« Spent part of Labor Day | Main | Random rambles for the week... »
September 06, 2003
It's going to be a
It's going to be a great September.
With twenty one games left in the season, there are seventeen Major League Baseball teams still with a legitimate chance to make the playoffs. There are pennant races shaping up in four of the six divisions - and the lead in both the National and American League Central divisions could literally change daily for the rest of the season. It's looking like this will be a classic fall in baseball history. It's reminding me of why I love baseball so much.
The great characteristic that separates baseball from every other sport is the length of its season and the fact that games are played every day. Those of us who consider ourselves baseball purists will tell you - with varying degrees of smugness - that this is what makes baseball a thinking person's game... being a baseball fan requires an attention span, a willingness to pay attention for six months. Baseball means that a bad game means your team goes back and plays again tomorrow. Baseball allows that a slump in April that lasts the whole month means that your team has five more months to right the ship. The season isn't compressed like football season. There's more than 16 games to a season. Baseball fans don't get the instant gratification that football fans crave - a three game winning streak in football means you're more than likely going to be in the playoffs - at the very least, your team will contend. In baseball, a three game winning streak means you have 25 more weeks to go. It takes patience to love baseball.
Except in September. This month, the same characteristic that requires patience during the other five months of the season now means heightened excitment that no sport can match. Seventeen teams have playoff aspirations this month - and their situations change every 24 hours. On Sunday, both the NFL and MLB will play games. On Wednesday morning, the NFL standings will be the same as they were 48 hours earlier. By Wednesday, the lead in three MLB divisions, plus the wild cards, could well have changed hands - twice. Or even three times. Every day brings a critical game; every night brings must-win tension; every game the hopes of a team's fan base are carried on the shoulders of its players. For the next three weeks, raw throats and eyes deprived of sleep because they stayed up late to watch the baseball game will rule the day in offices in Boston and New York. And Philadelphia and south Florida. And in Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Houston, Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles. Not on Monday morning only. Not just during the playoffs like in the NBA or during March Madness. EVERY morning.
There's something poetic about a game whose defining characteristic is the methodical and patient nature of its season suddenly providing the most intense daily excitement of any of the major competitive sports.
Each day for the next three weeks will be a season in itself, with fans in some cities cheering deliriously while others die a little death as the day ends. The next day, their positions could be reversed. The day after that, who knows?
My beloved Red Sox may not make the playoffs. I could be heartbroken on October 1. But baseball's going to give me - and all of us - three weeks I'll be telling my kids about someday.
