Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

To most baseball fans, today's date is significant insofar as how many days are left until their favorite team's pitchers and catchers report to spring training. For others, this day also marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of the greatest hitter (as per  Baseball Reference 's most recent EloRater ranking) in baseball history: George Herman "Babe" Ruth. So, in honor of today's date and in keeping with the Chicago White Sox theme,here is a fun photo of "The Babe" and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson: A few things come to mind when looking upon this photo. The first is that ballplayers had some gee-golly-neat nicknames back in those days. It also seems like Jackson (pictured on right) is wearing two shoes and after looking up his nickname's origin, it turns out there was only one occasion when he went up to bat without wearing shoes.  At times, baseball fans can be real jerks and they are jerks with very literal minds and spotless

As a current resident of New York City, I can't help but root against the Boston Red Sox. I've been to a fair number of Yankees games since I've lived here and the ridicule that the Yankees' fans bestow upon the Red Sox Nation is a true marvel to observe. It's fair to say that Yankees fans are often described as being "entitled" due to their successes over the past two decades. They are also known to be abrasive in comparison to - and in their treatment toward - their counterparts in Flushing. Mets fans embrace their lovable losers and that's admirable but Yankees fans are not as forgiving of their team. Mets fans have fun at games even if they know that their team's losing record in the season means no chance of making a playoff appearance. Yankees fans have become spoiled to the point that not winning a World Series is unacceptable and not making the postseason spells out disaster. I appreciate the dynamic between Mets fans and Yankees fans bu