The Phillies Demise: On an Almost Perfect Autumn Night for Baseball

 

I waited all season for last night’s game. It was a game that was almost perfect. I know Phillies fans are disappointed, but baseball is a game of slightness.  The baseball gods decreed that this was not the time for this gargantuan pitching staff and mammoth batting power to lift the level of the game to Olympian status.

But it was almost perfect, and if any Phillies game had a more unsatisfied ending, for the players and fans, it happened on an almost perfect Autumn night.

Baseball has as many visages as Vishnu. It is a complex game of pressured nuances in a simple format of pastoral delight. Last night, it was my game. It had the pitching that was impressive. It had the pressure of time being counted down. It had the hopeful swings of all might that would that would shake faiths.

It had the tragic ending of Goliath falling while Israelites jumped in unreal victory. It was nothing short of what I expect in baseball: dramatic tragedy played on the stage.

The pitching was stellar. Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter displayed their skills of control and attack in making batters and runners disappear. Roy Halladay’s bravado torn open in the first and his unwillingness to concede in the eighth. Carpenter’s smile in the ninth. It had shortstop Rafael Furcal’s diving play erasing certain hope.

It had Chase Utley running freely only to be magically slung out with a rock. It had a shot off the pitcher that unluckily danced to Nick Punto. It had long drive off the bat of Raul Ibanez with two men on that floated high in the air with every hope of reclamation falling just short of the fence. It had a pitch that Chase Utley crushed to a foot away from ninth-inning ecstasy.

Finally, it had Ryan Howard swinging for the fences at 3-0 because walks do not create legends and his crippling collapse at the end. The drama of 27 outs played out in nine scenes that ended the immortal run of a divine season, revealing only the pain and tears of human actors.

The game was a palpable drama of unreality created by bad luck, a quick strike, and ennui of frustrated batmen who could find no more holes for dreams. The team that would do anything to win, did. The team that could win everything, lost.

There is nothing but unrest until the smells of Spring return and our bats are exhumed from a premature slumber. The ballpark stands silent; there are no more actors on the stage. We want one more inning of Summer. We are left with an adage: no matter how hard you swing, gravity will bring all human endeavors back to earth.

Howard’s Achilles’ tendon will heal, but he will always be Achilles, as men are who swing so hard. It is not easy to accept Winter’s coming especially when Fall was cut so short and the harvest is enough to survive and hope for next year, but not abundant joy like we had hoped. But we are human and understand loss.

On an almost perfect Autumn night, we learned that endings are always tragic and Winter is when our Gods come crashing down to earth revealing they were nothing more than humans after all.

Now we wait for Spring.          

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