D-Backs Potpourri: The NL Woodchipper

It’s barely May, but the National League in the year of our Gregorian Calendar 2019 seems like a woodchipper. You could, at this point, make an argument that every team except the Marlins and probably the Giants is at least a fringe playoff contender (a lot more teams are fringe playoff contenders since the Wild Card expanded, to be fair) Obviously, that list will whittle down as the season goes along, but I don’t think you can say with any confidence that Team X is gonna fade down the stretch, they might, but it’s not a sure bet.

The Diamondbacks would host the Wild Card game if the season ended today. Barring disaster, the season will not end today, so there’s still a long way to go, but the fact that they’re in this position is fun. Games in April count just the same as games in September. If the Diamondbacks didn’t swoon in May of last year, they probably could have weathered their bad September to still make the playoffs. They probably would have been unceremoniously bounced in the Division Series again given how they were playing, but it’s still a better chance to win it all backing into the playoffs than not making them at all. At least that’s what the scientists tell me.

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A fun fact I’d like to bring up going into this weekend series is that the Colorado Rockies have existed since 1993, five years before the Diamondbacks. In that time they have won five fewer NL West titles and four fewer World Series games.

That is to say, none in either category.

Just thought I’d bring it up.

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SPOILER WARNING

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Okay now that everyone else is gone, let me tell you where the treasure is buried and unfathomable, untaxable riches await you all who either saw the big pop culture thing or just don’t give a damn.

I saw Endgame last week. I enjoyed it. I’m also proud of my Ice Tea consumption management that I didn’t have to go to the bathroom til the credits of a 3 hour movie. The most useful thing I learned in High School was how to do this for Return of the King, which is 20 minutes longer than Endgame.

The next day, at the job that pays me money so I can have internet to drop weekly columns on you once a week, a coworker remarked that they wanted to see Endgame, as one does around the water cooler. I said the following phrase, verbatim, “Oh, I saw it yesterday. I really liked it.” I did this to continue the conversation, and to help validate the coworker’s desire to see it so that they would make decisions based on that in the future. That’s how you humans do interaction.

Immediately upon saying this, another coworker, they also exist because I do not work for a two-person company, said, quite forcefully “DON’T SPOIL IT, DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT IT! NOT EVEN FAKE SPOILERS.”

This was odd to me. I didn’t say anything about the movie itself, nor was I going to give any indication I was going to, other than I liked it. That in itself isn’t a spoiler, since liking or disliking a movie in an entirely subjective thing, and reveals nothing about plot.

As far as “fake spoilers” go, the only thing I would tell someone is something like “There’s a 45-minute sequence that takes place in a sauna and involves Moon Knight and Namor the Sub-Mariner just making out.”

My whole point with this is that I think we take the whole spoiler thing too far, and our corporate overlords that make all of our entertainment has weaponized that. Like, is the world going to end if you find out that [REDACTED] happens before you actually see it? Probably not. I had a decent idea of things that were gonna happen in Endgame just from the chatter of which actor’s contracts were up and being versed in the beats of big action movies. I still enjoyed it anyway, because it’s about the journey, not the destination, man.

It’s also interesting how we treat spoilers for big movies against Television. People were talking pretty openly about what was going on in Game of Thrones last Sunday on twitter, and it seemed fine. Maybe because TV is a “live” thing and can be a shared experience with everyone else, and you don’t have to be on social media during it if you want to avoid spoilers and whatnot, but it’s interesting.

Also it’s been five days since that so here’s a meme I made.

(It has two meanings)

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The Cubs-Addison Russell-Getting on reporters for reporting and confirming reports that the Cubs were threatening people who might write negative coverage story is infuriating. It combines toxic fandom, domestic violence apologia, and large entities pushing lying about the report while simultaneously bragging about doing something that would seem to confirm the report.

I want to say this: your favorite team is capable of, and probably has been, doing unethical things or covering up other unethical things. You don’t have to hold water for them. They don’t really care about you, they’re not going to sleep with you, they need no defending. “A negative news story about a team or person” is not the same as “A made up story because everyone is out to get us” and y’all better reckon with that and, again, stop carrying water.

In our society, we really want to skip to the redemption arc when it comes to mildly to very famous people who commit violence and abuse against women. It’s framed as “personal adversity” as if having to deal with consequences of your awful, shitty actions is a violation of the 8th Amendment, nevermind that the victim is ignored, or worse, smeared as a liar because there’s a correlation of “Alleging abuse by famous person = $$$$$$” in some people’s brains that makes no actual sense logically.

These thoughts have been written more concisely by people smarter than me and who know more about this subject than me, and I urge you to seek them out as I’m not an expert by any means and I don’t claim to be, but the main thing I want you to take away is to consider your thinking on things like this. I love the Arizona Diamondbacks. A lot. Maybe too much. However, I know that as an entity, they are not my friend, and there’s no reason to stick up for them should they do something terrible in the future. Hopefully they won’t, but you can’t say that for certain.