Some Things are Over, Some Other Things aren't Over

I can't keep up with facts-- I've sunk into an inescapable bog of sorrow and confusion and I'm not coming out until next April.

Because didn't this year of milestone accomplishments and improbable comebacks necessitate a 28th World Series championship? Shouldn't the forces behind the Red Sox collapse have compelled the Yankees to victory, in a seesaw of karmic momentum?

Okay, it's not that they didn't win. Every year, every team minus one doesn't win. The not winning doesn't take away the 162 game days you got to spend with your team and the not winning doesn't prevent the cyclical reintroduction of your team into your life next spring. Maybe not exactly the same team as the year before, but close enough.

So, Jorge Posada probably isn't going to come back. He was never my favorite Yankee. It was admittedly very sad to watch him standing alone on the top step of the dugout, deprived of that final ninth-inning at-bat, staring off into the field as his silent teammates filed past him, but it'll be okay. He'll find another team and become a crotchety fixture on their bench. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera will look even older and more out of place. Derek Jeter and Mariano will stand alone in the dugout after A-Rod's sixth and seventh consecutive season-ending strikeouts and wonder what they'll be doing next April. Those things will happen and still the close-enough Yankees won't end.

At least they didn't have it as bad as the Phillies, who had to watch Ryan Howard lie in the dirt as the Cardinals amassed on their infield, tearing off their jerseys and chanting "Happy Flight."

Baseball isn't over. I've been monitoring every game. I'm rooting for a Brewers-Tigers World Series. And after that happens, baseball will be over for a while, but not forever. Not for very long, even, when you think about it. Maybe I'll finish my "Derek Jeter in Trenton" essay and start my Cole Hamels video masterpiece in the meantime.

The Way That I Feel

Today Was Not a Good Day

Of course it had to happen, but did it have to happen so soon? As all sports fans know, you win some, you lose some; the violently elating highs come with the agonizingly soul-depleting lows. Yankees fans have it a bit worse, though, as every unintentional walk, pop-up fly, and fumbled throw home accumulates into a jumbled chorus whose main overtone sounds suspiciously like coins rolling down the drain (or, rather, giant piles of gasoline-soaked dollar bills burning in an eternal, raging hellfire). Moreover, a large percentage of non-Yankees fans are actually Yankees haters. When Yankees fans watch their team tank, they do so knowing that thousands and thousands of their fellow-baseball-viewers are cheering their misfortune with unsportsmanlike glee.

This hatred is not unwarranted. That the Yankees are frequently called a corporate baseball Death Star makes perfect sense. This is all fine and great and funny when the team is winning, but what good is a nickname like "The Evil Empire" when, despite the enormous salaries and celebrity players and palatial stadiums, you repeatedly lose games to teams that you should be CRUSHING? Man, do the Yankees get me down, sometimes. Tonight, after they failed to beat the Orioles (a good looking team, I'll admit), I cursed C.C. Sabathia's billowing pajama pants and Johnny Damon's terrible arm and left the bar and walked around the puddle-soaked streets of Williamsburg with no destination and no desire to be anywhere or do anything. Okay, that's an exaggeration. What really happened is that Maddie and I were drunk and couldn't decide what we wanted to eat. Then, when we got home, I suddenly knew what I wanted to eat and that thing was Jell-O! But the corner store didn't have any and it was way too late to go to a proper supermarket and let me tell you, friends, I felt lower and angrier than I've felt in weeks.

I know that, traditionally, this blog has been a place of love and of love-hate and of the special kind of joy that accompanies pure hatred, but let's pause momentarily to acknowledge a dark truth: SOMETIMES BASEBALL MAKES LIFE FEEL SO MUCH WORSE.