Sept. 29, 2013

Here I sit, brokenhearted.
Meant to...aw what the hell.
You know the drill.

Today was the last day of the regular Major League Baseball season.  Being a die-hard baseball fan, I feel like I lost a friend.  Like that friend that lived across the street that you could call your very best friend, baseball is like this to me.  Sadly, like that friend, it moves on; sometimes to places far, far away. Like the friendship, it always ends with a promise.  A promise that you'll meet again. 

Baseball is that friend. It is at once a sport, but at the same time a living, breathing entity that waxes poetic.  Filled with strategy, a game within a game.  A team sport built on failure to hit the ball successfully seven out of ten times.  A No-Hitter on the last day of the season! Whatagame! It's now gone.  None but a handful of teams left to continue on for the World Series.  My team (that is, the team I root for) has had a very disappointing year.  A year made all the more disappointing by way of the aspirations placed upon it at the beginning of the year.  This was a "World Championship Team", was the common refrain.  But that pitching...ohhh that pitching.

Now it's left to the decision makers to analyze the errors and correct them.  This team is built to win now.  It's owner is willing to add to payroll.  If only he can stay out of the way and let the baseball people to what they're supposed to do.  What they're paid to do.

I guess all that's left to me is to find some team in the postseason to root for and hope they survive.  Is it the Tigers of Detroit?  The Rays of Tampa Bay?  The Athletics of Oakland?  The Indians (racist?) of Cleveland, or the Rangers of Texas? (Please God not the Rangers. Please.)  Being the fan of an AL team, I pretty much only watch whatever team plays my local team.  But here, I would like to see the low budget teams advance...underdogs of a sort, so go A's and Rays!

Over in the NL, well let's go with...ummm....Pirates?  Sentimentality reigns with this pick.  

The action all begins tomorrow, so I'll be tuning in.  When my team is not in the postseason, it's like I have to go through detox.  I don't get to watch MY team, so I ease off that precipice gently by watching the other teams advance.  After a few weeks, I should be free of the vice-like grip of baseball and left to move on and wait and hope til March.

Til later...