well, at least my internet is back.


so, it didn't take 'til thursday.

yesterday evening, after the dude put his uniform on for batting practice and everything, the braves sent mark teixeira west to play for the angels. in return, my braves received a young, light-hitting first baseman whose current claim to fame is that he's really difficult to strike out. awesome. go braves. the only thing that will make this one-sided deadline deal feel better is if manny ramirez is shipped out of boston to florida for some "young, major league-ready talent" and the red sox' season is destroyed too. sorry, andy. my misery needs company.

i am pissed about this for a number of reasons. let me count the ways.

1) i am pissed at teixeira. any logical braves fan knew that we were going to lose him at the end of this season. if his agent was anyone other than scott boras, maybe not. but boras was and is going to bleed some team out of 20-25 million dollars a year for a really good player, mind you, but not a "difference maker". braves gm, frank wren, came on the telecast last night and told the tv guys that teixeira boras turned down an offer in the spring that would have made tex one of the highest paid players in the game and locked him up for six years, plenty of time for the braves to say good-bye to the current aging pitching staff and retool behind chipper, mccann and yunel and compete for the division again by the end of the contract. he didn't give out exact numbers, but, what, mark? 17 (or so) million isn't good enough for you??? you and your georgia tech education can't figure out how to stretch 100 million dollars out so the next five generations of your family don't have to work? please. don't talk about wanting to stay in atlanta and then bolt for more cash that will hamstring your team in 2009 like it would have hamstrung the braves.

2) i am pissed at chipper jones for being old but still freaking good enough to raise everyone's expectations of a braves team with him in the line-up. watching at least parts of 85 percent of the braves' games this year, there was no less tangible but no more telling example of how the team lining up against the braves on any given night valued their chances. it had to have been the same way that i valued the braves chances on any given night. when chipper was in the order, you felt like the braves could and should win the game. when he wasn't? well, omar infante is no chipper jones.

3) i am pissed at myself. hindsight being what it is, a paper rotation of smoltz, hudson, glavine, hampton and jurrjens was never going to work. it just wasn't. the percentages were stacked too high against them. they couldn't help they are old. but i couldn't help remembering the best season each of them has ever had and then telling myself that they could recreate said best seasons, all of them individually, for the braves in 2008. with an offense that was explosive last year and coming back intact, i couldn't help but drool at the thought of "what was to come". then again neither could jayson stark of espn and ken rosenthal of foxsports, and they know a helluva lot more about baseball than kevin o'kelley of HACAM. or, do they?

4) i am pissed that the season is, effectively, over with 60 games left to play. what do i do now? the team has given up, so why shouldn't i? i mean, i'll watch some games, but all the meaning has been drained from them. it's like a 60 game exhibition season has been tacked on to the end of a bad dream. it's like the length of time between the end of one season of lost and the beginning of the next. it's like...forever! so, here is my plea, braves front office. don't sell us, the fans, on 2009 and then play the next two months out like you give a damn about this season. bring jordan schafer and his supply of hgh up now and put him in centerfield. keep charlie morton in the rotation to let him take his licks. bring up the other kid from the minors that pitched the no-hitter. shoot mike hampton and put him out of his misery. bench chipper now. let him travel to seattle and begin his new "off-season" conditioning program with another mid-30's superpower, ichiro, and learn how to run hard without ripping something in his legs. say "good night, and good luck" to kotsay and will ohman and every other guy that won't be considered for the 40 man spring training roster next year. if it's time to build for next year, fucking do it. don't do it half-way.

5) i am pissed that i don't know what team to root for now. the last couple years, after the braves have fallen out of it, i've picked a team to throw my support behind, but i can't find that team currently. the red sox and freaking "i only pitch (poorly) on espn dice-k" are starting to really annoy me. as mentioned above, the only way this tide of emotion can turn is if manny leaves and red sox nation embraces the "underdog" role again. i love rooting for the "underdog". kiker's joy would bring me pain, so i can't fully pledge my support to the feel-good cubs. i hate the angels now. the al central is boring. the yankees blow. the nl west is dreadful. who does that leave? right. the mets or the phillies or the marlins. teams that i have actively hated for a hundred games this year as a braves fan. can i root for them now? i don't know that i can. but if the marlins get manny, i will try.

and so, that's how i feel about my favorite baseball team ditching their second-best player for a bag of crap. i am happy that my internet works again (thanks joseph and random indian, i.t. guy that sent us the network card).

here's hoping mark teixeira slips on one of the rally monkey's banana peels, throws his back out and misses the postseason. that, or he pulls an a-rod once he gets into the playoffs and strikes out every time a runner is in scoring position.