CLIFF LEE

One of my college roommates, let's call him "Doug," used to be a Miami Heat fan. But after this off-season, which saw a large influx of Talents to Miami, Doug quit. He's not a Heat fan anymore. Most Heat fans were pretty excited when LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwayne Wade in Miami, so I was pretty confused by this. Shouldn't you be happy when the team you root for ends up with two top-five players?* Apparently, Doug had been having "very mixed feelings" about The Heat for a while. He could never get past his shame of his fellow fans, clearly the worst in the NBA, if not professional sports. He pined for the Antoine Walker glory years. Plus, he really, really was going to miss Daequan Cook. So he quit on The Heat. He roots for a new team now. I'm not sure which one, but I don't really care. Why? BECAUSE DOUG IS A DOOFUS.

See, it's good when your team gets good players. Take the Phillies, for instance. They just signed Cliff Lee. This is good. I'm very happy! If I wasn't in Hong Kong, I'd call right now to renew the season tickets that I would have bought last year had I not been in Hong Kong.** The Phillies arguably have two of the top-five pitchers in baseball and four of the top-twenty. I couldn't be more thrilled!

Obviously, there are numerous differences between the Phillies and The Heat. Baseball and basketball are nothing alike. Lee didn't completely betray his fans and become the country's biggest sports villain overnight the way LeBron did. Most importantly, perhaps, the Phillies generally have good fans while The Heat have terrible ones, again generally speaking. But, there are some similarities. Both situations involved a top-five talent turning down guaranteed money (in Lee's case, quite a bit of money). In both situations, the player wanted to go play with his friends in a city he liked. Most wonderfully, both players basically told New York to eff off.

When I heard the news that Lee was headed to Philly, 99.99999999999% of me was absolutely ecstatic. The other .000004% of me, I'm ashamed to admit, had doofy "Doug" thoughts. I was a little worried that this signing continues the Phillies on a possible course of becoming the next Red Sox, who in turn were the next Yankees (at least as far as the way they assemble a mercenary team that can be tough to root for and their fan bases go). I started to notice more and more pink hats at games. The crowds could be somewhat muted. I could see empty seats after the 7th inning and before the 3rd. Could this signing be the tipping point that makes the Phillies completely unbearable?

NO! Or, perhaps I should restate: Probably not, but I DON'T CARE. The Phillies, and The Heat for that matter, both did what any reasonable fan would want them to. They did the absolute most they could to put their team in a position to win a championship. I don't about the media or general public's perception of the team. I don't care if this team is "likable." Doug's a doofus because it's CRAZY to walk out on your team after they did exactly what every other team desperately wanted to! What do the circumstances have to with it? Who cares if LeBron's kind of a prick? Will anyone be talking about The Decision in two years?

If Doug had let the national uproar over The Decision die down a little, he could have had himself a fun little team to root for. That, or he could have walked out after Fan Up. Now THAT's a reason to quit rooting for The Heat. Anyway, Doug's a doofus. That's all I really wanted to say.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee



*Pau and Kobe are one and two, respectively.

**Actually, that's not true. I would have already renewed by now.