The Hate List: 2/14/09

Let us briefly revisit the rules for creating a lasting, meaningful Hate List… 

1. The Hater must have a logical basis for his or her hate.

As per reader dissatisfaction with the original criteria, team colors or any similar reason does justify hating an individual team. However, we prefer deeper, more disturbing reasons to hate.

2.  The Hater must prove undying loyalty and love for one particular team or city.

No compromise here. Without true love, there can be no visceral, eternal loathing. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed people from Boston really hate–I mean, “put cyanide in Johnny Damon’s Gatorade” hate–the Yankees. That’s what we’re talkin’ about.

3.  The Hater cannot be a Yankees or Notre Dame fan.

If you are so much of a loser to root for teams with built in advantages for winning, you cannot legitimately hate those of us who root for teams that struggle for years or decades in between seasons of success.

Some readers insist that this is not fair, and we reluctantly agree. However, those of us who know better than to root for ultra-advantaged teams, have the inalienable right, to ridicule you for your lunacy.

4.  The Hater cannot love a natural or otherwise determined rival of his or her beloved team.

There is no fence-sitting in Hate Ball.

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This post is the second of a monthly “journal” like entry detailing the people and teams I most love to hate…

Not much movement on the team list (see the post for next month), but the individual list is starting to swell like an infected hangnail.

First, the Long Timers who have earned their spot in my hall of hate…

PETE ROSE

I always respected his approach to the game; always secretly wished he were a Pirate. Some years later, when I coached my kids in Little League, I would yell, “C’mon play like Charlie Hustle.” It was a testament to his place in the game that some of those youngsters actually knew who I was talking about. Even after he became a manager and was outed for his obsession with records–and having a mutantly huge ego–I still admired Rose greatly for what he brought to the diamond.

Then I learned there was other, more sinister justification for the nickname Charlie Hustle.

When he got busted for gambling, I expected him to say, “You damn right I bet on my team. Any ballplayer who wouldn’t bet on his own team, doesn’t deserve to be in a locker room. And while I was at it, I put money on some other teams, but never against my team.”

That would have been a Pete Rose I could have continued to respect–and he would no doubt be in Cooperstown today.

But, he denied the obvious–I hate when people do that.

The delicious irony is that Rose’s motivation for his absurd denials was his believing that any such admission would jeopardize his Hall of Fame induction.

How’s that workin’ for ya’, Charlie?

In any event, I do not like being hustled.

O.J. SIMPSON

I hate the Juice for his criminal behavior, of course, but, beyond that, his ingratitude and his lack of self-respect relegate him to the hell-like rungs on my hate ladder.

First, his utter disregard for his children, using them as tools to reshape his image–which I suppose pales in comparison to the fact HE MURDERED THEIR MOTHER!

Second, after Simpson’s Twelve Idiot Apostles let him off the hook for double murder, you would have thought he might have an epiphany of rudimentary Karmic awareness, to seek solitude and Divine forgiveness somewhere in Borneo, or say, an uninhabitable Arctic outpost.

Instead, the Juicemeister tries to release a project called “If I Did It.”

What a jag-off…

He cut quite a figure in that prison jumpsuit, all hackled together, weeping like a grandma, didn’t he? Reminded me of the first time I saw Brando as Stanley Kowalski, or heard Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”…  I said to myself, “That individual is exactly where God wants him to be.” Loved it.

Who is on your all time hate list?

Next month: The Team List–The Cryboys, Notre Dame, The Yankees

April: Modern Day Athletes–Sergio Garcia, Terrell Owens, NASCAR Drivers, and Fat Golfers

May: Hatin’ the Non Playas–Referees who work out too much, Sports anchors who make themselves a highlight, Color Commentators, Sideline Reporters

• April 29, 2009 -- The Hate List: 4/29/09 – My Top Two Most Hated Sports Teams (11)
• December 21, 2008 -- The Hate List (9)
• May 5, 2009 -- Red Sox 1, New Yankee Stadium 0 (0)
• April 8, 2009 -- Panic in the Bronx (or, The Soap Opera Continues) (2)
• February 10, 2009 -- Poor Economy Doing It to Manny and the Mets (1)