Yesterday I intended my post to be decidedly less negative than it actually turned out to be. The Padres are the least objectionable divisional rival for the Rockies, mostly due to their ineptitude. And yet, my post turned fairly negative quickly (including the ineptitude shot in the last sentence). This got me to thinking, do I dislike divisional rivals because they are rivals or are they unacceptable for other legitimate reasons. With the Padres, my only real problem with them has been their uniform changes and apparently it was a bigger problem than I once thought. One irony is that the Padres use to be one of my favorite NL West teams along with the Braves and the Reds, but that was back in their brown and orange stage of existence. Obviously your team's major rival has many, many flaws in your mind. However, do you dislike your team's minor divisional rivals for similar reasons? While you think about that, let's take a look at the second half of the 2012 San Diego Padres.
1. John Baker
2. Nick Vincent
3. James Darnell
4. Jeff Suppan
5. Yonder Alonso
The John Baker card is great because it perfectly captures the moment when he apparently first threw to his new teammate...Godzilla. The fear in his eyes is just so fantastic. Speaking of fantastic, when was the last time you saw a row of flowers on a baseball card? It's not something I would like to see often, because the rarity is what makes it memorable. After those two memorable cards, the Darnell diving catch almost seems pedestrian. However, the "make believe" on the sign enhances the photo. Finally, the Suppan and Alonso photos take us back to a time when the Padres had an identity. The Suppan card has more character even though I prefer the Alonso uniform.
Tune in tomorrow for the final non-NL West team...they are pure "evil."
Thanx for reading.
2 comments:
I do hate all of the Dodgers' NL West rivals for the fact that they are the Dodgers' rivals and for concrete reasons otherwise.
I started to list those reasons here, and then decided that might not be a good idea.
You don't need a reason to hate your rivals.
That being said, here are my reasons to hate all of the Padres rivals, boiled down to five words
Giants: Bonds, BALCO, Melky, etcetera, etcetera
Rockies: Holliday STILL hasn't touched home
Diamondbacks: Lucky in 2001, still cocky
Dodgers: Becoming "Yankees West". No Adrian!
You have to read the last sentence in a Sylvester Stallone voice. I originally had a Brian Stow reference as a reason to hate LA, but I'm sure there are lots of decent, gracious Dodger fans in the world. I've just never met one in person (the ones that run blogs have been great, however).
Part 2 of the Padres reminds me how many horrible players we had on our team this year. Part 1 kinda did that, too.
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