Post Season Love
I drove alone, through Illinois, through Wisconsin. I laughed as I listened to the Yankee game, almost drove off the road because I was smiling so much.
John Sterling said it was a sure thing. They couldn’t possibly blow it.
But as I pulled into the driveway, Lindor hit the grand slam. I sat in the car for a long time, pounding the steering wheel as rain pounded the car.
The next day I’d say the Yankees were getting swept. They rallied to win the series. A fucking roller coaster.
A fucking roller coaster — a sure thing to a walk off for the wrong team. Girardi got booed in New York and they won the series but he got fired anyway.
A fucking roller coaster — like what I almost said in the car on the way to Cooler, like all the times I stopped myself from texting you, like me and you in the backseat of my new car with the rain coming down and the Yankees in the hole.
We’re like a post season series, all beer and cheers and home runs, turned to doubt and strikeouts.
We’re that ball in the air, flying, feeling the reverberations of the swing echo throughout the stadium, hearing the collective gasp and premature roar of the crowd.
You and me, we’re out of here, hurling towards our world series walk off grand slam future, but we’re robbed. We come crashing to a halt, into hard leather over the outfield fence, fans screaming at what was taken from them.
And then it ends, doesn’t it? But not, after that game — another one and after that one another one and after that one another one. And it finally ends and the ring goes to someone else, but there are always the reruns, always the embittered fans talking over beers, always the one player who can’t quite move on.
He’ll be alright, he’s young, he’ll have a chance to win again. But he’ll never forget the first one. He’ll never get it back.
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