What Happened to When CubicleGM Covered Baseball Back When Baseball Was Fun!?

For those dedicated CubicleGM readers out there, once upon a time, circa 3 or 4 months ago CubicleGM regularly used to write articles, I’d dare even say interested articles, about baseball.  Weird, huh?  You remember those good old days?  What happened to those good old days?  Well, brothers Cloud joined the fray and Jacob Nitz to boot.  But

mostly, MLB over the last 2+ months has been boring.  (In a very related story, you remember when I actually used to write often on this blog??  MLB fanboy Gideon has been very quiet – a direct result of baseball being so damn boring.  That and a bit busier at work, and the realization that having a social life can be exciting, but mostly just that MLB was boring).  I really can’t think of any great story lines over the second half of the season.  As I pointed out in mid September, the end of the regular season was lame.  Sure the Twins and Tigers had a terribly played one game playoff where everyone knew they were exiting stage left at the hands of the Yankees later that week anyway, but otherwise, September was devoid of any fun.

The two best individual storylines were totally under-appreciated.  Zach Greinke had a season for the ages, but playing for the Royals made sure most of the country never even had the chance to see him pitch this year.  I’d even venture that many people think that after his absurd April he was actually pretty pedestrian the rest of the way.  But in reality, he had 113 Ks in 102 innings after the All Star Break, to go along with his 2.21 ERA.  Joe Mauer (for those of you unfamiliar with him, he is a catcher that plays for the Twins – they are an AL Central team from Minneapolis/St. Paul) had an absurdly good season as well.  See my Wake Me Up When September Ends right up for how good it was.  Alas, they were consistent, steady seasons that didn’t break any records, and didn’t make for great national media stories.  As I wrote about back in the day, I think the steroids era made us expect records to be broken, year in and year out – no longer can we appreciate a .365, 28 HR season from a catcher.

On the team level, there were hardly any compelling stories either.  The Rockies starting off atrociously, only to make a strong turn around and sneak into the playoffs.  Yeah, that happened in ’07.  There were no underdogs to root for, a la the ’03 Marlins, Cubs, & Red Sox, or the ’04 Red Sox, or the ’05 White Sox, or the ’08 Brewers, Rays, or Phillies, or even the A’s teams from ’01-’05.  Who wants see a team that spent $400+ million last offseason trounce their way to the World Series?  The Phillies dominating in October is so ’08.  Even the once-loved underdog Red Sox lacked any sort of mojo.  None of the playoff teams were compelling stories, and none of the series have been the least bit interesting.

Clearly I’m not bullish on the World Series.  Unequivocally, I’m rooting for Pedro pitching 7 scoreless in Yankee Stadium, followed by him coming in relief of Cliff Lee in Game 7, again in NY to clinch the series.  I honestly can’t really think of any other compelling story line, and this is the game I love.