Shoutout to Jomboy's Baseball Breakdowns

With all the talk about baseball needing a significant makeover considering that strikeouts and game lengths are up and batting averages, doubles, triples, stolen bases and excitement are down, it’s nice to see that the game can still be made interesting by sheer personality and incredible lip-reading.  Enter Jomboy Media.  Now, I’m not much of a YouTube guy because I like to waste my time in other meaningless ways, but I do have a 19 year-old son who will on occasion lead me to a channel that offers big entertainment value, a phrase not typically associated with Major League Baseball these days.

Jomboy Media has a history, multiple channels, podcasts and a slew of related entities that I don’t understand, and I encourage you to investigate all of them and then tell me in 30 seconds what I should pay attention to, but what I’d like to share with you today are its Baseball Breakdowns hosted by Jimmy O’Brien.  The breakdowns are an inside look of baseball’s intricacies, extraordinary plays, heated arguments between players, managers and umpires, and the best (and worst) of baseball fandom, all done with wit and a genuine appreciation for the game.  And did I mention the lip-reading?  Wow! This guy can tell you exactly what managers Craig Counsell and Tony La Russa are uttering in this incredibly interesting and entertaining breakdown of a challenge that may or may not have taken advantage of a significant loophole in the rulebook. 

For another taste of what O’Brien does best, check out this recent look at a Mariner comeback against the Astros:

Great stuff!  I’m a fan.  I might be as big a fan of Jomboy as I am of baseball itself.  You can also watch the videos and have better search functionality at Jomboy’s website.

Now excuse me while I piss away some more time on YouTube.

A Devil's Baseball Bargain

I’ve proposed the following scenario to a few Milwaukee Brewers fans, but you could just as easily apply it to fans of the Seattle Mariners or Texas Rangers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, Denver Nuggets or Buffalo Sabres, or any other sports team without a championship. 

A person or entity of some kind approaches you, and – knowing your lifetime loyalty to the Milwaukee Brewers (or some other ill-fated sports team) – says, “I can guarantee that the Brewers will win a World Series sometime in the next five years, but here’s the deal: your team will spend the subsequent twenty years in last place.”

You don’t know how or why, but you know this person is telling the truth.  Do you take the bargain?

I’ve offered this question to a couple of friends of mine and have been dumbfounded that each of them quickly and unequivocally said no; they’d rather have a fun, competitive team for many years than to hit the pinnacle for one year and spend two decades in the cellar.

Me?  I would take the deal in a heartbeat.

I wouldn’t have when I was fourteen years-old and the Brewers had just lost the World Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.  After all, they’d surely be back a year later to avenge their disappointing loss, right?  Right???

Nearly forty years later, I realize just how fleeting successes are, and how you can root for a team – even good teams – and never make it to the finish line.  Think the Utah Jazz, the Tampa Rays or the Buffalo Bills.  Or how about the Atlanta Falcons, who let the Super Bowl slip away when it was in the bag?  Brutal stuff.  Tell me a Falcon fan wouldn’t change the outcome of that game for twenty years in the doldrums.

The Packers have won two more Super Bowls than I ever expected them to win when I was following them through the awful 70s and 80s.  But now?  It’s all icing, baby.  They’ve done it.  Twice in my lifetime!  If they spend the next decade in last place, hey, that’s okay.

The Milwaukee Bucks just won their first championship since I was three years old.  I was thrilled.  I traveled up to Milwaukee and hung out with my sister and brother-in-law, walked amongst Bucks fans of all genders, races and sizes, and I loved it.  But I couldn’t express unadulterated jubilation, because I didn’t earn it.  I don’t think much of pro basketball as a sport, and while I was very happy for the city of Milwaukee, the fans who’ve slogged through season after hapless season and the players who seem genuinely grateful for having won a championship in a small-market city, I couldn’t revel in the victory as much as the next guy.  After all, the Bucks game I attended earlier this year was my first NBA game in twenty years.

But I’ve earned my heartache with the Milwaukee Brewers, and I will have earned the euphoria should they ever manage to win a World Series.  They’ve come close to getting there – in 2011 and 2018 – and those were fun rides to be sure, but they were not the finish line.  I want what true Bucks fans got last week.  I want it all.  I want to be in the stands when the Brewers complete a World Series victory.

I’d be willing to spend a lot of awful seasons for that Golden Moment.  Hell, I’ve lived through enough awful seasons without that golden moment.  What’s a few more?