THE WORLD SERIES, DUCK DYNASTY & BOSTON STRONG... WIN OR LOSE

Beards never bothered me until the Red Sox had them. It makes me appreciate the Yankees clean cut policy a lot more these days.  Now, you can look at me and say, “Casey’s jealous.” Sure, maybe partly because once I try and grow a beard, it appears to stop 2 weeks in and just looks like there are “Bugs on your face,” like my 4 year old will tell me.  But I will never be jealous of the Red Sox EVER.  The beards are disgusting… run a comb through them… decorate them like Captain Lou Albano.  Do something other than look like you just crawled out from under a rock.

I love Duck Dynasty.  I see these dudes, funny and hard-working and their beards don’t bother me. In fact, I dig them all.  Maybe it’s the idea of them creating duck calls and living out in the woods somewhere that psychologically, it comes together for me and makes sense. For the Red Sox, I just don’t get it. In fact, it’s uncomfortable. The Red Sox show up to work every night in front of a ton of fans untrimmed and sloppy. It almost seems unprofessional to me. The tugging makes it worse. In other words, the cameras found the Duck Dynasty guys. The Red Sox found the cameras, you know what I mean?  A gimmick gone wild.

The media jumps on gimmicks.  They fell for the pies in the Bronx when AJ Burnett was there and I liked it, but many traditional Yankee fans did not. I understood their reasoning too, I mean I’m not a total dick.  How about Roll Call? Many love it these days, but I liked it more before they tried to commercialize it.  I’m a hard read on these types of things, because you never really know where I’m coming from.  That being said, that’s what makes BYB a family. We can agree, maybe disagree, but we always keep the dialog going.

Look, I want the Cardinals to win the entire thing this year, I do not like the Red Sox.  Sure, I understand the importance of the Boston Red Sox winning for the city of Boston, especially after the Boston bombings… it makes sense, it’s symbolism.  But the beards I can do without and the beards to help them win anything. If you want to try and win for the city of Boston, then go out and win it.   

The media has jumped onto the fact that the Red Sox have to win to keep Boston strong, and in many ways, it reminds me of New York City during 9-11 when the Yankees HAD to win in 2001 against the Diamondbacks.   

Well, we lost, but something happened to New York City anyway… we grew stronger and we moved forward, Yankee fan, Diamondbacks fan... American.  We grew as people despite the loss and we did it with the help of the rest of the country. New York and the United States moved forward together and look where we are today?  Positive and strong and now we are looking at another city re-living what we did years before.

If Boston were to lose the World Series, I know that Boston would still be strong.  They are a wonderful people and sure, there are many things we disagree with when it comes to sports, but one thing I do know is, it doesn’t matter if you have a beard or not, it matters what’s in your heart.  If you are a player, you show up to win, despite the haters. When you play a game, and win, it’s wonderful. When you lose, it’s terrible. It's that simple.

These days, the media has blown this beard story into a “must win” for Boston to keep Boston strong, but they’re misguided. Boston is strong and if they lose… life goes on, the country will still embrace that city, those families that lost love ones and as human beings, we continue to grow stronger.

I give a lot of credit to the Red Sox. It kills me to say it because I see a well-balanced team and understand that we had none of that this season in New York, despite what Yankee brass kept trying to spoon feed us.  I see a Sox team that is using a tragedy, a gimmick as fuel to prove to everyone this is the season of “Can!”  Now, you know I subscribe to that “Can” message.  I don’t care for the gimmick.    

So here’s my new message… the World Series starts tonight and no matter what, it’s about the game, about the teams and not about the beards.  The Fall Classic is the biggest stage in sports.  One team will win it all and 1 team won’t.  If Boston wins, it’s wonderful for Beantown, but it they lose, I know Boston will still be strong as hell, despite how the media twists it into a “The Series of Boston’s lifetime.”

No, I’m not heartless... don’t accuse me of that, you’re misguided. The truth is I tip my cap to the Sox and the city of Boston… I appreciate your resilience and you ferocity… but for the next and final series… it’s Go Cardinals here at BYB, because win or lose… I know you’ll be fine in Boston, just like New York City was... we're Americans... and we stick together.

I know... I'm rambling... but I had to get that off my chest. I'm not a hater, I love a good series... but I'm a Yankee fan and an American and sometimes we all just need to realize that it's just a game...

That's my take anyway.

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