Notes From the Underground

The life of a fan whose team is out of the money is sometimes pretty hard to bear. Sitting on the couch wondering what might have been while you stare bleary-eyed at out of towners all enjoying their minutes in the sun. Sometimes though, it’s actually not so bad. Last night was one of those times where I sort of felt safe in the confines of my living room watching games that don’t matter to me except to provide fodder for my blogging imagination. Last night, watching Matt Holliday drop that fly ball in left, I thanked the God of all that is holy that I wasn’t a Cardinal fan and that he wasn’t MY left fielder and that I didn’t just go down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the NLDS on a misplayed 3rd out that would have ended the game. Because if that was Fernando Tatis out there for the Mets dropping the 3rd out with K-Rod on the mound about to close out a beautifully pitched game by Johan Santana, I wouldn’t have come to work today. No, I’m pretty sure I’d be holed up in a bar on the Upper East Side cursing the sunlight right about now.

I wonder if Cardinal fans are as crazy as me, though. Something tells me they’re not. I know that they’re The Most Knowledgeable Fans In The Game (TM) and all that, and players just love getting dealt there so they can chat with these fans over the railing between innings about the suicide squeeze, wood bats and the works of Tom Robbins, but I have an inkling that fans all over Missouri got up today and went to work like normal people. Pissed, to be sure, but dignified. Just thankful to be here. Fully expecting to be back again if not next year, then soon thereafter. Because that’s what midwestern fans are like. Patient.

NL East fans just aren’t like that. Not in our DNA. We’re about triumph and tragedy. Highs and lows. Delight in the misfortune of others and unrepentant gloating at even the most routine of triumphs. Phillies fans booed Mike Schmidt, or so the story goes. As well as Santa Claus himself.

So watching last night as Ryan Franklin followed up Holliday’s error by walking Casey Blake, allowing an RBI single by Ronnie Belliard, throwing one past his catcher allowing the runners to advance, walking Russell Martin and finally giving up the game-winning run on a hit by the shell of a player that used to be known as Mark Loretta….I sat back and smiled. This didn’t happen to me this year. It may happen next year. In fact, I’m certain it will. Likely not in the post-season because the Mets aren’t making the post-season next year, but at some other time when I least expect it, they’ll pull the football away from me as I run up to kick it like Lucy did to Charlie Brown all those times in those Peanuts cartoons. But not this year. This year, it’s the Cardinal fans who get to eat the shit sandwich, and I tell you what, I don’t feel so bad about it.

That’s it from the underground today. Tonight I guess I’ll watch the Yanks and pray for a rain delay to screw up Burnett’s mechanics or something. I’m grasping at straws, I know it. This winter’s going to be very long indeed.