Dame Mutability, and Other Fickle Baseball Spirits

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

- From "The Green Field of The Mind by Bart Giamatti

Go read the entire thing. Not only is it some of the best baseball writing I've ever read, it's some of the best writing , period. It took me outside my own Red Sox glee, to those generations of Sox fans for whom October 20 and 27 were always just normal days. It made me realize how sweet October baseball is for the select few who get there. This is why I like the Wild Card. Because it gives a few more fans the oppurtunity to stave off winter for a while, to glory in this wonderful game for a fortnight more. More baseball can never be a bad thing. And yet even then, you must enjoy it all with the knowledge that for you, it will end too. Whether in the ALDS, ALCS, or World Series, once they're done, the season is brutally, finally over, and you have to suffer through 6 dreary months without baseball. This is why we obsess over Truck Day, and trades , and free agent signings. Because they are the sparks in the pile of ashes, letting us know the phoenix is getting ready to be reborn into another season.

(Much thanks to A Red Sox Fan in Pinstripe Territory for pointing the article out. )