Hit by a Pitch

It finally happened, and I can only hope that this means the curse is broken.

I’ve been to maybe 15 to 20 Nuggets games in the past two years. Of those games, the Nuggets had won exactly one (that was a game against the Wizards, during the Melo/J.R. Smith suspension, before the Iverson trade, and I was cheering for the Nuggets but also for Gilbert Arenas, because he’s, like, my favorite person in the entire world). Like any sports fan who believes his or her actions affect the outcome of games, I felt bad. I must be cursed.

Feeling bad about cursing the team didn’t outweigh my desire to heckle, so most games involved me yelling at the Nuggets. Carmelo Anthony was the recipient of my jeers the last time I went to a game — these jeers consisted mainly of a well-timed “YOU SUCK” after he did something stupid. I’d leave games miffed, and took to complaining to strangers at Brooklyn’s about how George Karl, as much as I love him, needs to figure out the delicate art of substitution, and how Melo needs to, well, stop sucking.

I’d planned on attending last night’s game against the Suns for a few months, back when I hoped the Nuggets would be really good this year. I figured it would hopefully be a good game, but as usual, the Nuggets would lose.

So imagine my surprise when the Nuggets kicked complete and total ass last night. Holy crap, what happened? Melo, who I’ll admit gets on my nerves lately, did his usual thing where he gets the ball and holds onto it or dribbles until he can take a shot, but this time, he actually made those shots. Iverson has 44 points. The Nuggets had 70 points by halftime and 111 after three. I could’ve made more shots that the Suns, who were being heckled mercilessly by everyone on the club level. There was no second-half meltdown by the Nuggets. It was amazing and beautiful, and I didn’t have any shit to talk about the home team, even though it seemed like Reggie Evans (I love him) had 900 turnovers and DerMarr Johnson took 100 shots and missed all of them (as usual, I brought the camera but didn’t take any pictures — DerMarr Johnson’s new hair was, and I’m not kidding, the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life).

The game reminded me a little of last year, when the Nuggets always played well against good teams and played like crap against bad teams. There’s been a little of that this year, but the good thing is that it’s looking like they’ll make the playoffs, where they’ll face a good team in the first round. Maybe this year they’ll make it to the second round.

When you move to a new city, it’s hard to leave behind your home, friends, family, and all the places you love. It’s also hard to leave behind your teams.

Sure, you can shell out the $$ for MLB Extra Innings (unless they go all asshole and make that exclusive deal with Dish, because I’m not having that shit). You can go to little Italian restaurants for cheap beer and pizza, where the dedicated Bears fans watch the game on Sunday morning. But it’s not the same. It feels like a long distance relationship with someone who doesn’t really like you — they don’t call or write or leave you comments on Myspace. However appealing it is to spend the sunny afternoon alone on your couch listening to Hawk Harrelson talk about another can of corn, sometimes you really miss going to the game — feeling the energy of the crowd, heckling the opposing players, talking shit in bars with a million people who totally understand why the Super Bowl Shuffle was the greatest song ever recorded.

It’s normal that eventually you start seeing other teams. You still love your old teams, and you’ll cheer for the Bears if they play the Broncos, but damn, it’s really awesome as hell to sit outside Invesco on a warm, sunny day with a can of Gordon and gigantic sunglasses, watching all the other Broncos fans (even though, have you seen Broncos fans — there are some interesting characters…and mullets). I’ll be honest — it was easy to fall in love with the Broncos. It was easier still to fall in love with the Nuggets.

But the Rockies? Well, that wasn’t easy at all.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. At first it was easy. Coors Field, even though it’s named for Coors (crappy beer and crappier politics) is really awesome (and you can even get Sierra Nevada, but it’ll cost you). The Rockies aren’t known for being good, but going to games is really fun — you can park for free within reasonable walking distance (hell, we could walk there but I’m always running late), grab a beer at the Tap House, and enjoy the game under sunny skies with no humidity. It’s an incredibly low-maintenance sporting event, and tickets are cheap compared to basketball or football.

It all started to fall apart when I learned about the Bible study. Now, let me say that I have no problem with the Bible or with the study of the Bible. But you know, I’m used to A.J. Pierzynski, who cares more about kicking your ass than talking about Jesus. Kicking ass is what I like about sports.

Here’s the article about the Rockies and the Bible.

I felt kind of alienated from the Rockies. I mean, I’m not Christian — I don’t even believe in God. I think attributing your success to God or Jesus is incredibly lame and, well, they just kind of lost me.

Then, they got me back. Why? I learned about Jose Mesa.

You might not know about Jose Mesa. Jose Mesa is a relief pitcher who, just when I needed him, pitched for the Rockies. He’s kind of old and not always that good, but he wants to kill this guy who pissed him off once.

Jose Mesa and Omar Vizquel, who now plays for the Giants (who I really hate), played for the Cleveland Indians and were pals. Omar later wrote a book in which he blamed Jose Mesa for choking during the 1997 World Series, which the Indians lost.

Dissing Jose Mesa is just a little less bad than dissing Chuck Norris. Jose Mesa was not pleased. He said he wanted to kill Omar Vizquel. He decided to hit Omar Vizquel with a pitch every time he played against him. Here are the best quotes from Jose Mesa:

If I face him 10 more times, I’ll hit him 10 times. I want to kill him.

If he comes to apologize, I will punch him right in the face. And then I’ll kill him. If you’re a writer and you want to write a good book, you don’t write a story about somebody else.

Here is an awesome article about the Mesa-Vizquel feud.

While playing for the Rockies, Jose Mesa was suspended for throwing at Omar Vizquel in April 2006.

So now I have a team consisting of Bible studying guys who live in Parker and thank Jesus for their success and probably hold hands and sing Kumbaya in the locker room instead of talking shit and swatting each other on the ass — and Jose Mesa, the relief pitcher who throws at people and wants to kill a guy. Of course I went with Jose Mesa.

He became my favorite player on the team — ahead of even Byung-Hyun Kim, the goofy pitcher known for sleeping anywhere and everywhere. Jose Mesa is bad ass. There is no theory of evolution — just a list of creatures Jose Mesa has allowed to live.

The highlight of my Jose Mesa glory days involved his appearance against the Cubs, where, as usual, my heckling was in rare form. As you may know, there are more Cubs fans than Rockies fans at the game when the northsiders play here, but my goal was to out-heckle all of them that day. It must have worked, because Jose Mesa didn’t do anything terrible and the Rockies won. As the lone person cheering for Jose in all the world, it was a very good day.

I loved Jose Mesa for being such a badass on a team of Rockies crusading for Christ, but I knew that because of that, he was doomed. I’d joke from time to time about how, one day when Jose Mesa didn’t play for the Rockies any more, I would have to write a compelling letter to the people at Coors Field, explaining why they should give me the Jose Mesa player banner that hung from the wall outside the field. Every time I wandered over to the bullpen to see if Jose Mesa was warming up, I worried that it would be the last time he’d be there. Every time I had too much to drink and screamed Jose Mesa!!!!!!! as loud as I could at a bar after the game, I knew that one day I would be the crazy bitch yelling for some guy nobody’d ever heard of before.

So I wasn’t shocked when they declined his option at the end of last season. I pictured Jose Mesa spending lazy days on his farm in the Dominican Republic, with his wife Mirla and their numerous children, eating beans and rice (his favorite food). I wrote a story about what would happen if I met Jose Mesa and we became pals. I secretly hoped he’d get picked up somewhere — and then he did. Jose Mesa now plays for the Detroit Tigers, which is cool because I don’t hate them, and hopefully I’ll get to see him when they play my Sox. The idea of Jose Mesa pitching to A.J. Pierzynski is so much pure awesomeness I can’t fully comprehend it. Imagine if, one day, Jose hits A.J. with a pitch.

The sad thing is that even now, I love Jose Mesa more than I love the Rockies. I hope I can find another somewhat obscure player who spends more time talking shit than reading the New Testament — someone to whom even a nonreligious, heckling, drunkard like me can relate.

For now, I’ll just do my thing and write as much as I can about sports — especially the under-appreciated, quirky, or over-the-line players I always seem to like best — and say thanks to Jose Mesa, the inspiration for Hit by a Pitch. I hope he takes out half the Minnesota Twins this year.

Also, this.

I usually find it annoying when people post videos and I never watch them, but seriously, this is so funny I cried.

What might get lost in the excitement of March Madness is the fact that Linas Kleiza, Nuggets forward out of Missouri, has been kicking some serious ass. During last night’s smackdown of the Lakers, Kleiza had a career-high 29 points, outscoring Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, and, well, everyone else in the game. His previous career high was the 24 points he scored in the Nuggets win this past Sunday at Sacramento, where the Nuggets had suffered the NBA’s longest losing streak, having not won at Arco Arena since 1997.

It might be a coincidence, but I find it interesting that both of these career games were nationally televised. From what I understand, he’s always amazingly dedicated and plays to the best of his ability, but I wonder if he gets a little extra motivation from being seen all over the country. It’s so great to hear national announcers talking about how awesome he’s playing, especially when they pronounce his name correctly — they usually do a good job, but there’s one local guy who never gets it right.

I’ll admit that I’m biased — I’ve liked Kleiza all along because I’m Lithuanian. I generally don’t see the point of being proud or excited about things that just are and you can’t control, such as your heritage. However, even though I don’t think it makes sense, I’m crazy for anyone and anything Lithuanian. Maybe it’s because Lithuanians are relatively uncommon (at least outside Lithuania and the Chicago area) and maybe a little quirky — kind of like White Sox fans in Colorado (I love seeing all three of us represent in our Sox hats when the Cubs play at Coors Field).

If you want to get to know more about Linas Kleiza, and you might as well so you can brag about how cool you are when he becomes a household name in the next few years, here are a few links:

kleiza.com

Linas Kleiza’s NBA page

Recent Denver Post interview

Myspace, but it’s not legit

I heard on the radio the other day that the U.S. suffers billions of dollars in lost profits during the first two days of March Madness. They should make these days a national holiday — nobody is being productive at work, anyway. All I’ve done since returning from lunch is *refresh* *refresh* *refresh* the box score of the Old Dominion/Butler game. That sick feeling I have, that lump in my throat that comes from knowing this isn’t going to turn out how I want, reminds me of the terrible, terrible thing that happened last year when Northwestern State knocked off Iowa in the first round with a LAST HALF-SECOND three pointer. I think I feel how normal girls feel when that guy who seemed so into them for the first three dates suddenly stops calling — I kind of want to curl up and cry for a while, drowning my sorrows in wine and chocolate, and I kind of want to go out and cheer for a better, more appealing team that will call and bring me flowers and, you know, actually WIN GAMES.

Currently I am all over the internets trying to find out where Jermaine Wallace, the three-point shooter of doom, is now. Of course the only things you find while searching “Jermaine Wallace” “Northwestern State” are 10,300 articles about the swish seen ’round the nation. I think I’m going to be sick.

There is a Jermaine Wallace looking for a prison pen pal. I wanted to be funny and say that I hope it’s the same guy even though I know it isn’t, but that’s really sad and I would totally become pen pals with a guy with the same name as the guy who killed my March Madness dreams last year, but I’m pretty sure these sites exist to link inmates with doughy women of low self esteem who will fall in love with them.

A possibly related U.S. Court of Appeals opinion is here (it’s a PDF).

There also is a Christian jazz artist named Jermaine Wallace.

There is a Facebook group called Oh I hate Jermaine Wallace! It has one member, who is not me, which is kind of awesome.

Anyway, enough of that tangent, although I would like to know where Jermaine Wallace is now. This year, I had high hopes for Old Dominion, even before I knew they had a player named Valdas Vasylius. Unfortunately, their trip to the Sweet 16 and eventual loss to Florida is not to be. My other incorrect pick so far was Texas Tech (I was trying to stop picking against teams I hate, so this was charity on my part and I will never make that mistake again). Oh well. Now I’ll just have to cheer for the Salukis.