Goodnight, Season

Congratulations to the 2007 World Champion Boston Red Sox. That sentence stings to type, but it's true. At the end of the day they were the better team -- they pitched better and hit better, and that's the formula that wins you championships. Our Cinderella story wasn't enough to get us over the hump over a team that's us in 2 or 3 years -- a finished product with the right mix of experience and youth. Perhaps the layoff did affect us after all, as I do not think we played the way we are capable of playing, but it's true that the Red Sox were just better.

This Series hurt and wasn't much fun to watch. I can't say I enjoyed it. But nothing can take away from what we did this year, not even slavering Sox fans and mediots claiming this proves their point about the superiority of the AL. It's still been an almost even trade-off between NL and AL for championships. AL, NL, AL, NL, AL, AL, NL, AL.

How odd it is to love a baseball team. How strange and tender I feel now... just tired, sad, and relieved, slightly hollowed out, in undeniable pain, in relief to have it end, despair of the offseason and hope for next year. Strangely enough, I love the Rockies more than ever, my devotion to them becomes fierce, my love completely untested and part of me forever. Defeat does not break me. The gloating might bother me (as I may have mentioned, the most annoying person on my campus is a Red Sox fan and I do not think that is by accident). Brian Fuentes may have single-handedly killed the last two games for us and it's time for him to be shown the door (once a season-killer, always a season-killer). I've heard tantalizing rumors about us pursuing Ian Snell. And nothing came of it, but that eighth-inning home run by Atkins still made me want to bear his children.

I find myself wondering what it is, over and over, what makes us tick as baseball fans. Pain and pleasure alike have been a big part of October, as is always. We lost the war, but we won this battle; we are the NL champs and nothing can take that away from us. What we did was unprecedented and I look forward to building on it next year. The day after the World Series is like the day after Christmas. Such a letdown... time to bring on the hot stove and see if we can improve upon the pieces we have in place. Our kids have postseason experience and hopefully won't be deer in the headlights. And we didn't choke. While admittedly not playing our best by a long shot, we just ran into a team that was hot at the right time and did the right things.

Let nobody disparage this Colorado Rockies team for how it ended. They were a part of the last game of 2007. They've climbed the peak for the first time, and I don't expect them to be content with mediocrity, now that they've had a taste of rarified air. They will be back. If nothing else, Tulo won't take this.

I love them brutally, so much that it does things like this to me. Next year can't come soon enough. I want to be back there, I hope that what they've done this year will entice others to come as well. The year is over now, I feel very sad and upset about its close, and of course I wish it could have ended differently, but if anything else, this has intensified the deep love that I will and always bear for my Colorado boys.

See you next year, Red Sox. Goodnight, season. Come soon, spring training. The offseason is dark and cold.