[mlbvideo id=”36780953″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman
Almost all the time, I spend too much time worrying about my own house to worry about anyone else’s.
Then comes the time when the Giants are still playing baseball and the Dodgers aren’t, and the bitterness creeps in. Postseason baseball in San Francisco tolerable as a fluke, but as a recurring event, it’s brutal to suffer through. And it hasn’t been helped by the Cardinals flying on, oblivious to any concept of whose turn it is to bask in October’s magic glow.
I’ve watched about five pitches of the National League Championship Series, but so far, that’s been plenty. My love for hardball drama has been trumped by my disgust with these two teams.
Kansas City and Baltimore would appear to offer a refuge. Even more than the Dodgers, the Royals qualify as an “it’s their turn” team, while I still retain a soft spot for the Orioles from my time living in Washington D.C., when splendid Camden Yards was months old and they were the only baseball show around.
Not quite Dodger blue. (Ed Zurga/Getty Images)
But even with the Royals, there are issues. If they make the World Series on their first postseason trip in 29 years, much less win the dang thing, I don’t know how I’ll feel. The Dodgers have played 43 postseason games since their last World Series. Kansas City has played six, with as few as two to go. It’s not quite as bad as the Marlins’ habit of only going to the World Series every time they just win at least 90 games, but it does strike me that even after a long exile from the playoffs, you should also have some postseason penance to pay. Just ask the Pittsburgh Pirates.
So I guess my rooting interest is with Baltimore, which has only been to four playoffs in the past 30 years and has gone even longer than the Dodgers and Royals since their last World Series.
But those last five paragraphs represent much more focus on other teams than I want to feel. I’m still in a place where baseball could just go into suspended animation and I wouldn’t mind, care or necessarily notice. I saw a headline Monday about a rainout in the American League Championship Series, and my shrug shrugged.
I’m still having trouble letting go of the 2014 Dodgers.
Six days after elimination, while I walked my kids to school, a neighbor made a completely conventional and harmless joke, asking me if I’d seen the ad the Dodgers took out in the paper. I thought he meant the full-page thank you to the fans in Sunday’s Times sports section, but no, it was “the classified ad looking for a relief pitcher.” Those who might accuse me of having no sense of humor would have reveled in my edgy reaction: I wasn’t ready to laugh it off. Still bitter.
Disbelief. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
Later in the day at work, someone brought up the dates of the Cy Young (November 12) and Most Valuable Player (November 13) award announcements. And my first thought was a worry: Would Dodger fans have had enough time to process Clayton Kershaw’s National League Division Series defeats to savor the well-deserved honor or honors that Kershaw will receive? How I hope the sniping is diminished by then.
And then my thoughts return to the Giants and the Cardinals — I can’t help it. Why in the Giants’ last NLDS game was Joe Panik able to score a third run on a wild pitch, but not in the Dodgers’ last NLDS game, Andre Ethier was fooled into an out? Why did Madison Bumgarner make it to the eighth inning against the Cardinals and not Kershaw? Why is Yadier Molina having oblique trouble this week and not last?
Why them and not us?
Keep in mind that I was raised by a Chicago native and Cubs fan, so any feelings of self-pity are immediately countered by “Why you and not them?” I tell my kids not to fret over other people’s successes: “Your job is to be the best people you can be.” And then you make the best of wherever that takes you. Just relive the joy — see the video at the top of this post — and let go of the sorrow.
But it’s hard, man. It’s hard.
Debbie Burianek
Good to see I am not alone in my sorrow for our Dodgers! Like you, I cannot watch the Cards. I do not want to hear the names Carpenter or Adams. As much as I am a true National League gal, I find myself cheering for the Royals. Dumb as it may seem, I like seeing the royal blue and white uniforms out there on the field! I am still sore from our loss. This was supposed to be our year, and it was not. It still hurts!
Jeff Watson (@lifeat78)
I am so very much with you, Jon. My dad (a Yankees fan) tried to joke with me about the Dodgers this weekend, and I just couldn’t even crack a smile. I’m a college professor, so I spend a lot of time writing on dry-erase boards. It’s petty, I know, but I can’t even bring myself to use red pens. I have a number of friends that are Orioles fans, a number that are Royals fans, but I can’t even bring myself to care on their behalf. I wish I could enjoy these last few games of the season before the long cold winter, but I’m just emotionally dead toward baseball.
Michael Green
It’s hard, but any Dodger fan who snipes at Kershaw about his NLDS performance either is not a real Dodger fan or knows nothing about baseball and deserves to be ignored.
Don Bright
100% agree with this Jon, even to the reason why I’m rooting ever so slightly for the O’s and not the Royals.
The Giants-Cards NLCS is as bad as a Red Sox-Yankee ALCS for me, if none of those 4 teams ever win anything ever again in my life, I’ll be just fine with that. And I’m wondering if I’ll ever see the Dodgers in the World Series again. It just seems there’s always one thing after another since 88 with this team. I know it’s not as long of a drought a s some teams, but that doesn’t help the pain of it to be less.
Mark Hagerstrom
Became an O’s fan myself after moving out here from the West Coast in the late ’70s, early enough to have the pleasure of Memorial Stadium in my memories. But haven’t even watched those games. I may actually love the Dodgers more than baseball.
artieboy
Is Mark Belanger the best defensive SS you have ever seen?
Mark Hagerstrom
Ha! Artieboy- In today’s term, Belanger had a dWAR of 4.9 in 1975 and a WAR of 5.0 just outside the top ten for position in WAR for position players that year. Right behind Reggie who had WAR 5.1. Bob Hendley
artieboy
:)
Austin "TheFrosty" Passy
I agree. And even more so after getting the reminder of the upcoming Cy Young and NL MVP vote dates.
winnipegdave
I’m curious Jon if you feel even wrecked this year than last year. And I wonder if working with the Dodgers so closely this year has made it more difficult. Or the fact that it has happened now two years in a row – and to the Cardinals both times (just like 2009 felt harder than 2008 with the Phillies). Or the fact that is the Giants and the Cards that remain playing – and we hates them my precious because we wants our precious back (yes I did just channel my 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings watching self to write that). Or – as I am feeling – all of the above, plus how the games were lost in this years NLDS.
Anyway, thanks for your honesty Jon. I recall you writing in the past that you found it strange of fans to feel ill will towards other teams, but I appreciate this perspective of yours as well. I guess we all aim at taking the higher road and try to with stand the ribbing and barbs we get for loving a particular team so much. But sometimes it feels so helpful to release some of that emotion…
Jon Weisman
I don’t know if I feel more wrecked, but I feel more shocked and disappointed at how short the stay in the playoffs was.
artieboy
Who needs bitterness! So we lost big deal. Game 1 hurt. Game 4 made me laugh. Just wasn’t meant to be.
And if you are not watching the NLCS, you missed a classic game 2. What a game. If baseball is entertainment then game 2 was an edge of your seat thriller.
Was Ethier fooled or did he make a fool of himself?
Jon Weisman
I say fooled, especially because Ellis waved him home at first.
oldbrooklynfan
Growing up a Dodger fan many many years ago I hated the Yankees, the Giants and also the Cardinals more than any of the other teams.
I guess the all time records and Bobby Thomson has a lot to do with it. My friend use to get tickets when ever the Cardinals came to Ebbets Field and I remember Stan Musial’s Cards beating us a number of times. I guess everyone knows what the Yanks did to us almost annually.
If the Giants win another World Series, it’ll really hurt but just think of the practice the Dodgers get playing the World Champions 18 or 19 times a year.
Oh Well, keep the faith.
dodger3942
Baseball ended for me when the Dodgers were knocked out. I hate orange and black.
Mark Hagerstrom
orange and black is the new black.
leekfink
Perfect, Jon. Exactly.
BTW–to answer a question not put to me, I am more wrecked this year than last, and I don’t work for the team. Last year’s run itself was exhilarating. 42-8 from out of the blue. Yaseil Puig arrived, Juan Uribe arrived. Hyun-Jin Ryu arrived. Zack Greinke came back. And, we advanced further than we had than at any time since 1988. It ended up being my second-best season as a fan (which I became in 1982), behind only 1988, and ahead of the last time the Cards knocked us out of the NLCS in six games. But when it ended, you could understand. After that explosion, it felt like maybe we ran out of gas. We did not have Matt Kemp for the post-season (or most of the season). We lost Ethier for a good chunk of the post-season (Skip Schumaker was our starting CF for the entire NLDS and a few NLCS games). Kershaw had one bad game, but it was just once at the wrong time. And I always felt that if Hanley does not (somewhat freakishly) get his ribs broken, we beat the Cardinals. So last year, while ultimately short of the goal, was understandable. You could despair, but you could move on. And Boston winning–during the year when the Boston Marathon was bombed–was really not a bad thing.
But 2014 was all expectations. We had the Bison back for the playoff run, and Kemp was back to MVP form. Our fifth outfielder (Scott Van Slyke) was etter than our third outfielder during the post-season last year. Kershaw had–against all odds–become an even better pitcher in 2014 than he had been in 201, and the chances that he would blow up in the NLDS (much less twice) was not even something to consider (in reality, even Game 1 was not so bad, but he had some bad luck and I think the heat got to him; and Game 4 he was good the whole time. It actually goes down as a Quality Start, and the terrible Adams hit was truly freakish). There was no first-round win to buffer the disappointment. There was no crazy hot streak to ride. There was just the constant of baseball. Always plodding, always winning more than losing; ultimately a better team (2 more wins than last year) that was supposed to win it all. And then, facing a Cardinals team that was weaker than last year, and all of the sudden–poof–it was over. And now watching an NLCS against a team I have always hated and another I have come to hate. Ugh, it’s just too much.
14hodges
Yes, leekfink.
jaymanne
Sigh, I am more upset than last year as well. THIS version of the Dodgers was primed to go the World Series…. The Cards were a better team last year than this year… this was our year to shine and it’s hard to accept reality. The Royals have waited 29 years since their last Series appearance? We come in close to that with 26 years under our belts… waiting, hoping, believeing…. And now, sitting here knowing the Giants are a game away from the Series makes me want to puke. I’m still shaking my head and it’s a week later…. Jay
dembums55
You really nailed it. It just doesn’t seem to go our way lately. A walk off error like the Giants were gifted last night? Hah!