Dodger Blue

"Crack," goes the bat for Casey has not struck out. Not this time. A Dodger fan would not be so lucky. It's been 20 years since the team barreled through the playoffs and caused all 27 A's fans to feel the same way that I do now. This time Matt Stairs is at the plate. He's barely played throughout the series. Like Kirk Gibson before, a closer is on the mound. Stairs has got to be overmatched. There's no way he could catch up to a Broxton fastball. Even if he did, he couldn't get all of it...and then, of course, he does. Only in baseball can six months of ups turn so quickly into six more of down. In baseball, the best team in the league tends to lose about 62 times a year so in a short series anything can happen. It's the kind of game that leads one to believe, and belief is the most painful of all mistresses. It leads to hope and hope leads to the most painful kind of defeat. It's the type of loss you can't see coming. It's like getting dumped unexpectedly, and your team still losing after having a two run lead in the eighth inning. All you can think is, "when did this morph from they to we?"

You remember the reason you like the game; it's the unpredictability that makes it worth watching. The momentum changing like the wind is why you watch night after night throughout the season. Waiting for this moment is why you watch through the five to three games. It's why you watch a team win ninety times and lose seventy two times. You wait for this moment because one time in your life something beautiful might happen, just not this time. This time, defeat comes from the jaws of victory.

This is why, at first, you don't notice what happens. You can't. At first, you see the ball hit and for a second everything slows down. You're screaming inwardly. You want to do so outwardly, but nothing will come out. Then everything speeds up faster than before and you realize Matt Stairs--or as I call him, Matt "Fucking" Stairs--is on second and he's rounding the bases. He's probably the happiest he's ever been on a baseball field, but I can't be bothered by his joy because my vision is clouded by hatred of fastballs over the plate and months of cheering that now mean nothing. It's just a game. A game I'm not even playing. A game I don't have any control over, but it's so much more. Living in San Francisco, my only connection to that smog filled place I called home is the baseball team. The team whose season I just saw end when Matt "Fucking" Stairs hit his first career postseason homerun. It's the kind of things dreams are made of, and only now do I realize that it's also the stuff of nightmares.

The game is lost, but every Dodger fan knows there's still a tomorrow.

What's that? Hope is back. You told yourself you wouldn't let it return, but there it is. Hope is rearing it's ugly head. It's becoming belief. I believe if this team can win on Wednesday and then steal Game six in Philly then maybe game seven will just work itself out, but I can't see that far ahead right now. Right now, Matt Stairs is still circling the bases. An entire season is flashing before my eyes as if my life were in danger and that baseball Stairs hit into the ether is a bullet headed for my still beating heart. That's what it's like to be a Dodger fan right now. Hopefully, if there isn't a game to be played after Wednesday I'll bleed Dodger Blue.

Update: Phucking Phillies