What We'd Be Watching Tonight, If There Was A National Game On
I'll probably get stuck, again, watching the Yankees or Mets tonight since there's no national game. This is no problem for Kyle, obviously, because he lives Mets baseball. I've seen him rock a Mets hat, jersey, and boxers at the same time. And that was just to watch a day game against the Nationals on TV. But I get tired of watching the local teams; any game where A-Rod commits three errors is obviously an exception. Either way, this is what we'd be watching if we had enough money to get the entire MLB package (of course, we'd opt first for NFL Sunday Ticket, but the point is moot because I barely had enough money to ride the subway this morning): Liriano v. Kazmir. It's not the first episode of the new Contender, it's Twins/Devil Rays! We never thought those two teams would produce a matchup of potential Cy Young winners, but here we are.
Liriano is 10-2 with a 2.12 ERA, and will be looking for retribution after his worst outing (four earned runs in five innings against Cleveland last Thursday) since April 29th, coincidentally also against Cleveland. What's more impressive about his 10 wins is that he hadn't been promoted from middle relief until May 19th and has collected nine wins since being a full-time starter. Liriano has been the best player in Minnesota this year and fueled them on a ridiculous run in June. Kazmir is 10-6 with a 3.27 ERA, but has had to struggle playing big-league teams with a AAA roster.
Kyle and I are dealing for the first time with the depressing reality that people we could have graduated high school with are now superstar athletes. Looks like we missed the boat on our dream of being famous NFL long-snappers. Come to think of it, our lives can't be too different from Liriano's and Kazmir's. Twenty-two year-olds all live the same, right? I mean...they've got the pressures of fan and media expectations, the grind of a playing a professional sport. We play wiffle ball every Sunday, cry our lonely selves to sleep every night, and consider a good day any one that doesn't involve us stubbing our toes. See? Identical.
