I’m hungover and still reeling today from last night’s crushing defeat. I didn’t want to go out, or talk to anybody. I sat silently and watched the postgame press conferences, and somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00am this morning I finally pulled myself together and wrote down my thoughts. I know, I’m a total nerd. It’s not very hip. I don’t need to hear it from you.
It stings. It stings because, in baseball, nothing is certain from day-to-day and year-to-year. The window of opportunity to be successful is rarely even open. So when the time is right, a ballclub has to will themselves to achieve greatness. Teams don’t get many second chances. Sometimes, one heartbreaking loss is enough to damage a franchise for decades. This year, the window for the Mets was wide open. Not only that, the screen had been kicked out, and it felt – at times – that there was nothing that could prevent them from immortality.
Last winter, the baseball intelligentsia had high hopes for New York. Despite what was widely considered to be weak starting pitching beyond the teams two frontline pitchers, it was believed that the Mets would overtake the National League Eastern Division from the vaunted Braves. Could they make the World Series? Yes. Was it an absolute lock? No.
As the season unfolded, there would be comparisons to the 1986 championship team. A lot of them. The team was even marketed as the second coming. “The Team, The Time” was the ongoing catchphrase. Dramatics became nightly routines in Queens. Come-from-behind wins, walk-offs, there was even that sweep of the Yankees when it seemed New York’s longtime bullies were finally falling apart. The way the Mets dominated their opposition, and their going pretty much wire-to-wire (after game two of the season) – just like in ’86 – it was spooky.
It would be far, far too easy to resort to excuses. Injuries plagued key team members, and in their wake, the clamor of skeptics grew louder. Duaner Sanchez supposedly goes out for a meal in Miami late one night and a car accident ends his season. Pedro Martinez tears his rotator cuff and undergoes surgery. Orlando Hernandez comes up lame warming up during the first round of the playoffs. Predictions were downgraded and then upgraded seemingly on the hour, if you listened to sports radio. But injuries in sports are completely random. They are uncontrollable, and as such they cannot be hearkened on or bemoaned. A team’s legacy is determined by their response to such circumstances. In spite of all these setbacks, the success continued, and there was most definitely a sense of optimism surrounding this team. Fans expected the magical, storybook endings to carry through to a championship.
A lot can be said about destiny, and its enigmatic relationship with baseball lore. To be in this situation, to watch it unfold, the stars appeared to align in practically every inning during the post-season (minus game three of the NLCS – one of five-or-so games I did not tune into out of 172 this year). No more clear was this than during the sixth inning tonight. You cannot script such an inexplicable turn of events, or a bigger shift in momentum. The perfect ending was right there. It was practically writing itself. Put it in the books.
The funny thing about destiny, miracles, fate, whatever you want to call it…for it to materialize, to really happen, it was to be unexpected. And with one swing of the bat (from a guy who meticulously plucks his eyebrows, the fag) in the top of the ninth inning – it happened. Now that was unexpected.
As I stated earlier, in baseball, the window of opportunity is never open for long. An entire league does not lie dormant two years in a row. Windows close, and fast. The Mets can say whatever they want to pump themselves up for 2007, but they might have just missed the best opportunity they’ll have.
np : Townes Van Zandt – My Starter Won’t Start [Lightnin’ Slim]
