October Baseball

Last Sunday, I went to the last game of the Mets' season and wrote about it over on Substack. I tried to articulate the feelings of both disappointment and longing on the last day of the season when you root for a losing team. I wish things had turned out better, but I am already longing for April and new beginnings. There's always next year.

In the meantime, I get to watch some high-stakes games in October without the anxiety of my own team's performance hanging over me. Last year I spent the first round of the playoffs ripping my hair out over the Mets' collapse. I would listen to late-season and playoff games on my headphones during my daughter's autumn travel-team softball games. Her coach, a fellow Met fan, wanted the scoring updates. At least I had a fellow sufferer when I delivered bad news. This year, I can just enjoy some baseball.

When your team is out of the running it still helps to watch the games with a rooting interest. I find it hard to be some impersonal observer of baseball so I still insist on investing myself in at least one team still playing. While this can bring more disappointment, it also pays dividends. Back in 1988, I decided I wanted the underdog Dodgers to best the dominant As. When Kirk Gibson hit his improbable home run in game one I felt part of the collective joy and the baseball moment that is closest to a real-life myth. An injured player coming off of the bench so feeble that he can barely manage his eventual home run trot winning it all? That has to be made up. 

I also just enjoy the intensity of October baseball. The change in the weather reflects a radically altered vibe. In the regular season, baseball is the Summer Game (in the words of Roger Angell.) Like those long, languid, sunshiny summer days, the season seems to stretch on forever. There are 162 games, and none in the summer seem make or break. You want to win, but if you lose, there's another chance tomorrow. When the leaves start to fall and the temperature drops, things suddenly change. Losing games means having to go home. The grass browns, the trees shed their leaves, night falls early, and the baseball season wanes. 

When the baseball games matter more in October, the late innings have an emotional intensity that is not matched by any other sport. In other team sports, a late lead is safer because the clock is on your side. In baseball you must get the other team out. Dennis Eckersley could not take a knee or get a trip to the free throw line. He had to pitch to Kirk Gibson. I love those late inning moments, pitchers and batters staring each other down, the tension between pitches reaching an almost unbearable level.  

As an 11 year old I stayed up late by myself to watch game six of the 1986 World Series. I was not an official Mets fan yet, but I decided that I liked their swagger and players like Gooden, Hernandez, Carter, and Strawberry. It looked like they were going down. Infamously, in the 10th inning, the Shea Stadium scoreboard briefly flashed a message of congratulations for the Red Sox, assuming it was all over. What followed is legendary and confounded any sane expectations a Mets rooter could have had. I was a casual baseball fan going into that game; afterward, I was hooked for life.

In '87 I saw an intense seven-game series between the Twins and Cardinals. In '88 I witnessed that mythic Gibson homer. In '89 there was a freakin' EARTHQUAKE during a World Series game. In this era the Super Bowl, by contrast, was a ridiculous blowout of whatever weak AFC team had the misfortune to be a sacrificial victim. There have been some other memorable Octobers since, few of them featuring my White Sox and Mets. No matter, I can still dig that October baseball feeling, its triumphs and tragedies. In 2006 I was living in Michigan and swore I heard a statewide collective cry of anguish when the Tigers made their last out. Ten years later I experienced such joy when my many Cubs fan friends and relatives finally got to celebrate. I am looking forward to more October baseball, and for my Phillies, Orioles, and especially Twins fans friends to have something to cheer about.