Being A Recovering Alcoholic And A Baseball Fan Couldn't Be Easy

On Wednesday, I wrote about how the Mets game from Tuesday night felt like one of those turning point games that might be the driving force that pushes the team. I don't think this team is winning a World Series unless the bullpen starts to channel John Franco (that is to say, loading the bases is fine...giving up a bases-clearing triple is not). But it did look like they would at least overcome the September 2007 demons and get back into the playoffs.

Then on Wednesday night they came out and blew a four run lead and left the winning run on third base after he hit a leadoff triple in the ninth. In fact, they had men on third with no outs in each of the last three innings. Ouch. And of course the Brewers won on a walk-off homer to tie up the Wild Card race. Ouch! To say the least, I did not want to acknowledge that any of this happened, let alone write about sports yesterday, so I took a day to regroup.

And the funny thing is that now that the Mets and Brewers have both played one more game, and each won theirs in spectacular fashion, it is painfully clear that all this magic and heroics really do have nothing to do with what happens the next day. Sure they make folks feel more confident, and confidence is crucial, but so it hitting and pitching and fielding.

The Brewers had a come-from-behind win and won it on a walk-off grand slam in the 10th. Their second walk-off homer in two games. You don't think they feel like a team of destiny? The Mets had their amazing win on Tuesday and then last night had Ryan Church score on the strangest play at the plate in history to complete a three-run comeback. As a rainstorm that had already causes a game in DC to be cancelled water-logged Shea Stadium, they played on into the 9th when Carlos Beltran hit a game-winning shot off the glove of the first baseman that stopped dead in the soaked grass that the right fielder couldn't get to before the winning run scored. They earned a split with the best team in the League. You think they aren't feeling good about themselves? Does Destiny have a favorite?

This is all kinda like how fans pray for their teams, or athletes pray for themselves before events - like God is only listening to one side of the argument. Granted, when it is Boston College playing Miami, God clearly has a side. And He apparently does not like Arod either so whatever team he is on, God's on the other team. (greatest player ever perhaps...not a sniff of a World Series title).

There is only one way that the idea of Destiny intervening can be upheld this season. And that is that the Mets and Brewers both make the playoffs, meaning the Mets have to make up a game on Philly in the last three days. After all, the Rays are the AL East winners, the Yankees are playing golf, and the Twins are about to complete a miracle comeback to win the Central despite having traded away Johan Santana among others in the off season. So amazing things happen. Of course, God doesn't watch American League baseball, so you can't blame it on Him.

The funny thing in all of this is that as a fan, I have no idea what to do with myself from day to day. Wednesday night I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and yesterday I couldn't even watch ESPN because I hated seeing the ticker show that the Wild Card was tied. Now the Mets pick up one more win, and even though they are still in the exact same position - tied - I feel like they are sure to get it done. I guess the easiest way to calm myself on this rollercoaster is to take solace in the fact that I am not a USC fan.

40-Year Old Curse Rears Its Head At Shea

In Tuesday's Mets-Cubs game, the Mets trailed 2-0 in the 5th. A loss here and they could have found themselves out of the race in the East and tied for the wild card. David Murphy had just been hit by a pitch and the Mets' pitcher, Johan Santana came up to bat. Santana first showed bunt but wound up swinging away. He hit a slow roller right back to the pitcher, but the bat broke and the head of the bat went bounding back up the middle with the ball.

Needless to say, the pitcher couldn't field the ball and jumped out of the way of the bat and left the grounder for the short stop to field (still in time for a double play). That's where it got weird.

During the course of a season, fans (and likely many players) see so many moments that as they happen, seem to be potential turning points. Some turn up, some down. We often see unusual, bizarre, or big hero/goat plays as the ones that mean something significant. Objectively, you could pretty easily say that very few of them really has the impact that we subjectively imbue them with. In fact, a skeptic would argue that there is no such thing as momentum or turning points or luck or curses. But if the players think there is, then who know what kind of effects they could have?

For instance, look at last year's New York Giants. At this point, the story of the season is pretty well documented but why is it that that team seemingly had so many important turning points on the way to an historic championship? Their defense had been run through like a tissue on a train track for the first two-and-a-half games until suddenly they held on first and goal from their own one-yard line against the Redskins and it all turned around. Then when they sat on the brink of missing the playoffs, a hurricane seemingly hit Buffalo and they pulled off an ugly win on the road in week 16. Then they went against convention and played their starters in a loss to the Pats in week 17. Then improbable play after improbable play happened, capped off by perhaps the most improbable play in NFL history...and suddenly they were the champs.

But why did Destiny choose them? Was it karma punishing Tiki Barber for retiring early and bad-mouthing his former team and quarterback (who would wind up winning the Super Bowl MVP)? Was it that the team didn't fall apart and bicker after that bad start, but rather banded together and played for each other and not for themselves? Was it Jeremy Shockey and Mathias Kiwanuka going down, Plaxico Burress playing hurt and Barber not being there that forced so many others to go above and beyond? Was it a final reward to end Michael Strahan's career? Was it favorable scheduling and good old fashioned dumb luck?

If after about week 10, you had asked fans of all 32 teams if their team might be the team with the magic - the team who had the right turning points, I imagine you would get a yes from no less than 20 of them. No doubt right now there are Dolphin fans envisioning a Super Bowl win this year after last week's demolition of the Pats.

It is the same way with baseball, only the season is so long that any rational fan (yes, I realize that that is a contradiction in terms) would admit that a play like what happened to Johan Santana last night would mean nothing if it happened in June. But on September 23?

In the last month, I have seen about 20 turning points for the Mets. On September 1st, they were red hot and had opened their largest division lead of the season. This would avenge the collapse of last September. Suddenly the wheels fell off the already shaky bullpen and no lead was safe. They lost two in-a-row including the first half of a double header in New York against the Phillies. Their lead was gone. Then they won the night cap and crushed Washington twice. They they lost a series to the lowly Braves and scored 3 runs in two games against those same Nationals that they'd scored 23 runs in two games against the week before. Then Jerry Manuel joked that Johan Santana would throw 170 pitches so we wouldn't have to see the bullpen and everyone was laughing and the team won three in-a-row and everything was ok again. Then they couldn't beat Atlanta again and the Cubs came to town with the best record in the league and beat the Mets in New York with a scrub starter. They were 2.5 out in the East, and just a game up on the re-awakening Brewers for the Wild Card.

Then Johan Santana's bat broke and fended off not one, but two Cubs from picking up the ball. The bat actually danced along with the ball like some bounding black cat, scaring away the pitcher and then actually hitting the ball again and forcing the short stop to abandon hope of getting an out. Was it the ghost of the black cat that ran out onto the same field against these same Cubs that marked the turning point for those Mets 39 years ago?

If there is to be one last fall of Miracles at Shea, that play will be where the magic started. The savior traded for who would erase the memory of last September stepped onto the mound to erase the memory of last weekend. And he hit the ball that miraculously didn't result in a double play. And then he was the one who crossed the plate after David Wright's two-run single to tie the game. And then you just knew he wasn't going to let anyone else score against him that night.

And on a play where Johan Santana got two hits, something truly improbable may have happened. Maybe not. If the Giants are any example, it seems that one amazing, miraculous, lucky, strange play is not really enough to make any difference in the long run. It takes a run of them strung together either by divine intervention or an overwhelming confluence of effort, ability and timing. Maybe last night's play will spark a big run, but then aren't Brewers fans saying the same thing about Prince Fielder's walk-off homer? As they say: Momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher, so if Oliver Perez hits for the cycle tonight, maybe we will have a better indication of how things are going to go.

The Year Of The Upset Continues

Has there ever been a year when so many major sports championships were won by the team who had absolutely no chance to win? Today being the first day of fall, it seems fitting to celebrate it by marking the complete collapse of yet another massive favorite.

In the Super Bowl, the Giants were in no way expected to compete with the Patriots, who were to be crowned the greatest ever. The NCAA baseball title was won by the first unranked team in history (Fresno State). The NBA Finals were won by the team that didn't have his eminence, Kobe Bryant. There were numerous huge upsets in the Olympics (U.S. men's volleyball, U.S. women's soccer, U.S. 400 free relay [the Jason Lezak race]). The NCAA football title was won in a complete blowout by the lower seed (though this might not really qualify because Ohio State is an embarrassment to everything that was ever ranked #1 throughout history). The Tampa Bay Rays are about to clinch to A.L. East. So far in 2008, only the Red Wings didn't screw it up and lose their sure-thing title to the underdog.

And now we can add the American defeatof the Europeans in the Ryder Cup to the amazing 2008 Major Sports Upsets List. It would have been a lot more fun had the Euro's been really whiny about it like the last time we won (a decade ago). But it will be fun to see Nick Faldo get ripped in the British press for the next few week, and then in two years when this all starts up again, for playing his best three players last on Sunday so it was all over before their points counted, and for benching his best twosome on Saturday.

It is always cool to hear how much elite professional athletes still get a charge out of competing for U.S.A. Kobe Bryant has famously said the Olympics are infinitely more fulfilling than playing for a "brand or a region." Chipper Jones called the World Baseball Classic the greatest thrill of his professional career. Anthony Kim said he would not trade his Ryder Cup experience for $10,000,000. Of course, $10,000,000 is about a half of a year's pay for many professional athletes, but you get the point.

In the climate of all of these upsets, this has to make fans of the Mets, Dodgers, White Sox/Twins and Rays feel good about the next month of baseball...or so I am trying to convince myself. I just found out that not only does the WNBA still exist, but they are in the postseason. Who knew? In any case, some team with an awkward collective noun/abstract mascot will likely be upsetting another soon.