After last night’s ninth-inning derailment, I was just about ready to give up on baseball.
Well, not really, but it felt like it for a few minutes. That was a gut punch if ever there was one, or indeed a heartbreak. Funny how dealing with such big emotional swings requires being described by things visceral.
Some hours of sleep later, I am no longer ready to jump off a metaphorical fandom bridge. Being a Dodger fan, Feeling Blue is like yin-yang: it encompasses both the positive and the negative, the high and the low. One Feels Blue being a Dodger fan. To achieve enlightenment, one must accept both sides.
This bit of rationalization didn’t occur to me until I happened to come back to my computer earlier this afternoon and replaced my earphones on my head. Organ music was playing, and you could hear a crowd waiting expectantly for a game to start. It was a sound file in my iTunes library that I recorded the night I sat in the press box back in June. It was before the game, and Nancy Bea was playing her organ between PA announcements. A moment of zen-like bliss. One of the best nights of my life, and there it was flowing into my brain again.
The Dodgers lost that night, but it did nothing to dim the glow I had walking around for the next week.
As the philosopher said, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.
Whatever happens in tomorrow night’s Game 5, there will always be another spring training. It’s the circle of life, and no single loss, no matter how visceral, will change that.