The tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievences.....I've got a lot of problems with you people.....
5. Rams Move To Los Angeles
When I was a kid growing up in St. Louis the Cardinals were also a football team. They never won, the city of St. Louis refused to build them a stadium, and they moved to Phoenix. At some point while I was in high school/college the Rams moved to town. For a few years everyone was excited. They won the Super Bowl. Then cheap ass Stan Kroenke took over the team, hired Jeff Fisher as the coach, and they have been losers ever since. Last year they got into some lease dispute with the city of St. Louis and the team moved.
The Rams still stink. Many people have chimed in to help me find a new NFL team, but I am not really interested. Sundays are wide open.
4. The World Series
I am not going to say that I root against teams to win championships, but as a Cardinals fan I went through several stages of something on the way to the Cubs winning the World Series. Rizzo and Bryant are no Strawberry and Gooden, or other villainous teams that the Cardinals have run across since I have been following along. Little known fact about the writer, I also cannot stand the Indians. Long story. Who to root for? Who to root against? In the end, I felt like I was just going to be annoyed. It turned out that I was, so for the Cubs and Indians readers, a few moments of pain...
Tribe fans first....
and Cubs fans. All good Cubs fans know it was really Alex Gonzalez's fault.
3. College Football Season
My main two rooting interests had rough seasons. NC State is still going to a bowl game, but after beating Notre Dame in the middle of Hurricane Matthew, the team missed a late field goal that would have knocked off Clemson, lost by a bazillion points to Louisville, blew the game against Florida State, and then (cringe)....
lost to Boston College giving the Eagles their first conference win since 2014. It was a horrendous game and completely embarrassing.
Meanwhile, back in my home state of Missouri, things were even worse. Mizzou had a new coach this year, but they had some returning talent on defense. They didn't make a bowl and their season can best be summed up by the fact that they lost their Homecoming Game to Middle Tennessee State.
Painful.
2. We've Lost Too Many Awesome People
The list is really, really long. I will share a couple that hit me hardest.
David Bowie
W.P. Kinsella
Wrote "Shoeless Joe" which was the inspiration for the movie Field of Dreams.
Gene Wilder
Prince
Harper Lee
1. No Playoff Baseball
In a normal year the baseball playoffs would be more in the Feats of Strength category. My Cardinals missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010. The team was led by inept manager Mike Matheny. His in game strategy is horrible and he plays favorites with the line up card. Awful. If Matheny had been tossed out of a few more games...
they might have made the playoffs. Except then you'd have to watch Matheny manage against some really good team and lose.
The Durham Bulls are a little bit harder to pin point. They are kind of beholden to whatever the Rays are doing, which has been a lot of nothing lately. The roster doesn't have it's usual talent and many will note that the Rays have given players in Durham chances in the Majors, but they also frequently shuttle them back and forth. The playing time is inconsistent and the performance suffers.
It was nice to see a few nice highlights out of Motter.....
I feel for ya on #'s 1 and 2. Both of my baseball teams suck bad. Real bad. And there was a point during this year where I was actually depressed seeing so many people pass away. And although I'm sympathetic to #4... I was also really excited for Cubs and Indians fans. That Game 7 was probably the best baseball game I've seen in years. Great baseball.
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