Lee on Saturday, gearing up for last night's masterpiece! (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
It isn’t often that I don’t post because of good things but that’s what happened this weekend. It was a good weekend, fun to relax and just enjoy it – and we even got some snow to ogle for a few hours!
It’s given me a much better outlook baseball-wise.
After game 2 of the ALCS, I decided that I was “done” with it. I was giving up on the ALCS because watching the Angels losing in such creative and gut-wrenching ways was taking its toll on me. So I was going to stick with the NLCS and just hope for the best with the American League.
Oddly enough, it was the fantastic NLCS game (relatively speaking – not so fantastic if you’re rooting against the Phillies or are a Dodgers fan) last night that has encouraged me to give the ALCS another chance. Serendipitously, today’s ALCS game starts while I’m away from a television, so I won’t have to pay much attention. But if the Angels can scratch one out, I’m in for game 4. Don’t let me down, Jered Weaver.
The first post I made (after the obligatory “HEY! Not only did I change the look of the blog but I changed the name!” entry) when the blog morphed from “Red Sox Chick” to “Toeing the Rubber” was about Cliff Lee. In spite of how I feel about MLB beating us to death with the “inspirational” story of Josh Hamilton, I think it’s obvious that I root for the underdog whenever I can.
A quick digression: When I was at WEEI.com a very nice and quite talented fella named Jesse did all the cosmetic (and other non content-related) work on the blog. He designed the header that I used for the time I was there. I loved it. I loved the color, I loved what it looked like. I loved everything about it. Except the players he used. Originally it was supposed to be Lowell, Pedroia and Ortiz and I asked him to switch at least one out for a pitcher, preferably a reliever, and I got Okajima up there. Now, it wasn’t Jesse’s fault I didn’t like the players in the banner. Hell, I like the players, but if I were to use photos of players to represent my blog it wouldn’t be the superstars I’d have up there. I can’t remember if it was something Jesse and I discussed or just something I assumed, but I figured for a mainstream website it made more sense to have better known players in the header. It turned out fine, like I said, I love the banner, but it never fully felt right for me given the my strongest allegiances seem to go to the guys who don’t have McFarlane figures of their likenesses out there, players who don’t have t-shirts with their faces on them and who don’t have legions of fans.
Cliff Lee had his struggles and people thought he was done. No Cinderella story for him since his only problem seemed to be that he wasn’t any good. No drug addiction, no depression, nothing fancy MLB could capitalize on. He just started playing poorly and then he turned it around.  In 2008 he came back after a disastrous 2007 and won the Cy Young award. This year he’s pitching in the post-season and dominating every time he appears. (How great and somewhat ironic is this headline from July 28th of this year? Cliff, yet again, brought me happiness. Giving the Phillies a 2-1 edge over the Dodgers. Who knows how the NLCS will turn out? Right now it’s just an awful lot more fun to watch than the ALCS. Much less painful too.
I had no plans to still be invested in the outcome of the ALCS. I was happy to just let it happen. But Cliff Lee has inspired me to not give up…not yet.