Good Night, Sweet Prince(s)

We suppose it was inevitable. We imagine that we should have seen it coming. We know that all good things must come to an end. But, to quote the Princeton Tigers manager Scott Bradley, after being hit in the chest with a line drive during fielding practice, "Why does it hurt so bad?"

Fire Joe Morgan is no more, and the world is, simply, a darker place for it.

We became avid, voracious readers of FJM three solid years ago. Maas was the one who pointed me in its direction, and I remember my early encounters with the blog as vividly as I do the first dates enjoyed with my now-wife (the main difference being that, thankfully, the boys at FJM posted virtually every day and I didn't have to wait until the weekend and drive three + hours, to the Berkshires, to enjoy their company).

Once, I was lucky enough to earn a sacred "hat tip." It was Opening Day of the 2006 season (Monday, April 3 to be exact). On this day, the esteemed John Kruk (of Baseball Tonight fame) pronounced that the Red Sox would win the AL East; however, only one day earlier, the same venerable Mr. Kruk had predicted the Yankees would win 130 games. I quickly emailed Junior to point out that Kruk, in his own special and boneheaded way, had just bequeathed 130 + wins on the Sawx.

I knew it was a good tidbit. It was right up their alley; another talking head had mindlessly spouted-off a painfully unsubstantiated thought and attempted to pass it off as "insight." He needed to be stopped. Sure enough, within hours, I was immortalized. FJM had deemed my remark "analysis worthy of scorn" and seen fit to add it to the lore and semi-retardedness of John Kruk. To this day, I wear it as a badge of honor.

In the years that followed, I merely took pleasure in visiting the site daily, knowing that the boys were doing righteous and necessary work on behalf of a baseball-loving public that was, on average, 73 1/2 times more intelligent than virtually everyone writing about, or talking about, sports for a living.

In the winter of 2008, when we began this little blog that absolutely no one reads, we recognized that we had two choices, though they were never spoken aloud: 1. Be bad and uninformed enough in our analysis to warrant being lambasted by FJM, or; 2. Copy them.

We chose the latter, and Piss and Wynegar is forever grateful.

When, slowly but surely, the posts at Fire Joe Morgan became more and more infrequent (that is to say, when Ken Tremendous was the only one actually contributing), the writing was on the wall (or, blog...but it wasn't...that's the point) and I was alarmed. Where were the food metaphors? How was I to know if Darin Erstad was feeling particularly gritty and gamer-ish on a given day? Why was Bill Fremp being let off the hook? Fuck the heck?!

Interestingly (and appropriately), however, when I realized that we were actually posting more often than FJM, my alarm quickly and gently transformed into peaceful acceptance.

Their work was done.

Be fruitful, and multiply, Ken, Junior, Dak, Murbles, and Coach. And thank you. It's okay to let go now.

It's okay to let go.
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