ESPN Hyperbole at its Best

TOMORROW NIGHT, IT'S BIGGER THAN HANK AARON BREAKING HOME RUN RECORDS, IT'S BIGGER THAN MCGWIRE/SOSA HR BATTLE, HELL IT'S BIGGER THAN JACKIE ROBINSON!!! IT'S. . . . . two guys who happen to be from the same country facing off possibly three times at the most. Holy shit, this is ground-breaking, I'll bet Rosa Parks is sitting up in heaven pissed that she couldn't pull off something of this magnitude.

Ok, to be fair, I get it, MLB is now globally integrated, this marks two of Japan's biggest stars facing off for the first time (in the US), blah blah blah. Just show me Erin Andrews' rack a few times during the broadcast and I'll be sure to forget all about that, seriously. Well, maybe I'd settle for a breaking report from Pedro Gomez. I pose a modest question for all sports fans out there: Pedro Gomez was given a full time assignment following Barry Bonds . . . in San Francisco, where I hear he likes to hoop it up once in a while, coincidence? I think not. Anyway. . .
(bigger story, Steroids, or baseball's first public couple?)

Have we gotten to a point in society where everything needs to be groundbreaking and bigger than the game itself? Forgive me, but do you think a baseball fan is going to see right through this ESPN? Shitty game, over-hyped. We have the Mariners, who look like the Marlins in the year directly following a World Series title, except they have shitty vets and no good young talent. . . so maybe they're nothing like the Marlins and just continually suck. In the other dugout we have the Red Sox. They have what appears to be a World Series contender with a formidable rotation, if Schilling spends less time on 38 pitches and more time on locating his fastball and if Julian Tavarez suddenly decides to give the Red Sox another reason to keep him besides shutting Manny the hell up.

So here we are, Dice-K, the $100 million dollar man, versus Felix freaking Hernandez who could be battling Dice-K for Cy Youngs for years to come if he gets traded to a major league team. But do we hear about this? No, because we have to focus on the fact that Ichiro, who has been in the bigs for years, is battling Dice-K. Forgive me but I find the fact that a-rod used to throw td's to Doug Mientkiewicz much more interesting. The likely result of this match-up? Who cares. If there isn't some kill-bill type shit, or at least a baseball take on Shaolin Soccer, I'm going to be pissed. Who wouldn't pay to see Dice-K warming up then Ichiro jumping from the batters box out to the mound and bicycle kicking him all the way into the monster . . . IN SLOW MOTION! (for those of you with a lot of time, here's a longer, and slightly better, clip). With statements like this from Ichiro, "I hope he [Matsuzaka] arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger," can we really rule out this possibility?