That ONE Team!

I couldn't help but go off on a bit of a tangent before I get into this week's topic. I was checking the baseball schedule on Sunday and found that the Cubs and White Sox had the Sunday night game. I thought to myself, Okay, cool, Cubs versus White Sox. That sounds much better than last week's match-up between…the White Sox and Cubs?! Hey, wait a second!

If it wasn't bad enough that the Red Sox sometimes get four or five ESPN telecasts a week, now the Cubs and White Sox are getting consecutive Sunday night telecasts. Yes, yes, I know—big markets and "interesting" teams are supposed to have the prime time games; there is no "media bias" or conspiracy to keep the little teams down; I'm inane for even thinking it; the Cubs are the greatest team in the universe; blah blah blah, etc. I don't intend to go on an anti-Cubs rant here (I would very much like to, but I will refrain in order to maintain what little integrity this blog has), but you must admit that if the Cubs weren't in first place right now, nobody beyond the south side would care, or possibly even realize that the White Sox are also in first place, and we would have seen the typical Subway Series on Sunday night instead. But since the Cubs and that other team in Chicago are both doing so well, it's the biggest story in the history of baseball. I'm sorry, but as a Cardinals fan, all of this pandering to the Cubs is getting a little tough to stomach. I'm just glad the White Sox swept them this weekend—if they hadn't, I fear somebody so eager to crown the Cubs champions may have mistook this simple interleague series for the World Series and accidentally delivered the World Series trophy to them a whole four months early.

Anyway, on to the topic I originally wanted to cover. I was out camping with my friends this weekend, away from radio or television, and naturally caught myself wondering how the Cardinals were doing. I couldn't shake the thought of another sweep by the Royals, their batters teeing off on Cardinal fastballs down the middle of the plate and earning five or six consecutive bullpen walks at a time. Meanwhile, the Royals pitching staff were having sandwiches together while one left-handed dude making his Major-League debut would shut out the Cardinals on two or three hits, at most.

Upon my return to civilization, I was happy to see the Cardinals had taken two of three from the Royals and redeemed themselves to some small extent. And it's a good thing, too—I feared the Royals were dangerously close to becoming "that one team."

Come on, you know the one I mean. That one team. There's always that one team that will always beat your team, no matter how good your team is and how bad the other team is. They're the laughingstock of the league, but they have the uncanny ability to casually discard your team like a pile of chicken wings picked clean. They'll find that magic hammer necessary to smush your team into a bloody, slimy pulp over and over again, even though they can't so much as look any other team in the eye without giving up five runs.

The Cardinals have had a couple of these allegedly "bad" opponents over the last few seasons. Most notable are the Cubs, who beat the Cardinals senseless in 2005 and 2006 despite being a grossly inferior team (including a last place finish in 2006). Last season, the Washington Nationals beat the Cardinals in five of six games, and they were pulling lobbyists off Capitol Hill to play outfield for them in the more trying times. The Royals split with the Cardinals last season and won four of six this season—another successful campaign against the Redbirds in 2009 without any significant improvement to the team, and the Royals will be the newest bottom feeder known for dismantling the Cardinals. A second sweep this season would have sealed the deal for sure.

I put up with this same thing for years when the Eagles and the [Arizona] Cardinals used to be in the same division in football before realignment in 2002 or whenever that was. With the exception of maybe one season, the Eagles were always much better than the Cardinals, but they'd manage to get whooped by them at least once a season, and sometimes twice depending on how many fourth quarter comebacks Jake Plummer had left in him during that particular year. (Seems like he always had enough.)

As frustrating as falling victim to "that one team" may be, it's a fascinating phenomenon. How is it that one team—a bad team, at that—can excel where so many other, better teams have tried and failed? Is it simply a matter of the superior team playing down to its opponent, or are larger, more sinister forces at work? We may never know.

On the other hand, there is little more satisfying than when your team plays the role of "that one team" and throws a good team violently around the room at a point in the season when the good team needs crucial wins to get into postseason play. I speak, of course, of the sacred art of playing spoiler. If my team isn't going to the playoffs, the least they can do is ruin it for everybody else involved! That's the spirit!

I'm outta here—I need to go take seven or eight more showers to get the smoke out of my hair.