.
It's a really accessible opinion to attack emotion; to crap on what someone else (a stranger!) feels in their heart. But that high horse is, frankly, a garbage opinion. Do I think we should pair this emotional response with a statistical analysis of the trade? No. But I think both of these responses deserve space in this sport. The same way I believe both David Ortiz and Andre Dawson belong in the Hall of Fame. The emotions of the game belong just as much as the numbers; I'll always fight for their space. If I wanted to judge someone based on numbers alone and throw out their impact beyond that, I would just want them to build a bunch of robots to take out the human race because it's all pointless after that.
We're crazy to love sports. We honestly shouldn't. These millionaire strangers in matching costumes hitting a ball with a stick shouldn't affect our emotions one iota. But allowing yourself to get wrapped up in something you can't control is the most human you'll ever feel. Don't let the cynics kill your emotion; don't let garbage people kill your love because they've been hurt. Don't let them take away your experience. And don't let them have you believe they are the unbiased ones because they leave emotion out of the sport. They've fooled themselves into that perspective; they're biased as hell, just as we all are, only they've left their emotions—a critical part of sports analysis—completely off the table to their detriment.
So nah, we're not going to get over Troy. We're going to continue to cover everything Rockies-related—whether Tulo or not—but we won't shy away from our emotions. We're going to experience the game how we want, and you should, too. For those uninterested, respectfully, you can shove it.
★ ★ ★
The Good Opinion of the Week™
Each week, I will personally scour Rockies related twitter feeds for good opinions on food, music, movies, or even bottled water. I will feature anything that I look at and think "that is a good opinion." This week, the good opinion comes from Modesto Nuts player and Rockies prospect Dillon Thomas (@DillonThomas24) who tweets:
Now, I'm not saying Planes is a good movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not. It's rocking a 39 metascore on IMDB and a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is certified Rotten.
But I don't think Dillon is saying Planes is a good movie. I think Dillon is trapped in a moment that's trapped even the best among us. It's that moment where you tell yourself you've got to go get a bunch of things done, like go to the gym or do some errands or go to work and instead you sit down on the couch and watch a bad animated movie starring the voice of Dane Cook.
You have no interest in the movie; you're just not interested in doing the things you said you'd do. You're basically a human cat at this point, simply existing in time and space but with no real plan or thought process going into any decision. Even worse is when the movie is on cable so there's commercials and every commercial break you're like "OK, it's probably time to go," but then you don't go. You don't move at all. Then the movie is back on and suddenly you look around and 14 years have passed, your family assumed you were dead and you've woken from your Planes coma to a brave new world of the future.
Terrifying.
Who among us hasn't been there?
Rockies Club Status
Each week, this column will dive into the Rockies' Club Status. I will be judging the Rockies' prior performance by comparing them to what type of song they would be at the club. The worst is a country song; the best is a BANGER. This week the Rockies are:
STANDARD TOP 40 RUN DOWN
Usually reserved for new clubs or maybe a club running on tough times that doesn't want to drop an ambitious DJ, the standard top 40 run down is a safe and simple way to maintain an active dance floor. It's going to include some songs that you like, some songs that you absolutely cannot stand, and probably like 5 or 6 Drake songs.
The Rockies are playing the early off-season safe. They protected their top assets for the Rule 5 Draft, they traded Tommy Kahnle and Rex Brothers for young, prospect-ish pitchers that could grow in their system, they didn't sign Daniel Murphy to a one hundred-year contract (thank you Based Bridich). These are all good things the Rockies did this week.
But they still need to take risks. They need to take a chance to build this roster for competitiveness, even if it's 2017 rather than this coming season, and they need to play some deep cuts that'll get people buying drinks and staying until 2:00 a.m. if they want to get rocking again.
★ ★ ★
Reader Mailbag
Welcome to the mailbag. Every week I'll read what you degenerate jerks have to say to me. Better make it good.
Will you marry me?
Also, where do you think CarGo ends up?
-Tommy B
Of course, I'll marry you Tom. For those that don't know Tommy, he's Twitter's favorite geology and Mariners fan. He's good people. I'd marry him twice if the damn politicians would allow it!
I think CarGo lands in either New York or Kansas City. One of those teams is going to lose out on the free agent outfield class and find that it's going to be easier to trade for two years of CarGo than to roll the dice on a 2017 free agent class that is filled with hot garbage.
The Mets can offer the best package of MLB-ready pitching and prospects, but the Royals could send us good players, so I'm extremely torn.
Let's see what's next:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3/8 tablespoon kosher salt
1/8 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
2 cups shredded skinless, boneless, rotisserie chicken breast
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3/4 cup refrigerated fresh salsa
1 ripe avocado
3 ounces tortilla chips
-SY
This appears to be some kind of recipe for southwest chicken salad.
I specifically requested you not send me recipes for chicken salad.
Has Connor Been Owned?
Each week, our team of investigators and officials here at Connor, Inc. will look into whether or not Connor was the victim of an "own". For the uneducated, an own is often a comeback or put down that renders the person speechless and unable to turn the conversation around. It's also described as a "serve" or "savage". I'm a medical miracle in that at no point in my life have I been owned by anyone online or in real life.
Here is what is being brought forth to the Committee of Owns this week as alleged evidence of my owning:
??????????????????
There was no evidence brought forth this week!
Apparently after 26 straight years of not being owned, people are scared to even try to own me now. Better luck next week, losers. (Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.)
Let's quantify all of this:
Has @rockiesVSconnor ever been owned? | Owned | Not owned |
November 13, 2015 | - | X |
November 20, 2015 | - | X |
November 27, 2015 | - | X |
TOTALS | 0 | 3 |
Once again... number never lie, folks.
Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you were able to buckle up your pants after dinner last night, losers!
★ ★ ★
[Editor's note: real people are emailing Connor and you should, too. If you want to be included on next week's fun, email questions about sports, pop culture, or (almost) anything else to connorsmailbag@gmail.com or try to own him on Twitter.]