Baseball season is over, again

Baseball season is over. At least it is for the Cardinals. For the other team the season will linger a little while as they enjoy the aura of success that surrounds them. For a few days their fans get to contemplate a possible repeat next season. It is nice that my team was playing until the last pitch of the season, but terrible that they were not on the winning side.

They had opportunities. The team that won was not that much better, but was better when in counted, in four of the past six games. For the Cardinals the hits were not turned into runs and the pitching did not dominate like it could have. So it's over.

As bad as this day is, in the big picture it is a minor event. It still hurts, though Jason Motte wasn't bothered too much by the loss and was quick to tweet congrats to the sox. From his twitter feed...

• "It's officially offseason baseball fans!!! "
• "1st: Congrats @RedSox on great year. 2nd: I had a blast watching our @Cardinals this year. Great guys. Happy to be a part of this team."

Well that's sweet. Maybe he can just stay in Boston, eat some beans, dig some clams, make some chowdah, take a woodworking class at Harvard, vote for every socialist on the ballot, put a JFK picture on the mantel and pretend to be an American.

Sigh.... cubs fans never get to go through this. The winning or the stench of losing. A cub would be happy just to be there, but not a Cardinal (except of course for Jason Motte).

Why do we get so emotionally wrapped up in the results of a game?   Its not like I lost a loved one, or a job, or wrecked a car. But in a way that's what a lot of life is like, a river of small victories and defeats that viewed individually don't amount to much. But when added up they tip the scales in a way that determines how much of this life we enjoy. 

 

Baseball seems more real than it is. It becomes part of how we measure ourselves. I tell you I am a Padres fan and you know I live in San Diego. I tell you I am a fan of the Cardinals or cubs or braves or yankees, or any of the other big footprint teams, and a different picture is painted. 

 

The love of baseball is good. But in a negative sense, it has a way of tying us to this world, of making us feel comfortable in a place that is not our home. Like we belong here.