Nurse the Hate: 2019 MLB Win Totals

I was one of the biggest baseball fans around just a few years ago.  I traveled to see my beloved San Francisco Giants play away games, watched about 120 of their games a year on TV, and played in two fantasy baseball leagues.  If you wanted to know about the Mets utility infielder, I was your guy.  All of the sudden, I stopped watching baseball.  One would think that this would not be the case with my advancing years.  All middle aged white men are supposed to love baseball.  These are the only people that reliably attend games.  Yet I find myself watching less and less baseball.  This was for a few easily identifiable reasons.

First, I essentially stopped communicating daily with anyone that watched baseball.  I found that my social circle of close male friends continues to shrink further and further with each passing year.  When my father was my age, I'm not sure if he had one real male friend.  I spend a lot of time with Leo, but let's be honest, he usually isn't positive on where he is much less if the Giants should trade for a situational left handed reliever.  I think Hector is moderately down with baseball, so maybe I will lasso him into going to Pittsburgh to watch the Giants inevitably lose to the Pirates while Yinzers scream out "Raise the Jolly Roger" as I walk out to the triumphant fireworks.  Yet, they don't have the sarcastic edge that Krusty and I enjoyed while watching the horrible Indians teams of the early 2000s.  It's a loss.  Maybe I need to place a personal ad along the lines of "Fading indie rock singer guy seeks male companion willing to attend poorly played National League games and talk shit while moderately buzzed up on local beer".

The other big issue was I got cheap.  Up to this point, the only things I knew not to skimp out on were cheese and shoes.  I didn't know that buying the MLB.com season ticket for Giants games versus MLB Season Ticket on Direct TV would result in only watching "OTT" versions of Giants games where placed internet ads took over the Fox Bay Area feed commercial breaks. Instead of watching a wide variety of ads including an uncomfortable Duane Kuiper endorsement for a solar company, I would get the same 4 ads across an entire game. With 9 innings, that means 18 commercial breaks.  Hence, I would see the exact same ad break of Cleveland Clinic/Marriot/some financial company/MLB.com promo 18 fucking times in a row.  It was maddening.  I couldn't watch it.  It didn't help that the Giants were boring.

I am committed to getting back into baseball this season.  I find it calming to be uptight about my shitty team.  I like to be able to be exasperated when my least favorite middle reliever comes in to throw gas on an inning.  I am not sure why ESPN refuses to provide baseball news in their sportscasts despite airing games all summer long.  Each day the talking heads shows pontificate about the NBA soap opera (no actual basketball is discussed at anytime in NBA coverage, only where So-And-So wants to play) and Tom Brady.  That's it.  The season starts tomorrow and I'm not positive on who's good.  That is why I decided to lock in the only way I know how... with a few monster wagers on win totals.

Vegas Booms are DARING YOU to take under 59.5 wins on the Baltimore Orioles.  It should be noted that they only won 49 games last year and made no apparent moves to improve.  Yet, if I made a few calls, I should be able to get a group of guys together that could win 60 games in the majors.  That's the way baseball works.  A terrible teams wins 40% of the time.  A great team wins 60% of the time.  40% of 162 games is 64 wins.  Great news!  The Orioles are worse than terrible.  With a win total that low, the Vegas books know goddamn well this team is a disaster.  The O's have to play the absolutely loaded Red Sox, Yankees and Rays about a hundred times this season.  That's bad news.  It's real bad news.  Baltimore UNDER 59.5

I am going to commit to rooting aggressively against the Cubs this year.  Just like when the Red Sox finally won a World Series, Cubs fans became immediately dislikable.  That entire Wrigley Field, Go Cubbies! horseshit was just too much to handle.  All those preppy ass North Side guys waxing on about the pain they had suffered of watching the Cubs lose (ignoring the Bears/Bulls/Black Hawks titles) made me think "fuck you guys".  I would like the Cubs and their alleged genius big payroll GM Theo Epstein to return to their heartbreaking ways.  Nothing will bring me greater joy than to see the Cubs bullpen blow leads late than to be on the under.  Jon Lester is 35, You Darvish is coming off injury, and I'm not bought in on a resurgent Cole Hamels.  The Central is going to be tough.  Chicago Cubs UNDER 88.5 wins.

The Giants are going to be terrible.  There are about 4 legit MLB players on the roster.  The Dodgers will destroy them all season.  The Rockies will shove them around.  They can probably beat the D-Backs and Padres every now and again.  But the rest of the NL will kill them.  It's an injured Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, and a bunch of bad contracts.  San Francisco Giants UNDER 73.5.