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It’s the offseason, but that doesn’t mean you have to go the entire spring and summer without laughing at stupid people on the internet. Between now and the kickoff to the new season in September, we here at Kissing Suzy Kolber have taken it upon ourselves to bring you the greatest non-football takes on Facebook and other esteemed social media outlets. We may sneak in a few teams here and there as news warrants, but for the most part all groups, NFL or not, are now fair game. Enjoy!
Some weeks, I get nervous because there’s nothing to really dive into out there – either because it’s incredibly soul-crushing to read through (Caitlyn Jenner takes, no thanks) or because people are still angry about the things that happened weeks ago (HILLARY EMAILZ). Other weeks, magic happens and you get a perfect storm of entitled, smug commenters falling from self-built pedestals. As soon as word broke that the Cardinals were being investigated by the FBI for hacking the Houston Astros player database, the popcorn was made and the fiery takes of injustice started rolling in. Please enjoy the #BestCommentersOnInternet.
IT’S NOT A CRIME IF THE OTHER TEAM SUCKS RIGHT
It’s always amazing how narrow someone’s focus can be when a worldview or built-up fandom is challenged. Everyone knows the reason why Cardinals Schadenfreude exists is because their fandom touts themselves as morally superior to others. When this story broke, the first comments I saw were all indignant – “This can’t be true because CARDINAL WAY.” It’s the exact same thing we saw with the Patriots after #ChernoBall. It’s equal parts misguided and infuriating, because you get comment gems from Willnard here acting flatly defiant instead of taking off the blinders.
“Why should we even let fans attend games? What if they tell the players that the other team is good? Fans should probably be illegal. Take it away from TV as well! They might call the manager during the broadcast. In fact, baseball should be played in an orbiting space-pod devoid of human contact so that we can capture the pure essence of baseball unspoiled by corrupting humanity and gravity.” (A note: This is pretty much Coors Field in a nutshell.)
Let’s just skip over that unauthorized entry into a corporate computer system part. Pssshhh.
WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!
This is probably sarcasm, but man, I hope it isn’t. I want someone to be proud of this achievement. WE DID IT. WE ARE GROUNDBREAKING. WE DO THE DIRTY WORK NO OTHER TEAM BOTHERS TO DO. WE ARE SO BLUE COLLAR. THE CUBS WOULD PROBABLY PAY OFF CHINA TO HACK THE ASTROS BUT WE DID IT WITH RED-BLOODED AMERICAN SPIRIT.
Again, this could be an opposing fan, but a cursory glance at her profile shows that she’s a Cardinals fan, so it’s allowed. I love the straight up refusal and denial of all claims based solely on the fact that “this is who I root for”. It’s straight and to the point, which is an appreciated quality when you mine takes as much as I do.
PERHAPS WE NEED TO REVISIT THE DEFINITION OF “CLASSY”
I despise the word ‘classy’ in the context of team sports fandom. It’s become the treasured phrase of the Old White Sportswriter, the Overly-Moralizing Fan, and roughly 80% of spoken words by the Offensive-Lineman-Turned-ESPN-Analyst. No team, in any sport, cares about sportsmanship any further than their PR department can run with it. If you hear about some token gesture of humility from a team, it’s likely been engineered that way. It’s a phrase used to prop up teams as valuable community members (when in reality their goal is to 1) get money 2) build really silly huge stadiums for as free as possible, then make money from it). The (YOUR TEAM HERE) Way is the same as everyone else. It’s marketing. Yes, I’m a cynic.
On the other hand, Nathan’s idea of being classy is throwing double birds at everyone so he’s probably more of an asshole than I am.
MIDWESTERNER DECRIES FELLOW MIDWESTERNER’S OBESITY
“It’s okay to enter an unauthorized computer system for a corporate competitor and look over detailed scouting reports from the ex-employee who built our own scouting system up the way it is today because we don’t directly play the Astros. Complex relationships confuse me. Have we nuked the Soviets yet?”
And Eddie, that’s a bold claim that the Cubs have the worst history of all sports ever in the world forever in all-time recordkeeping of worldsports. Sports.
ACTUALLY WHAT IF WE ARE THE VICTIMS
Here is a cool idea if you suspect such things: Maybe don’t try to force your way into another system as proof? I mean, look – the fact that the Astros were still using old passwords *IS* hilarious. But, really, if you’re wondering if there were corporate IP shenanigans afoot, I’m pretty sure your legal team didn’t recommend for some dude to go home from work and try to log in to the Astros database to check.
NAME OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE RIGHT HERE
BOB HAMBRICK. First of all, I hope that’s his real name. Second, I want to pretend for a bit that we’re back in whatever the hell century people started getting surnames. Was the Hambrick ancestry known realm-wide for their delectable selections of cubed meat? Did they achieve renown for being the first to create an edible building material? Did they build a wall out of pigs? I MUST KNOW THE ORIGIN HERE.
Now that we’re past that, let’s look at the comment itself. Oh hey! Can we use the word “people” more? Also, ‘echelon’ just means ‘rank’, so…you’re going to need to be more specific here, Bob.
AND NOW: THE CRAZIES!
Gosh Mike. If only the FBI had more than one person working there and were able to work on multiple things at the same time. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone has heard about the email hacking by now. It’s like you’re getting all your information from…
OH NO. MR. BENGHAZI HAS BEEN SCHEMING RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES THE ENTIRE TIME.
AT LEAST NO ONE BROUGHT UP FERG-
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Okay. Alright. I knew it would come to this, eventually. I know you want to believe this is some crazy liberal media conspiracy, but I think you need to step back and look at this with a tiny bit of perspective. This has zero to do with Ferguson. Really. Nothing. This is a team using hilariously simple tactics to get into a database they shouldn’t have access to. I can’t believe (yes I can) that idiots are going to turn this into a racial, us-against-them, down with THE OBUMMAS issue. Your damn team got caught doing something stupid. DEAL WITH IT.
THE DRUDGE REPORT AWARD FOR INFLAMMATORY NEWS MEDIA POSTS:
Oh Jesus. I’d expect this from a commenter. I don’t expect this level of handwanking from an actual social media person from a news site. “America’s Model Baseball Franchise”. PREVIOUSLY PRISTINE IMAGE. Aaaaaaaaghhhhh GOD.
THE TAKE OF THE WEEK:
did you
did you just accuse the astros of..hacking…themselves? The database that the GM created when he moved to the Astros was hacked by that very same GM *IN THE PAST*.
YOU’RE ACCUSING THE ASTROS OF VIOLATING TEMPORAL REALITY. THAT IS THE SUM OF YOUR ARGUMENT.
…
I JUST.
….
WHAT.
….
BEST FANS IN BASEBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111one