Texas Tears
I know I'm late on commenting about the WS, but I needed some time to fully digest what happened. The last few nights have been difficult. Thursday through Saturday I didn't sleep very well. Often during conversations over the weekend, my eyes glazed over and I stared off into space thinking about 2-strike, 2-out counts, Nelson Cruz not covering enough ground in right, and ultimately, how if it was difficult for me to sleep, imagine how hard it must be for Neftali Feliz.Truth is, I didn't watch Game 7. I had a trip to an indigenous community planned for a story during the games 3-4 weekend and bumped it back a week for the WS. The photographer that planned to go with me was pissed, though I said enough soothing things to calm her down. We rescheduled the trip for Friday, a day after the originally scheduled Game 7. Then it rained Wednesday, games pushed back. If the Rangers didn't win Thursday, I wasn't going to see Game 7. The town I went to didn't have electricity (think 2nd and a half world).
Part of me is glad I didn't see it. I came home yesterday to my internet world and watched the final out. I bit my lip and almost cried. I can't remember the last time I cared about a team so much as I did the 2011 TX Rangers. I've never been so excited, crushed, elated, sucker-punched and then depressed as Thursday night. First team to give up runs in the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th innings in a WS game. I assume they were the first team to ever be one strike away from a WS series win in consecutive innings and go on to lose. Salt in the wounds is 2nd WS loss in a row and I had already poured champagne in the glasses of my neighbors and girlfriend during the 9th inning. I read in the FW Star-Telegram that boxes of "Texas Rangers World Series Champs" shirts were delivered to the press box in the 9th and 10th innings of Game 6.
Had a couple of thoughts. Would I have preferred an 81-81 regular season without the WS agony? Heard some people say that. No. Playoffs were great, WS, even though horrifying in the end, was fantastic.
My other thought was: Now I know how it feels to be a 1990s Buffalo Bills fan, a Holland fan during the 2010 World Cup final, a Russian watching the 1980 Olympics Gold medal hockey game (and then reliving it with a bad movie 20-odd years later), or a 2008 Memphis Tigers fan when Derrick Rose and the boys squandered a 9-point lead during the final two minutes of the NCAA final by missing 4-of-5 free-throws and allowed Mario Chalmers to throw in a prayer 3-pointer with 2 seconds left to go to OT, resulting in an eventual loss.
You never really think about what is it like to be a player or fan on those teams until it happens to you. Then when it does, it makes you want to call Scott Norwood and take him out for ice cream and a drive-in movie.
Shit hurts. I woke up this morning with the Rangers still on my mind but I have a feeling this was the last mourning of my mourning. Lots of consoling comments at work today, but I imagine that by tomorrow or Wednesday, all baseball talk will pass.
I think the "What Ifs?", like when anything goes dreadfully awry, are the most haunting. What if Feliz had blown one by Freese, or Cruz had timed his jump, or Beltre had thrown home in the 10th instead of going to first, or Napoli had called a different pitch for Feldman, or we could have gotten f'ing David Descalso or John slumping Jay out to begin the 10th? What if anything that happened, didn't happen? How much better would I feel today?
I think the only positive I take from the end of baseball season is that I no longer have 3.5 hour commitment blocks in my schedule. Seventeen games in 25 days is a lot of time. I'll see my girlfriend more now, probably do my job better and maybe take up jogging again.
Hopefully during the next six weeks I'll be able to forget about Game 6, and when I read the Year In Sports review in the Dallas Morning News when I go home for Christmas, my urge to cry for what could have been, what should have been, and what wasn't, will be very distant memories. I hope sports never make me feel like this again.
