That's it - the White Sox lost yesterday. The season is over. Yes, there's playoff games and the World Series, but when your team ends its season without post-season play - it's over. (Oh, but if your team gets into the Post-season - that's a whole other matter - the joy, the excitement, the constant following of everything your team does, as well as those in your league, and even dare to think it - those teams in the other league just in case...)
I get all melancholy at this time of year. I measure my life by the seasons - baseball seasons that is. Yes, hockey is just around the corner (my minor league favorite - The AHL's Chicago Wolves - lost their first preseason game Saturday night 6-3), but I don't feel my body clock pacing hockey. It ticks to baseball. When the season is over, I count the days until pitchers and catchers report to camp, the days until the first Cactus League opener, the days until the first pitch of the new season, the first pitch of the home opener... I love baseball... I love being at the park and watching the games, watching how it progresses, the ebb and flow, the grass, the sounds, the tastes, the passing of time... how hard it was to leave Comiskey Park this week...
I am always reminded of my favorite quote from a fictitious Terence Mann, talking to a fictitious Ray Kinsella:
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come."
Oh, to be in my seat again...
2008
2007- White Sox 3 - Tigers 13
2004- Just couldn't do it
2003- AF1