Oh, how I wish the words, once they get launched into cyber space, are gone forever. But there they are, glowing against my eyes, searing into my soul.
The Tigers had lost their last five regular season games, including the nightmarish three-game sweep at the hands of the gosh-awful Kansas City Royals. They blew the divisional title, letting it slip through their fingers at the very end, despite having a chokehold on it from the middle of May. And now they had been blasted out of Yankee Stadium in Game 1 of the ALDS, 8-4.
On October 4, a mere nine days ago, and in a fit of pessimism, I sat at my CRT and banged these words out for all of the Internet who cared to look, to see:
The Tigers are grossly overmatched in this series, and even if they had started at home against Oakland, I wouldn't give them a plugged nickel chance of surviving beyond this week. They are a team running on fumes, wheezing to the finish line, and by Friday it will all be over.
The rant wasn't over just yet. I was just getting started, actually.
The season is likely to end with eight consecutive defeats, and those horrid Wild Card t shirts will be sprinkled around the local retail outlets. Reduced price. It's funny that we kept posting magic numbers around town in September, when the magic had abandoned this team about a month before that.
No way did I think, obviously, that the Tigers would be here, in the ALCS, coming home with a 2-0 series lead. I didn't come to praise them on October 4th. I came to bury them.
Maybe this experience will prep the young Tigers for great things in the future. It's all that's left now, with the last rites about to be issued tonight in Game 2.
Oh, Lord of mercy!
I could have kept these invectives buried (where they belong), figuring that nobody would bother enough to dig them up and taunt me with them. But even I, glancing at that post's headline, "Tigers Overmatched Because The Magic Disappeared Long Ago," was curious as to how poisonous I had gotten.
Only about as much as cyanide, it turns out.
So I decided to come clean, on this day of Game 3 of the ALCS, and admit that those words should be printed from the computer, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and consumed by their author posthaste. And give me a side order of crow while you're at it.
Sometimes you write stuff and shudder at their re-reading. Mostly that happens weeks or months later. This vitriol was written not ten days ago. Shame on me for not believing in this team. I should have Jim Leyland preside over the chowing down of my words, with Marcus Thames there to make sure I don't try anything.
Now, in my defense, maybe I'm right more than I am wrong?
I must be; bloggers and such always have all the answers. It's amazing how smart you can be when you sit in front of a computer and bang away at the keys.
So give me a pass for my lunacy of October 4. I must have just been having a bad day.
2 comments:
that goes for me as well. I am just glad we didn't have to face the Royals or the Jays in the 1st round.
Funny, Barry! That's what I had flippantly mentioned as I attended Game 3 against the Yankees: "FINALLY, a team we can beat!"
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