Thoughts & Prayers to the AL East Banner Guys

Watching the AL Championship banner going up first thing this morning was great. There’s #Damage still left to #Do, obviously, but it’s great.

Just not for everyone. It’s the law of nature that for every winner, there has to be a loser. And in this case, two losers:

I don’t mean “losers” in the pejorative sense. I’m not calling names here. I’m just acknowledging that this is a bad beat for these two Massholes who thought they’d struck oil finding that AL East Championship banner on the highway, only to find all their leverage go up in smoke three weeks later. They were so close to the dream. If Andrew Benintendi doesn’t make that catch or if Justin Verlander had pitched like David Price and vice versa, these tough negotiators would still be holding all the cards. Nobody wants to see a backup AL East Championship banner hanging outside Fenway for all eternity, amirite? It would spoil the whole purity of seeing a banner celebrating winning the most regular season games out of five teams. The team would’ve had to cave and pay these two whatever ransom they demanded. The sky would’ve been the limit. And no dollar amount too great.

But now? They’re pumping a dry well. Watching the ALCS unfold these two must’ve been like the Duke brothers watching their Frozen Orange Juice futures turn worthless before their eyes. That banner isn’t worth the canvas it’s printed on. A 20′ X 3′ version of one of those AFC Champion t-shirts your grandmother buys you because she doesn’t get how you don’t celebrate those.

As happy as we all are, it’s still a shame things didn’t work out for these two enterprising young men. Hopefully now they can go on eBay. Hopefully they still have those connections who can reach out to other sources so that it’s worth their while to have run across three lanes of traffic. If not? Hey, at least they’ll still have the most useless souvenir of the 2018 season.