Friday Night Fukudome: Astros vs. Brewers

Reasons to hate the Brewers:

1. Prince Fielder is fat.

2. Dud Selig, the man who ruined baseball, sold the team to his daughter to become commissioner, and then moved his bitch ass team to the NL Central to make money because that team never had a real geographical rivalry.

3. Mr. Baseball is a douche.

4. Most of their fans are Packers fans.

5. Selig stole the team from Seattle after only one season and the Seattle Pilots had much cooler hats.

6. Prince Fielder is fucking Ugly as sin.

7. They’re alternate uni’s break MLB rule 1.11e No part of the uniform shall include a pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a baseball.

8. They’re from Milwaukee

Reason to be totally indifferent to them: They suck ass and haven’t made the playoffs in 150 years.

the douchebaggery of the fans in milwaukee is unparalleled. I lived there for 4 years going to school, and they are even more pathetic than white sox fans. If the white sox are the red headed step children, the brewers are a troll that lives in the basement.
That said, the stros have at least accomplished something in the past 20+ years, milwaukee is happy to finish .500

I was going to list not making the playoffs since the early 80’s (was it 82 or 83?) as another reason to hate them.

The Astros, because they’re from the south.

To follow up on Jarritos’ comment, it’s hard not to hate a team from Texas, just on general principles.

I hate the fucking Brewers.

I just am careless about the Astros. But hey, they’ve got a pretty park!

Prince Fielder is fat but Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee are both loads of shit as well. Also, Houston has Hunter Pence. The Milwaukee fans are huge assholes, though. I think this one is a wash.

The Astros and it’s not even close. They are neck-and-neck with the Brewers as employers of the most hated Carlos Lee, but several factors damn the Astros for all eternity:

– Berkman’s 2004 fake HBP
– choketastic, should’ve-just-forfeited performance in 2005 WS
– Oswalt causing Caray and Stone to compliment him in 2004; you know the rest
– STRIKING OUT 20 FREAKING TIMES ON MAY 6, 1998 (I guess I personally don’t hate them for this)
– ridiculous children’s book of a ballpark with a little hill in CF and a choo-choo train above LF

What about the fact that the Brewers helped the Cubs make the playoffs in 2003 by beating the Astros?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because they’re relatively new to the NL, but I just think the Brewers are pathetic, not hatable. On the other hand, I loathe the Astros. This is a close Fukudome, though. Nice.

This is a toughy, but I vote for the Brewers mainly because I live behind the Cheddar Curtain these days and am surrounded by them.

But I had a lot to wrestle with on this

I used to at least respect Craig Biggio…there’s no one on the Brewers that I respect…

I secretly rooted for the Astros when they played the White Sox in the series

I liked the Brewers when they were in the American League and then the douchebag commissioner messed that all up and put them in the same division as my beloved. So now they are no better than the Cardinals

Bottom line, neither team is a winner here…but it’s easier to hate the Brewers for me

Damn it, I used the wrong form of their in 7. I hate myself more than the Brewers and L’astros right now.

My intense, burning irrational hatred for the Astros has existed for years, whereas the Brewers were basically off my radar until recently.

Astros.

Texas is not the South. The South doesn’t claim Texas either.

Wait, Selig was Commissioner in 1970 already?

I hate Brewers fans more at this point, simply because they think they’re our biggest rivals when they’re not even the biggest rivals in the division. But it’s only been recently that the Brewers were even relevant, whereas the Astros have been a thorn in our side back to the Colt 45s days. Astros.

Jose Cruz. Senior. Cub Killer. Man about town.

Hate the Astros.

Also,
Don’t forget about the Bagwell Hypothesis
http://baseballevolution.com/asher/bagwellconspiracy.html

I really liked the Brewers until that assbag Selig moved them to the NL. I was fine with their fans until one of them called my wife a fucking bitch while we were walking through the Miller Park parking lot. All because she was wearing a Cubs jersey. I don’t mind a little harmless banter about the team and stuff, but that was a little much considering we’re both in our early thirties and not exactly the rowdiest of fans.

Despite that, I still hate the Astros much more than the Brewers. The Astros have been to all of one World Series, yet their players and fans have this arrogance about them that just irritates me. The Cubs have sucked for fifty odd years, but a history of sucking is at least a history. Plus both of the ballparks they’ve been in in my lifetime are the most god-awful eyesores in MLB. The Astrodome was a nightmare and Minute Maid Park is just garish. And who the fuck puts a hill in their centerfield? On purpose? [img]http://thumbsnap.com/v/i5T9jq8u.jpg[/img]

That sums up my feelings nicely. I really was a big Brewer fan after 2003 because they helped us out and because they weren’t even close to being a rival. Whereas my hatred for the Astros is maybe a little deeper than my loathing for St. Louis. I didn’t move to Illinois until I was 15, so I didn’t grow up with the whole rivalry thing. I was really surprised when I arrived in Central Illinois that there were that many Cardinal fans. I always just thought of them as the team that had Ozzie Smith and he was kinda cool. Little did I know. The Astros just always seemed to have more players on their team that I disliked, even though I have to agree with Uncle Bouncy about Biggio. I couldn’t stand his ass, but I respected him. If he’d of been a Cub, I’m sure I would have showered him with the same level of hero worship the Astro fans did. And the Cubs should have signed Carlos Lee when we signed Soriano. I’d have kept Lee for a year ans then traded him to an American League Club where he could DH and hopefully never see the Cubs again. I don’t care what Len & Bob’s poll said, I think Carlos Lee has hurt us far more than Albert Pujols over the course of their careers. I cheered the day the Brewers sent his ass to Texas and then threw up when he signed with the Astros.[img]http://thumbsnap.com/v/i5T9jq8u.jpg[/img]

Indeed. That guy just crushed Cub pitching back in the day. My Astros hatred is compounded with Mr. “Let Me Lean Over the Plate All Armored Up” Biggio and fact the Cubs never won a game at the fucking Astrodome during my lifetime. (Okay, I may be exaggerating slightly on that last point). Oh, and Jeff Kent used to suit up for them, too.

The Brewers haven’t been on the radar screen long enough to be hated. I agree that their fan base is largely douche-tastic these days, but that’s because 90 percent of them are bandwagon-jumpers who didn’t even know the team existed two years ago. (I actually felt sorry for the Brewer fans when I went to a Cubs-Milwaukee game up at Miller Park in ‘05, because there were literally 35,000 Cub fans out of the 40K in attendance that night… the Brewer diehards sat there and shook their heads in disgust, but were largely gracious about it, far more gracious than I’d be if visiting fans took the majority of seats at Wrigley).

My newly-minted-Brewers-cap-wearing fan interaction story: last year, I’m walking home from the Belmont L stop. I’m waiting to cross at Belmont and Clark. This was the day after A-Ram’s famous walk-off HR, when the Cubs got shelled 11-5 or something. One dude and three doughy Wisconsin chicks came riding by in one of those bicycle rickshaw contraptions that you see soaking tourists around the city in the summer. Decked out in Brewers gear that looked like it still had the tags on it that morning, the dude proceeds to talk shit to all of the pedestrians waiting at the light. (None of us were in Cub gear, most of us were just on our way home from errands or work, but apparently that didn’t matter). The trash-talker finally says something to the effect of “Too bad, Cub fans. The Brewers won today. You’ll just have to wait til next year… again!”

Before I could open my mouth to mutter something about how he should have fun the rest of the way after the Cubs showed the league scouts how to beat their closer the day before, the indie-rock-looking-dude next to me, who looked like he cared far more about his next trip to Reckless Records over any discussion of baseball standings, piped up.

“Hey, dickhead, it’s still only *June*.”

HA!

For the record, I love Reckless. But every time I’m in there I feel like I’m the old guy at the party. And I’m only 31.