August 13, 2006

The Curse of the Weavers

I'm starting to suspect something fishy is going on with the Weaver boys. First Jeff Weaver sabotaged the Yankees from within, pitching like absolute crap for them for several years*, until to make matters worse, he was traded for the even crappier--yet older and more injury-prone!--Kevin Brown. You wouldn't think it was possible to get rid of Jeff Weaver and still come out on the losing end of a trade, but you would be wrong**. And now his brother Jared, who by the way basically mocks his older brother with every sparkling start, is killing the Yanks by pitching terrifically for the Angels. Please just tell me there isn't a third sibling. What's the deal here? Are the Weavers Red Sox fans? Was their father somehow terribly wronged by Steinbrenner decades ago? I mean, if Tony Womack and David Ortiz were brothers, you'd start to think something might be up, wouldn't you?

Tonight, I got to watch a baseball game in its entirety for almost a week, and it was a satisfying one. Randy Johnson seems to have recently sacrificed a goat or something in exchange for prolonged youth again this year, so that's a plus; Jorge Posada snapped out of his slump; and Derek Jeter got some early MVP chants going for him. (I'm basically so sick of talking, thinking, and hearing about A-Rod that I don't think I'll write anything more about him unless he does something truly spectacular, like kill Curt Schilling with his bare hands in the middle of a game, or spontaneously combust on the field, or personally discover an AIDS vaccine.) One thing I can say for sure: this Yankees team is either very good or entirely mediocre. Definitely one of those two things.

In other, off-topic news: in today's New York Times, the big headline is "In Steroid Era, Will Golf's Integrity Stand Test?" Now, it would not actually be possible for me to care less about golf, but I am pretty amused by the idea of pudgy, aging, plaid-pants-clad millionaires shooting anabolic steroids into each other's asses in the country club men's room. I know that's probably not the kind of thing the headline is referring to... but damned if I'm actually going to read the article to find out.


*2003 ERA: 5.99.

**2005 ERA in '05: 6.5.

1 comment:

Emma said...

Yes, you’re right – Jeff Weaver seemed promising at the time, and I remember being excited when they got him. He sure went out on a dispiriting note, though.

Still... if I’d known about that Jerry Springer thing, I wouldn't have been been so hard on the guy.