UPDATED WITH CORRECTIONS . . .
Before Angel fans can truly hate the Boston Red Sox–actually, if 1986 playoffs didn't do it, nothing will–they must first hate the team's fans, the residents of the town surrounding Fenway Park and the town itself.
(Along those lines, a Halos cap tip to Village Voice Media Vice President of Blog Stirring Bill Jensen for this apt name for annoying Bostonians: Massholes.)
To get you juiced for tonight's game 1 (6:37 p.m. PDT at the Big A), behold these 26 reasons to hate Massholes, Bostonians and Boston:
1) No street signs, and the ones they do have that say things like “Thickly Settled.” WTF? Give me a good, old-fashioned illustration of a family running across a freeway with a slash throught it any day.
2) Boston gave us Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits.
3) Boston baked beans. You call that a hearty bean? It's so tiny. Now, Texas ranch style beans–there's a right-sized bean. And take away the brown sugar or whatever it is that makes the sauce so sweet and you've got nothing, Boston baked bean, NOTHING!
4) This child-scarring teacher.
5) Old money snotheads. Give me the new money and paper rich denizens of Newport Beach any day.
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6) Matt Damon.
7) Haaaaaaavard. Puh-leez. It's no Soka University!
8) The Farrelley Brothers.
9) The stupid accent. “I pahhhrk my cahhhhr in the pahhhhrk after dahhhhhrk.” WTF? Your forefathers arrived in this country long before the West Coast was settled. Surely you should be able to speak like we do: in regular ol' 'merican. And Spanish, lots and lots of Spanish.
10) Speaking of the stupid accent, people who would scream “Nomaaaaahhhhr.” Such as . . .
11) The Afflecks.
12) Allowing that accent to exist long enough so Johnny Depp could mangle it in Blow.
13) How the hell do you get “Woohstah” out of “Worcester”?
14) Four seasons. Excuse me? You're making up at least two of those, right? The only four seasons we know out here is an overpriced hotel where you'll hear “right away, sir” and “my mistake for calling your wife your granddaughter, sir” and, as the rooms are being made up, lots and lots of Spanish.
15) Marky-Mark and his peanut butter-stained tighty whities.
16) Hell, make it all Wahlbergs.
17) Logan Airport. Even before the terrorists were taking off from it, it was a fucking joke. Has anyone ever arrived or departed on time from there? It makes Philadelphia's airport seem as if it's run by the Swiss. Not even flying in or around Boston, I've had connections delayed because of some late plane in or out of goddamn Logan.
18) Cheri Hoyle (not her real name). This little hottie with a cute little Boston accent transferred into my high school and stole my heart, But she only wanted to go out with boys with cars and money and futures. Stupid accent.
19) Homeless people in Downtown Crossing. Shouldn't they be in downtown Santa Ana where they belong?
20) Denis Leary.
21) Overpriced alcohol at . . . at . . . hell, EVERYWHERE! No wonder you have to be a Kennedy to be able to live there. Which reminds me . . .
22) Ted Kennedy. Boo-hoo, he died. Boo-hoo, he was such a great senator. Boo-hoo, now give me free government healthcare because this rich fuck died and he wanted you all to have it. Look, without even going into the whole character issue and Teddy's famous foibles, did his death really warrant all that gavel-to-dirt nap media coverage? You'd think he was Michael Jackson or Princess Di or Anna Nicole Smith. Jeez!
23) The Pixies. Hey, stick to your own career and stop influencing every other goddamn alterna-band out there. That's the Kinks' job.
24) Dane Cook. The line from here to Fresno forms behind me.
25) For giving us the scary talent behind NBC's late night TV block starring favorite son Conan O'Brien and honorary Bostonian Jimmy Fallon . Morgues generate more laughs than those two.
26) The T shutting down before bars serving waaaaaaay overpriced drinks do. Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So you send me out on the streets on my own, without any street signs or ones that say “Thickly Settled.” I've got your thick settlement right here, pal! Who the hell planned your transportation system? The California Legislature?
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Read alt. weekly 2009 Postseason Throwdown coverage for:
St. Louis Cardinals: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/therundown
Boston Red Sox: http://www.weeklydig.com/blogs/mlbthrowdown
Minnesota Twins: http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/baseball/
Colorado Rockies: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/baseball/
New York Yankees: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/baseball/
Los Angeles Dodgers: http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/sports/
Anaheim/LA Angels: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/baseball/
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.