A series of unfortunate teams

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I’m writing this on Tuesday, Oct. 22, just a few hours before the first pitch of Game 1 of this year’s World Series. I’ve got to admit I feel conflicted about which team to root for this year.

On the one hand, I love Jose Altuve, the Houston Astros’ charismatic 5-foot-6-inch power hitting MVP second baseman. And I had fun rooting for the Astros against the Dodgers a couple of years ago. (As an SF Giants fan, I’m obliged to root against the Dodgers whenever possible.)

On the other hand, the Washington Nationals feel like the scrappy underdogs, and they’ve never been to the World Series before. Plus, I generally prefer National League baseball.

I don’t have any geographic loyalty either way, but I really don’t want to root for a team that shares a zip code with the most racist team in all of sports. Besides, I also hate Walgreens and don’t want to root for a team with the same fucking logo.

Seriously, both the Walgreens pharmacy chain and the Nationals have a stylized red-and-white “W” as their logo. If you were to hold both logos up next to each other, I couldn’t even tell you which was which. And I probably don’t want to spend any time with anyone who could explain the difference.

(My hatred of Walgreens, by the way, stems from back when our office was on Center Street. There was a Walgreens across the corner—you know, the one over the freeway—so I’d inevitably end up going over there once a week or so for desk snacks or batteries or whatever—and the customer service was always a nightmare.)

But then again, I don’t want to root for a team that would hire a shithead like relief pitcher Roberto Osuna, who allegedly assaulted the mother of his 3-year-old son.

Domestic violence is, of course, a much more serious problem than possibly infringing on the copyright of a century-old pharmacy chain. Still, I guess it’d be nice if somehow they could both lose.