Nauseating is the word for these sycophantic cheerleaders
The Toronto sports media set has been – historically – been vilified by anyone outside of the 416 area code because of it’s none stop coverage of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Endlessly and relentlessly optimistic even when the team is obviously shite, it brings out the vitriol from Habs and Wings fans who have realized lots of Stanley Cups over the last 49 years.
But this is not about the Leafs. This is about the unparalleled sycophantic ass kissing and sucking of the Toronto sports media over the perennially overrated Toronto Blue Jays. The fanboy worshipping by millennial ‘sports writers’ is absolutely disgusting. A total barf fest.
From the embarrassing cheerleading done by Sportsnet personnel – game chroniclers, game callers, and sports news readers – to the rest of the media sources in TO, it is really a total barf fest. People think Hawk Harrelson and Wimpy were over the top homers, you haven’t seen anything like the unctuous, dishonorable cheerleaders who cover the Jays under the guise of being independent ‘sports journalists’. Sportsnet fancies itself as a national sports media outlet, but it is merely a supplicant marketing tool for the Jays. If someone is going to willing, freely, and shamelessly grandstand for you, why should the Jays object? Sportsnet can do all the promo regardless of how smarmy because Sportsnet does it under the guise of ‘objective journalism’. And Sportsnet, please dispense with the BS that the Jays are Canada’s team because here is a newsflash – in BC the cheer for Seattle; in the Maritimes they cheer for the BoSox;, London to Windsor is Tigertown, Niagara is Yankees’ and Indians’ country; and Montreal cheers for the ex-Expos and the Bombers. So the Blue Jays are not even close to being Canada’s team no matter how much grandstanding is done by Sportsnet. The Jays are Toronto’s team – that’s it.
With hockey it is a much different story because there are few Canadians who have not strapped on some blades and played organized hockey for a number of years and clearly know the game. And that includes the sports writers and the fans. So they cannot be spoon fed chicken shite from the Leafs and accept it as chicken salad. The fans and the hockey media know a crappy team when they see it.
Baseball is massively problematic because the sport writers have never played the game at any level – let alone the elite level – especially the millennials. And the fan base is in the same barrel. Never played. And what does that mean – they don’t know the game. AT ALL. And yet they continue to carry on as if they are some type of ‘expert’ on the game. This gives the millennial ‘sports writers’ to write the most egregiously bogus analyses of the Jays’ games and its players. In Toronto every player on the Jays is a Hall of Famer.
Too bad that Jesse Barfield, Lloyd Moseby, and George Bell were unaware that they were Hall of Famers while they were playing in TO. Notwithstanding that none of them will ever be in the Hall, they were spoken about as if they were already members. TO sports writers were obviously kvetching over the best outfield 5 hours east down the 401.
And that sycophantic cheerleading has not abated at all. Hell, when the Jays got Orlando Merced from the Pirates some time ago, the people covering the Jays talked about this guy as if he were Roberto Clemente.
Today, every single player on the Jays is a Hall of Famer. Don’t ya know? It is pathetic and these people have no shame, honesty, or integrity in the continual ass kissing that is their station in life.
The latest beyond on the beyond fanboy worshipping has to do with Marcus Stroman. The sports media in TO think this guy is the next coming of Dave Steib What Stroman is, is the second coming of Rickey Ricardo. Make that Ricky Romero. Remember him?
Romero, a left handed pitcher, had some early career success with the Jays – about 2 /12 years worth. And then the wheels came off. Once teams had seen Romero a few times, they began laying off his slider and he got rocked. When this happened Romero went sideways and lost his control and that was the end of the beginning. Added to this was that Romero was very tightly wound and any time someone got a hit off him, he acted like someone slapped his mother. The nerve, the effrontery of someone getting a hit off me. Don’t you know who I am – I am Rickey Ricardo, no Romero, and the people around here say I am great and signed me to a big deal. I am the next Steve Carlton. Well, Romero was not even Carlton the doorman.
Stroman is cut from the same cloth but much worse. The guy is an uber head case – even more than Romero, which is hard to do. And the guy is small – about 5 feet 7 – so he has a major case of little man’s disease. His antics on the mound are comical to the extreme and because he continues with these antics – all staged so that people will focus on him alone – the team handlers have obviously said nothing to him to cease and desist. They don’t seem to realize the guy is a volcano ready to erupt – like Todd Stottlemyre used to do, only he is not anywhere near as good as Stottlemyre. This guy can throw a lot of different pitches, but only the breaking ball is above average. Everything else is average. Big time average.
