The beautiful thing about baseball is the phrase “there is always tomorrow”.
From late March through September the 30 Major League Baseball teams play 162 games apiece. That’s a lot of homering, walking, striking out, and – if you’re the 2008 New York Yankees – looking miserable. Ha-de-ha-ha, cap wearers across the globe who have no idea what that stupid logo represents. And, no matter whom you support, it also means a lot of muttering the phrase above, because if you lose on a Tuesday, you focus your energies on Wednesday and believe your team will set it straight then. Lose on that Wednesday, and you look to Thursday. And so on and so on, until you give up waiting to win and curse your parents for bringing you up in Pittsburgh in the first place.
Except there’s one time when it’s not such a beautiful thing. And that’s when you lose an elimination game in the play-offs, and for your team there really is no tomorrow, and you find yourself immediately longing for pitchers and catchers to report to training four months down the line. And because you’re so conditioned to setting the record straight less than 24 hours later, knowing you’ll have to wait 24 weeks to do so is all the more agonising, and you mope around with the sickest of sick feelings in your stomach.
And exactly how every Red Sox fan felt on Monday morning.
The Sox lost a nailbiting American League Championship Series decider on Sunday night to the Tampa Bay Rays, and in truth the Floridan upstarts deserved their sizeable scalp. Over the seven game series, just as they had over the 162 game season, the Rays silenced everyone who doubted them and said that 2007’s Worst Team Baseball couldn’t become 2008’s Greatest. Well, they’re four victories over the Philadelphia Phillies away from doing precisely that. And I wish them well, because injuries and overreliance on underperforming players (cheers for the memories, Jason Varitek) and perhaps a slight lack of hunger having already nabbed two World Series in four years caused the Sox to leave the door to their trophy room ajar, and Tampa - after glimpsing baseball's finest accolade glimmering on the other side - rammed straight through to rip it away with power, exuberance, and evident relish.
It was a strange feeling for me, because I’m used to my sports teams underperforming. Crystal Palace, my UK football team, are renowned for snatching defeat from the jays of victory and yoyoing up and down the leagues like a lift in a 100-floor Dubai hotel. Surrey, my cricket side, were a cricketing force for some time but are only too happy to fade away into obscurity every time August hits these days. And my NFL side, the Miami Dolphins... well, they’re the Miami Dolphins.
The Red Sox, however, always come back from the brink when all looks lost. After all those years of failure, four years of (almost) uninterrupted success (don't mention '06) its ‘Nation’ has almost come to expect them to keep on clawing their way back into contention when the chips are down. Perhaps it’s fair to say we’ve become greedy. It’s certainly fair to say we’ve been usurped as comeback kings; now that’s Tampa’s title. And they deserve it.
But the particularly worrying thing about the last couple of weeks isn’t the Sox’ failure to get the job done; it’s that their opponents are here to stay. This Rays team is young, hungry, and tied to the club for some time. Evan Longoria, in his rookie season, already looks like one of the best third basemen in the league, and has over half a decade to run on his super-cheap contact. The dangerous starting rotation of Shields-Garza-Kazmir-Sonnanstine is set for at least the next couple of seasons. Lefty David Price looked unhittable coming out of the pen and is a guaranteed star, whether he is added to that fearsome foursome of starters or used as a closer. BJ Upton’s fielding is a little overrated but man does he crush the ball when on form, and Reid Brignac leads the charge of strong draft picks waiting to make the step up. This is a solid side with quality and depth way down the organisation. And Gabe Gross.
For the Red Sox, their is no upside. It means a much tougher campaign next year, and the one after that, and so on. And perhaps a lot more “there is always tomorrow” being uttered next season. Even so, it can’t come soon enough. But in the meantime: good luck Tampa. You are where you deserve to be.
