Why I don't talk baseball with people I know

[Sammys Boombox]

I figured plenty of people could easily contribute to this thread.

 

1. People who think that past performances of a franchise doom/entitle future success of that same franchise.

 

2. People who have crazy off the wall ideas that make no sense. Example: Tuesday night Rizzo was up in the 8th in a 3-2 ballgame with 2 outs and nobody on. He got a weak hit. Soler ended up being walked and Coghlan made the last out. My dad texts me that he thinks the Reds let Rizzo get a hit on purpose so they could walk Soler (and put the tying RISP) so Chapman would not have to face Soler in the ninth. I text this lunacy to a friend thinking I'll get LOL. I get, "I could see that."

 

3. People who question things of which they have no clue. Went to a Mizzou/South Carolina baseball game. Still pretty early in the year so sample size is pretty small and I'm with a guy who can only name one player on either of the teams (his cousin). That's ok I can't name a single one. But the guy is all bent out of shape because people with crappy batting averages are hitting in the meat of the order and the guy leading the team in RBI is hitting 9th. His cousin is a reliever so it's not like he had a dog in the fight.

 

4. People who watch baseball but know literally nothing. The "South Dakota" Padres.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Because it always ends with "they're the Cubs, you know they'll screw it up."

[Cubswin11]

I'd say a good majority end up with the "They're the Cubs, they will screw it up." So.... I agree with Kyle. Pretty much the rest end up with the people not liking the way a guy plays, i.e. Rizzo isn't paid to get on base if he was good he'd have 100+RBI's. My dad and brother are the two that usually are at least open to discussion, despite not having the greatest knowledge of advanced metrics. Edited April 23, 2015 by Cubswin11

[Clem Fandango]

I'm fortunate that most of my friends I talk baseball with are open minded and if they are not keen to a lot of sabermetric analysis, they're curious to listen to me about some of the basics so they get a better understanding of baseball. And there are some of them who know enough that we can have enjoyable conversations about baseball every time.

 

It's my brother I have to worry about. I've had to talk him down off the "Trade Starlin Castro" ledge several times now. Also had to convince him that Lester doesn't suck after his first start. And when I told him Soler was running into some bad luck despite hitting the ball hard, he said "Nobody cares about your moneyball [expletive], Logan".

[Guest]

Half the conversations end up with some variation of twtw

[Sammy Sofa]

The specific stupid things, like thinking Castro is some kind of hopeless cancer that they must trade, or they don't have a chance since they got rid of Tyler Colvin/Darwin Barney/Bryan LaHair, that stuff I enjoy talking over with them, but the bigger "they're the Cubs, so everything will [expletive] up" you can't really do anything with because so far history is on their side. It's annoying as hell, but it's not like they're wrong.

[XZero771679666304]

Because in hanging out in places like this, we forget that 99% of baseball (or any sport, really) "followers" are casual, meatball-y fans who don't have the time, interest and/or the capacity to invest any real thought in it.

 

I will sometimes see someone in Cubs or another team's gear and start up a conversation, but invariably their knowledge pool is an inch deep. Even the most ignorant posters on this board are more knowledgeable than virtually any fan you'll run into. Of course, that's primarily because most people aren't huge losers who spend huge chunks of their free time delving into the details and nuances of a sport, but whatever.

 

I have a couple friends who really know their stuff, but I don't bother with the rest.

[Derwood]

Because Reds fans

[Thurman Merman]

I found it oddly cathartic to scream at my brother one day that he was a sports meatball. He acted offended, but I dont think he actually knew what that meant.

[Andy]

Most of the friends I talk baseball with are in my huge 14-team keeper league, so they're all varying degrees of smart (almost certainly more so than I am). If anything, sometimes I find it annoying when I say something innocuous about a certain player's struggles driving me nuts and one of my friends comes back with a statistically-oriented response.

[Guest]

The specific stupid things, like thinking Castro is some kind of hopeless cancer that they must trade, or they don't have a chance since they got rid of Tyler Colvin/Darwin Barney/Bryan LaHair, that stuff I enjoy talking over with them, but the bigger "they're the Cubs, so everything will [expletive] up" you can't really do anything with because so far history is on their side. It's annoying as hell, but it's not like they're wrong.

 

i just don't encounter people stupid or shitty enough to say things like this beyond random strangers

[Sammy Sofa]

That's surprising; Cubs fans love saying it.

[Guest]

That's surprising; Cubs fans love saying it.

 

It's weird...outside of a few very casual (basically people who identify as Cubs fans but don't really care much) at work, I don't know that many of those outside of my main group of friends. But yeah, I'll hear stuff like that from randoms I'll encounter through work or at games I guess. But those aren't really "people I know" so yeah.

 

I have a brother like that but he is a terrible former Cubs fan who bandwagoned his way to the Sox in the 90s.

[sontensei]

I got into the cubs due to my father back when i was a baby over 35 years ago. After he passed some years ago I was left being the only cubs fan among my friends / family who are predominantly Sox fans. No matter what I say about the cubs, its pointless I face nothing but criticism. So.. I dont talk baseball to anyone lol -- #thrustory

[treebird]

a new guy at work mentioned how well the cubs were doing and i was like YAY NEW CUBS BUDDY. we talked for maybe ninety seconds before i said something about how all we needed to do was make the playoffs to have a shot and he immediately replied that the cubs were at least three or four years away from being actual contenders.

 

I've been watching youtube videos for advice on how to properly slash tires ever since.

[DiamondMind]

Buy him some sugarless haribo gummy bears.

[Sammy Sofa]

Today was like stupidity porn for my friend who thinks Rondon is garbage and acts like he blows games left and right (he also routinely mixes him up with Strop, and I can't tell if he thinks they're the same person or if he thinks Strop sucks, too). Anyway, he was crowing about today like it was proof Rondon needed to be kicked to the curb. It finally just degenerated to us texting "but he loaded the bases" and "BUT HE STRUCK OUT THE NEXT 3 GUYS" back and forth until blessed silence.

[UMFan83]

I just hate being the "Cubs guy" with distant aquaintences. During small talk inevitably the Cubs come up and it's a very high level boring discussion I'm not interested in having because the moment you get beyond "boy the Cubs are looking good, that Schwarber guy is really something isn't he?" and dig a little deeper ("Bryant has been good but is struggling with off speed pitches lately") the other person has nothing else to contribute to the conversation because he can't talk about the Cubs on that level.

[Burt Macklin, FBI]

I once made the mistake of trying to explain WAR to my uncle. He was super excited about the concept of figuring out wins for hitters, until I explained there wasn't a one to one correlation between pitcher wins and WAR. Then his eyes glazed over and he repeatedly muttered something about grit until I gave up.

[DiamondMind]

Even my 60 year old mother can comprehend WAR.

[Guest]

Today was like stupidity porn for my friend who thinks Rondon is garbage and acts like he blows games left and right (he also routinely mixes him up with Strop, and I can't tell if he thinks they're the same person or if he thinks Strop sucks, too). Anyway, he was crowing about today like it was proof Rondon needed to be kicked to the curb. It finally just degenerated to us texting "but he loaded the bases" and "BUT HE STRUCK OUT THE NEXT 3 GUYS" back and forth until blessed silence.

 

So you work with ARCubsFan.

[minnesotacubsfan]

a new guy at work mentioned how well the cubs were doing and i was like YAY NEW CUBS BUDDY. we talked for maybe ninety seconds before i said something about how all we needed to do was make the playoffs to have a shot and he immediately replied that the cubs were at least three or four years away from being actual contenders.

 

I've been watching youtube videos for advice on how to properly slash tires ever since.

Cutting brake lines is far more gratifying

[Sammys Boombox]

Tonight I get to go to the Royals game with my wife's socially awkward co-workers. So this should be fun.

[minnesotacubsfan]

I have a friend who I go to Mariner games with who is from Philly. I'm so [expletive] sick of hearing how awesome John Kruk was. And how much of a bum Pat Burrell was and how "unlucky" the Phillies have bee. GFY buddy

[Sammy Sofa]

Today was like stupidity porn for my friend who thinks Rondon is garbage and acts like he blows games left and right (he also routinely mixes him up with Strop, and I can't tell if he thinks they're the same person or if he thinks Strop sucks, too). Anyway, he was crowing about today like it was proof Rondon needed to be kicked to the curb. It finally just degenerated to us texting "but he loaded the bases" and "BUT HE STRUCK OUT THE NEXT 3 GUYS" back and forth until blessed silence.

 

So you work with ARCubsFan.

 

I was starting to really think he was that downzer guy who is obsessed with improving the bullpen.