NEWSLETTER
Baseball is truly a unique bird among the major sports in how little a single game really means for a team’s or player’s future performance. Because of the higher level of randomness baked into the sport, you need 162 games to even get close to telling you about a team’s or a player’s true talent level and performance in a given year. It’s a big reason why there are so many games in an MLB season.
Still, we’re fans! We still have to FAN sometimes! Which means when a single game (or inning (or, heck, plate appearance)) really hacks us off for whatever reason, sometimes we just need to vent.
Of course, if you vent to the wrong guy at the wrong time, though, you might get an earful right back at you about how little a single game really tells you. For example, an Indians fan called in to Bruce Drennan’s post-game show on Bally Sports Great Lakes (the new name for the Indians’ RSN) after Cleveland dropped their opener at home to the supposed-to-be-bad Tigers. The caller wanted to beef about DH Franmil Reyes and Drennan was NOT having it.
Watch and enjoy:
https://twitter.com/sportingnews/status/1377761506943762434
For those who can’t watch, here’s the gist:
Fan: “[Franmil Reyes], good pitches down the middle, he won’t swing at. But the balls down around his ankles, he hits to shortstop into a double play. This has been going on for two years.”
Drennan, starting to get hot: “I guess you missed a lot of the games that Reyes hit in the clutch last year, huh?”
Fan: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
Drennan, talking over the fan and growing apoplectic: “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re an idiot. You’re an idiot and you don’t know baseball! Oh, you are an idiot. Listen, you’re gonna tell me you are judging – you don’t know anything. You don’t know squat, you stupid idiot! You’re gonna tell me you’re gonna make a judgment on the season after one game, in 30 degree weather? That proves what an ignoramus you are! Get off our show! Fair-weather idiot.”
That was just so perfect. Of course it was WAY over the top, but it still cracked me up. The message was basically correct, too, and it’s probably one Cubs fans could stand to hear after yesterday’s ugliness: one game in terrible weather. Shrug. Can’t judge individual performances too harshly based on that.
