Sixty-one days until pitchers and catchers … and here’s your daily splash of joy.
Why do you love baseball?
Brilliant Reader Jason: “I’ve never seen a no-hitter or triple play in person, but every time I go to a game, I love the possibility that it might be the day.”
Brilliant Reader Michael: “All of us are drawn to the look of the uniforms and the players of this beautiful sport.”
Brilliant Reader Tom: “Secretly listening to my transistor radio in History class in 1955 and then yelling ‘DODGERS WIN IT’ and stopping the whole class. Well worth the embarrassment.”
Brilliant Reader James: Far left: My very first MLB game—at Wrigley Field—I was 13 and pulling for visiting Cardinals. Center stub—saw Vida Blue get his 20th win of the 1973 season at Comiskey. Green stub—Harmon Killebrew Day at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, MN
If you would like to send in the reason why you love baseball, we’d love to hear it. And in that spirit, we’re also now collecting photos and artwork too — old snapshots, ballpark scenes, favorite scorecards, kids’ drawings, ticket stubs, whatever captures the joy of the game for you. Some people are sending song lyrics. Some are sending poems. It’s utterly wonderful. Just send along your baseball joy to [email protected].
A couple of quick reminders:
On Friday, in The Clubhouse, I’m going to count down the 50 players I would vote into the Hall of Fame ahead of Jeff Kent. I think you’ll get a huge kick — and lots of fury — out of the list. If you’d like to join The Clubhouse (or give a membership as a gift — makes a great holiday gift!) — you can for a limited time do so for $10 off the regular price.
We’ve got some super fun new stuff in the JoeBlogs Store — including some new PosCast Holiday Draft merch!
BIG FAN publication day is a little more than five months away, and I’m told that the advanced reader copies will be available ANY DAY NOW (in fact, I’m also told that reviewers can now read it on their special website). I’m so excited for this to be coming out in the world. You can preorder BIG FAN at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Bookshop and Target, and pretty much anywhere else where you get your books. And if you’d like to get a copy signed by both Mike and me, we are running a fun campaign with our friends at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
On the flight back from New York, and I want to bounce a silly theory off you.
My theory is that Yankees and Dodgers fans are matter and anti-matter.
Here’s what I mean: On Tuesday, the Dodgers set another record by handing out the biggest closer contract in baseball history — they gave Edwin Diaz the largest annual average value contract ever for a reliever at $23 million a year.
The Yankees, as they have so far this offseason, did nothing.
And, as a lark, I posted this quick thought:
The Dodgers at this point are just going all in on being baseball’s supervillain — which is fun since the Yankees have abdicated the role.
— Joe Posnanski (@joeposnanski.com) 2025-12-09T16:57:10.579Z
Now … this was not meant as anything more than a quick reaction to the signing. It doesn’t have any of the nuance or explanation that I would have in a JoeBlogs post. Just throw a half-baked thought into the world — that’s kind of the dumb point of social media, right?
But it has yielded my gold-plated theory. Here’s how I would summarize the reactions I’ve received from Yankees and Dodgers fans:
Dodger fan: “We are NOT villains! We are just doing what every team out there should be doing. Are you joking? ‘Oh, the Dodgers are villains for actually spending money to fill an obvious weakness?’ That’s ridiculous! The Dodgers are the one team that is out there doing things right, and you’re vilifying them as villains? Maybe you’re a villain!”
Yankees fan: “We ARE still the game’s biggest villains! What kind of clown are you? Have you counted the championships? Here, let me help you — the Yankees have 27 of them. The Dodgers have nine. Can you do math at all?”
That’s right. Dodgers fans — as a general rule — HATE the idea that you would call them villains just because they spend the most money and win the most games and win the most championships and relentlessly stomp on everybody else’s dreams.
And Yankees fans — again, as the general rule — HATE the idea that you would say they’re not villains just because they’ve won one title in Anthony Edwards’ life and their owner complains incessantly about salaries and they’re not haunting as any nightmares as they once did.
Matter and anti-matter.
My friend Alexis Gay has a great joke in her show “Unprofessional” — streaming somewhere soon —about the difference between San Francisco people and New York people. San Francisco people, she says, will tell you that their city is way better than New York because of the food and the architecture and the culture, and so on.
And New York people … never think about San Francisco at all.
I think that’s right — again, going deep into the generalizations, the one quality of Yankees fans that I have always appreciated is that they LOVE being the villain. They embrace it. They cherish it. They love being hated by all the Bostons and Clevelands and Philadelphias and Kansas Citys and San Franciscos (and me). They long to be hated because the richest and most powerful and best are always hated — and resented and cursed and envied — and because New York is the richest and most powerful and best.
Telling a Yankees fan they’re not the villain is telling them that they’re not the best.
Not acceptable.
Meanwhile, Dodgers fans don’t want that villain hate because, to them, being called a “villain” suggests that they didn’t earn all this success. They didn’t just get to the top by doing things others weren’t clever enough to do. No, they BOUGHT it. And that’s just not acceptable to the Los Angeles mind. The other owners are all billionaires. They all could be spending this money. They all COULD HAVE signed Shohei Ohtani or Freddie Freeman or Edwin Diaz or traded for Mookie Betts or brought in Yoshi Yamamoto. They didn’t do any of it. The Dodgers did.
Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.
Telling a Dodgers fan they’re now the villain is telling them that they BOUGHT this success.
Not acceptable.
Anyway, this is my theory. Do I think the Dodgers are villains? Not exactly. They’ve merged ambition, intelligence, brainpower, and, yes, money into a dynasty. But by becoming a dynasty, they’re villains whether they like it or not.
Do I think the Yankees are more likable now? Not exactly. They still have plenty of money and the richest history, and the blend of price and arrogance that the pinstripes have represented for 100-plus years. But it has been 16 years since their last championship, and their owner whines way too much about money, and you don’t just get to keep being the villain forever. Darth Vader and Lex Luthor didn’t just rest on their laurels.
You want to be the biggest villain, you’ve got to earn it.
