Random and Irrational Thoughts About the Braves’ Wild Card Game Today

Rob Fox12 years ago

Today marks a new era in the Major League Baseball postseason. For the first time ever an extra wild card team has been added to both leagues, and for the two wild cards to move on they will have to face each other in a one game, do or die playoff. Exciting, right? Sure, in a “it’s pretty much the stupidest fucking thing ever” sort of way. Am I against an extra wild card team? No. Should a playoff “series” be one game? NO. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO! Do you know how often baseball teams play each other just once over the course of the year? Literally never. But yeah, sure it makes sense for the playoffs! Fuck it!

Being a die hard Atlanta Braves fan, that makes this whole ordeal especially frustrating. Combine the fact that my beloved Braves are facing the St. Louis Cardinals, the team for which 90% of my friends root for, and I’ve got one really REALLY annoying and anxious day ahead of me. I get nervous before any big game, but the heightened pressure and the fact that I will face endless, merciless ridicule if they lose, has me about ten notches higher than I normally would be. A lot of things are running through me head. These are it.

This one game playoff CANNOT be how Chipper Jones goes out.

I will literally run downstairs to the pediatrician’s office below us and sacrifice a small child to Cthulhu to make sure that this isn’t how Chipper Jones goes out.

I’ve got a bejeweled dagger and all the appropriate herbs prepared, I swear to God.

I’m only talking to my Mizzou friends from Kansas City today.

In fact, on the last day of the season last year I got texts from over 50 different people about the Braves collapse. I’m turning off my phone. If a relative dies I’m not finding out until tomorrow. Fuck it.

I hate my friends.

I should start drinking now.

G&Ts before lunch, Scotch after. You’re not an alcoholic if you NEED it right? Oh, you’re more of one? Fuck it.

I hate this play in game (should be a three game series). I’d wish Alzheimer’s on Bud Selig but I think he already has it, because he forgot how baseball works.

It’s been several hours and I still haven’t tired of listening to the Tomahawk Chop.

Regardless of what happens today I’ll be blackout by 9pm. Of this much I am sure.

But for the sake of everyone I’m with I REALLY hope it’s a happy blackout. The angriest I’ve ever gotten at a girlfriend was when one kept interrupting me for extended periods of time during Game 2 of the 2010 NLDS to get my opinion on a gameday outfit she was making. She got mad when I didn’t respond. NOW IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME WOMAN! GAHHHHHHH! Horrible fight. Rick Ankiel saved our relationship later that night.

I refuse to watch this game on the same TV (the office TV) that I watched the Mizzou-Norfolk State game on. This TV is cursed. Oh yeah, I’m leaving early today guys.

I fully realize that nothing I do has any effect on this game whatsoever.

I will still sacrifice that child. (*readies herbs and dagger*)

A short list of things I would endure to ensure a Braves victory today
– A Mizzou loss to Vandy tomorrow
– A full force Greg Zuerlein kick to the scrotum
– A curable STD
– This column bombing
– Butt chugging Franzia
– A prostate exam from Nosferatu
– Running craft services on the set of an obese, adult baby fetish porno. Nothing but Gerber, lollipops, and the absence of shame.
– Trading knees with Chipper Jones
– Thirty minutes of a crucifixion
– Listening to a group of Native American activists complain about the team name “Braves.”

I’m desperately trying to remember the deal I made with God during the 1996 NLCS to figure out exactly how much of the Braves’ future success against the Cardinals I mortgaged for that series win. Goddammit, the little kid version of had NO concept of future. That bastard nearly blinded me with all the masturbation.

Just realized that if Atlanta loses today I’ll have watched my favorite Mizzou basketball seniors AND my favorite baseball player ever bow out of the post season after one game. Yeah that can’t happen. (*finishes glass of scotch, sneaks downstairs to find a child*)

If the Braves win I’m going to spend WAY too much money tonight.

If the Braves lose I’m going to spend WAY too much money tonight. But only on Astros fans… Rangers fans can join too, but only if they lose.

I’m probably going to do the chop alone in my house while watching the game.

I’d rather have one of my roommates walk in on me jacking it that catch me chopping alone.

All the children escaped, so I caught the peacock that lives outside our office instead.

Go Braves

(*burns herbs, raises dagger*) To the dark lord Cthulhu I offer this magnificent bird…