World Series and Words of the Day

If you haven’t noticed, the Sports Maunderer has a bit of a love affair with words. He gets two (2) words of the day emails. One comes from dictionary.com, the other comes from Merriam-Webster.

You seriously aren’t going to believe how felicitous they were today. Seriously. You won’t believe me and you’ll have to go look it up to verify. The first word:

Maugre. What does it mean? In spite of. As in, “The Yankees won the World Series maugre Joe Girardi’s terrifying over-managing.”

By the way, the Yankees won the World Series maugre Joe Girardi.

Now you are probably wondering why the Sports Maunderer thinks this word is so amazingly serendipitous. Well it just is. But even if it weren’t, you know what the other word was? Do you? Do ya do ya do ya?

That’s right. The other word of the day for November fifth, the day after the Yankees triumphed in the World Series, was…

Maunder.

I could not possibly have made that up. So it is time to do some maundering.

Nick Swisher is a complete bum with a bat in his hands but he came running in from the outfield like a kid on Christmas and his birthday rolled into one, and with C.C. and A.J. he made the team so easy to root for that even Yankee haters are annoyed by how easy this team is to love. Bill Simmons included. A-Rod finally played like the Greatest Player of All Time instead of the greatest hitter who didn’t hit whenever hitting actually mattered. Andy Pettite basically threw his arm off trying to win game 6, and guess what? He did. Both of those things. 18 postseason victories for Andy. I was so mad at you after the Astros debacle, but I can’t stay that way. Who could. Matsui hit 6 RBIs in what was likely his last game as a Yankee, and wow did he make his time in New York count at the best possible moment. If he had done absolutely nothing for them except hit into double plays until this very moment, it was probably still worth it. Eerily enough, this closely mirrors reality. Derek Jeter tied the record for hits in a six game World Series. What else is new. Jorge… Jorge. You are so dumb and yet so loveable. You can’t catch a game or call a game but then you hit a two run single when you need to, and all is forgiven. C.C. and A.J. made initials ultra cool. C.C. fought hard in his two games despite so-so command, and earned a split. A.J. dominated in one and was hung out to dry by his manager in another, also getting a split. Thankfully, the Yankees have A-Rod and Andy. And Teixiera, you hit about as well as I would have in the series, but saved at least three games with your glove throughout the postseason, arguably six. And Johnny Damon, you were an automatic out until the brightest lights shone, and then you stole two bases on one pitch, and the rest is you know what. Melky and Robinson, you guys were completely useless in all phases of the game but so what! The team won anyway so all is forgiven. Joba, you came this close to being Joba again. Hopefully that’s what we see for years to come. Phil Hughes… I don’t know what the heck happened to you. Damaso Marte, you made their best hitters look silly. You used to play for the Pirates. You must think you’ve died and gone to heaven. And Mariano, Mariano. The distance between you and every other reliever in the game is so gargantuan, that to even attempt an analogy would be tantamount to hijacking the incarnation as a metaphor. Or something. Regardless, you are the best player of the past twenty years. One of the best players ever. As Scott Van Pelt said, there can be no more demoralizing moment in sports than that moment when a fan sees Rivera come in to close out the game against his team. Because the game is over.

And so is this post.

Seriously. Maunder. Maunder! The word of the day was maunder.

2009 was meant to be.

~The Sports Maunderer~