Sunday, October 02, 2005

No, seriously, I really do hate everything

It's just not my day.

I was writing a post about the Indians collapse, but Blogger ate it when I tried to save it. And it was painful enough to write once, so I'm just going to revisit it in summary form, then pour myself a couple fingers of Jack, possibly as measured by my Rawlings.

The Indians sure looked good for a while, didn't they? But then Grady Sizemore lost that ball in the sun, Belliard grounded into that game-ending double play, Aaron Boone botched a sacrifice bunt and, oh, then we knew it was on. After avoiding the indignity of a sweep by the Devil Rays, there was that truly awful 13-inning game. The missed opportunities in that one were legion.

After that, the Indians were pretty much walking corpses. It was all too familiar. In fact, this sort of pain is so familiar that it's been about six or seven hours after the final out, and I haven't heard from a single Cleveland fan yet. Why would I? I can't imagine one thing we'd say to each other. We all know how this works.

I have, however, gotten plenty of calls and e-mails from other fans, all expressing sympathy. It's oddly touching, in a way. One friend noted that Sizemore's bungle might have been the worst thing to happen to the Indians in center field since Willie Mays made that catch.

It's certainly the worst thing to happen to the Indians in a long time. Sometime soon, this season might be viewed in a more upbeat light. But I'm guessing that in Cleveland right now, it's pretty hard to be optimistic about anything.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was actually at a funeral in Cleveland yesterday where the people in the main room weren't nearly as depressed as the people downstairs in the men's grill where I occasionally went to check the Indians score.

And, again, this was at a funeral!

Anonymous said...

we'll get 'em next year (hopefully minus blake and boone the clutch hitters and fielders we've grown to love)...

where have i heard that before?

Flop said...

Ah yes, the Killer B's _ Blake, Broussard and Boone. Guys whose OBPs all hover right around .300.

I will say it's possible to expect better seasons from all three next season, if only because it would be hard for them to be worse. I'm most optimistic about Boone, whose sucky start probably was related to that year he sat out. At least, we hope that's what it was.

Blake somehow managed 23 HRs while making outs nearly 70 percent of the time, so I'm hoping there's room for some improvement there, via regression to the mean.

As for Broussard, well, he and Ryan Garko can battle it out next spring.