Eventually, I took
the game more seriously. I began playing ball in the back yard
with my friends almost every day during the spring, summer, and
fall. We played with a wiffleball, but we also played with a
tennis ball, which felt more like the real game, because we
could use real gloves and wooden bats. By the time I was eight years old,
I got to be a pretty decent ballplayer.
One of my earliest
baseball-related memories was hitting a "home run" in tee ball.
I hit a ball off the tee to the outfield gap and chugged around the bases while the other
team scrambled to pick it up and toss it back in. Dad was the
assistant coach of our team at the time. At the beginning of the season he told all of us players that he
would buy a snow cone for anyone who hit a home run. He was
coaching third base that day. As I rounded third, he waved his
arm frantically in a circle, shouting "Snow cone! Snow cone!"
Thus began my
lifelong love affair with the game of baseball. It was the
common bond I shared with my father. He coached me through my
teenage years. He attended every game I played -- even some of our away games in other towns -- throughout my high school years. He was my number one fan.
Dad passed away on
October 16th of this year. No one saw it coming. He didn't see
it coming. His doctors never saw it coming. I certainly never saw it coming. It just happened.
I am a stubborn skeptic. I have never
believed in an afterlife. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell or
angels or devils. I don't believe "everything happens for a
reason." I don't believe in fate or miracles or divine
intervention. But I'd be lying if I said the thought didn't
cross my mind that what happened in this year's World Series was
a result of my father somehow manipulating the random dice rolls
in this stupid game we play, just to give me one last gift. I have no other explanation other than the supernatural. It's
pleasant to think about that, anyway.
***
Roughly thirteen hours after it happened, I am still shaking my head in disbelief. Nothing about that series went as I had planned. All of the hours I spent "scouting" the Mustangs were irrelevant to the outcome. The only thing that mattered in the end were those random dice rolls.
Game One was nothing but a series of aggravations. Time and again, we got two quick outs against Charlotte, and then they started a rally. They did it in the very first inning, setting the stage for the entire series. They nearly did it again in the fifth inning, when an untimely error by Justin Turner loaded the bases with Alex Bregman at the plate. At that moment, I guaranteed to Tony Chamra that Bregman would come through. Thankfully, I was wrong.
Just as Charlotte mounted one two-out rally after another, we failed to come through with two outs again and again and again. We loaded the bases with one out in the fourth inning, and Francisco Cervelli unloaded them by grounding into an inning-ending double play. (One of three turned by Charlotte in Game One.) Then Blake Treinen came into the game in the eighth inning and retired six batters in a row. He only needed 16 pitches to do it, too. Treinen wasn't very good during the regular season, but he was excellent in the World Series. It was probably the only prediction I got right.
Game Two was just a slap across my face. I felt like I'd been gut-punched by the Random Dice Roll Gods right from the very beginning of that game. I never understood why Anibal Sanchez was so bad all season long. He shouldn't have been. In ten simulations I ran prior to the season, he was never this bad. For some reason, the game just decided he would suck. And suck he did in Game Two. He sucked so badly, so quickly, that I didn't have time to yank him out of the game quickly enough. By the time I did, the damage was done, and we weren't coming back from it.
I was seething with anger and frustration as we headed into the eighth inning of Game Three without a single hit. To be the first team to be no-hit in the history of the BDBL World Series would be the ultimate slap in the face. I got that the Baseball Gods don't like me. I got that my repeated failure in the postseason has become the running joke that never gets old. But this just seemed like unnecessary piling on.
When Brandon Nimmo drew a two-out walk in the eighth, we still had yet to get a single hit. I just kept slapping that "1" key over and over and watching my team commit suicide. There was nothing I could do about it. I was utterly helpless. Then Tony Chamra took Kyle Hendricks out of the game and brought in his lefty specialist, Xavier Cedeno, to face Jose Ramirez.
I braced myself for Ramirez to fail to come through yet again. He did it the entire series. Our regular-season MVP decided to take the World Series off, apparently. He surprised me by drawing a walk. Then Chamra surprised me by sticking with Cedeno when I brought in Christian Villanueva to pinch hit for Travis Shaw.
My mouse hovered over Shohei Ohtani's name on the bench. I just assumed Treinen would come into the game. Instead, that traffic light turned green. I hit the "1" key and stood to my feet in nervous anticipation. When that ball left the yard, I nearly popped my shoulder out of its socket by punching the air so hard.
Finally, we got the break we so desperately needed. With Strasburg going against Nick Pivetta, Game Four was a game we should have won. Thankfully, we did. Most of the time, it seems those "should have won" type of games result in a "shocking" defeat. But we won, and that evened the series at two apiece.
I don't know why Trevor Cahill sucked in Game Five, but he did. With our bullpen overtaxed, we really needed him to reach his maximum-allowed usage of 8.2 innings. Instead, he gave us less than two. Once again, just like Game Two, we could not get our bullpen warmed up quickly enough to avoid massive, nearly-irreversible, damage.
By the time we finally yanked him out of there, we were looking at a 5-0 deficit. But, we had plenty of time left on the clock, and our bullpen arms were capable of holding Charlotte to five runs for a while. I figured we could peck away at Julio Teheran and score one run here, another there, until we crept back into the game. Instead, we mounted a four-run rally in the fourth inning, capped by Justin Turner's massive three-run bomb. Just like that, the game was tied.
The next inning, Jordan Montgomery came into the game to face our two lefties at the top of the lineup. Montgomery didn't allow a single hit to left-handers in MLB last year. Needless to say, we pinch hit a couple of righties. We managed to load the bases with no outs. We got a run on a sac fly. Another run was cut down at the plate on a dribbler to a drawn-in infield with an Ex runner at third. Andrew Benintendi then gave us an insurance run, but it turned out we wouldn't need it.
I desperately wanted to end the series in Game Six. I waffled back and forth on whether to start Cahill or Sanchez. Both pitchers had been bombed by Charlotte earlier in the series, but I felt like Cahill was the better of the two pitchers. It didn't take long for him to force me to regret that decision. Yet again, I couldn't get him out of the game quickly enough. By the time I did, we were in the hole, 3-0.
Yet again, we failed to hit with two outs. Cervelli (once again) left the bases loaded in the fourth inning with a pop fly. Hunter Renfroe whiffed with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. We left another runner stranded at third in the eighth inning when both Kike Hernandez and Brandon Nimmo whiffed. And Treinen once again recorded a two-inning, six-out, save.
So, on to Game Seven we went. There were many times throughout this series that I was absolutely convinced that we would lose the series. Certainly when we had our asses handed to us in Game Two, and went into Charlotte down two games to none, that seemed like an impossible hill to climb. When Stephen Strasburg struck out Bregman and Soto, back-to-back, in the sixth inning, it seemed as though he was cruising. He was carrying us on his back straight to victory. Then that old fossil Adrian Beltre doubled deep to left, scoring both runners on base to tie the game. And I thought, once again: "Shit. We're finished."
The worst feeling in the world is heading into extra innings in Game Seven and realizing that you have no one left in your bullpen but Jon Gray and Anibal Sanchez. Check that. There is an even worse feeling than that: the same scenario as above, but with the top of the Charlotte lineup coming to bat.
I have seen Gray do some extraordinary things this year. And he is a tremendous strikeout pitcher. With both Christian Yelich and Bregman prone to striking out, I figured he would be a better match against them than Sanchez. So I rolled the dice. And lo and behold, Gray did strike out the first batter he faced, Jose Altuve.
He wasn't so lucky with Yelich, who doubled. With first base open, Bregman up, and the pitcher's spot coming up next, intentionally walking Bregman was a no-brainer. Chamra went with Albert Almora, which I thought was a good matchup for us. Almora apparently thought differently, because he hit a single. Chamra held the runner at third, and I thought that was a lucky break for us. By doing so, it preserved the possibility of an inning-ending double play.
Beltre stepped to the plate, and I rolled the dice once again by bringing the infield in, negating that double play possibility. As it turned out, it didn't matter what I did, because Beltre inexplicably homered off of Gray. A grand slam home run. Righty-vs.-righty, by a guy who hit only a dozen homers off of right-handers all of last MLB season, in a ballpark that suppresses right-handed home runs.
Folks, you can't make this shit up.
I realized in that moment that the Baseball Gods had concocted a way to really rub it in my face this time. It wasn't enough to lose. It's far more cruel to have me believe I could possibly win and then yank it away from me.
I congratulated Chamra on his series win and his second BDBL championship trophy. I hit the "1" key in absent-minded apathy, just getting it over with. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should take a break from the BDBL, at least for a year. What was the point of playing this foolish game, anyway? Why spend so much time building a great team when it all boils down to random dice rolls in the end?
The only bright spot at that point was that Charlotte's bullpen was every bit as depleted as ours. Despite the fact that he was tired, Treinen pitched a near-perfect inning in the ninth and set down the heart of our lineup. Now the bottom half of that lineup was tasked with facing Nick Pivetta, with a daunting four-run deficit. Justin Turner, useless to the end, began the inning with a weak ground-out. It would be the final plate appearance as a Cowtipper for our $6.5 million winter investment.
A single, a walk, and another single loaded the bases. But I knew this was just the Baseball Gods further taunting me. It wasn't enough to make me believe I might win this game only once. They wouldn't fool me again. I refused to take their bait. I pounded the "1" key and watched as Evan Gattis, our last pinch hitter, drew a walk, plating a run. Nope. I still wouldn't take the bait.
"1".
Brandon Nimmo, he of the .900+ OPS against righties, popped out harmlessly to right for out number two. That brought Kike Hernandez to the plate. I like Kike, because he plays multiple positions and has some pop in his bat, but he didn't really do much for us all season.
"1".
Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. My chair was on its side. I was laughing uncontrollably. Was I laughing or crying? I couldn't tell. That didn't just happen. There is no way that just happened.
And yet it did. Thanks, Dad.
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