Bi-coastal Misery

I still remember the day and the feeling. A cold Sunday night around midnight on Flushing Bay about 20 years ago last week. The Mets and Dwight Gooden closing in on a NLCS victory over the Dodgers in Game 4. In the ninth inning, I look down at my scorebook and Gooden's pitch count. It felt like it was over 300, but it was probably closer to 110 or 120. That year's trusted Met closer, Randy Myers, was warming up in the bullpen. I circled it with emphasis on the page, almost breaking the pen point. When I looked at that scorebook several years later, I could still hear myself screaming.

"TAKE HIM OUT!!!! TAKE HIM OUT!!!!"

Met manager Davey Johnson did not and left himself open to eternal secondguessing. A home run by catcher Mike Scioscia landed someplace on the World's Fair unisphere and a visit to the World Series was derailed forever. If Davey makes a different move, the Mets probably win and go to the 1988 World Series. And then gimpy Kirk Gibson never happens in Dodger lore.

To this date, sitting in fandom on the other coast, I watch all the Dodger 1988 highlights and I can certainly enjoy Gibson's WS Game 1 homerun and smile. But, still, whenever they show Scioscia's home run, I feel horrible all over again. Just like when that big kid in sixth grade gym class flung that dodge ball at those of my body parts located south of my navel and north of my knees.

Ouch!

Last night, in another Game 4 in another NLCS, there was that dodge ball all over again.

OUCH!!!!

The Dodgers went down to defeat and now suffer a 3-1 deficiency to the Philadelphia Phillies, who exude about as much class as the Luftwaffe. But, for me, it was all amazingly repetitive and equally as crushing. Another non-pitching change that explodes like a suicide bomb driven into the Stadium Club. And a home run to right field that also might have landed somewhere near the World's Fair unisphere in Queens. Hit by some stiff who now shares the same middle name that Boston Red Sox fans bestowed upon the Yankees' Bucky Dent in 1978.

Matt Fucking Stairs.

The hand wringing can begin. Manager Joe Torre found himself a lefthander and a Mariano Rivera short. Going with starter Derek Lowe one inning too long in Game One, Joe went with Derek Lowe one inning too short in Game Four. You can't win. He played the cards dealt to him, but it's certainly reasonable to expect players to perform as they have all year. But he can take the scrutiny especially after years of being mentally abused by George Steinbrenner. Nevertheless, when you look at last night's game, you marvel at the wonderment of October baseball. The only thing that can make this classic contest an even better game is if your team is the winner. It's what makes postseason baseball great. Extreme jubilation and sheer deep and dark depression. Both experienced by the human body in the short space of just 24 hours.

Regardless of the pain that will get just a little worse in a few days, I will still be there for Game 5. Wearing my Billingsley shirt and hoping to guide the young righthander away from an alarmingly abrupt shakiness. There will be verbal bricks thrown at Phillies ace Cole Hamels who has mistakenly likened the 2008 Dodger fan to a deal-making, third-inning-arriving, wheatgrass-drinking, pot-smoking stereotype that was much funnier as a Johnny Carson joke in 1978. Besides, I want to be there for perhaps the last Dodger home game of the season and say "have a nice offseason" to all the season ticket holders around me. And, the winter is coming and I do need a new sweatshirt from the clubhouse store.

The grief processing has begun for me. To me, I liken this young Dodger team to the New York Mets of 1985. That bunch lost the division title to the St. Louis Cardinals on the next to last day of the season. I still remember that back breaker of a season, but, in hindsight, they needed to learn to lose in 1985 so they could experience how to win it all in 1986. And a similar youthful core will still be intact on Stadium Way in Los Angeles. Loney, Kemp, Ethier, Billingsley, Kershaw, McDonald, Martin. Sure, they'll need a few well-chosen veterans mixed in. Jeff Kent, of course, will be working on his motor bikes fulltime. Nomar Garciaparra will be seeking an endorsement deal with a pharmaceutical company that specializes in muscle relaxers. And Manny will be wherever his goofiness and his wallet wants him to be. But, the nucleus of a winning atom has formed.

So, in the pitch blackness of Game 4, there is brightness right around the corner. And who knows? I could be looking at this entry next week in retrospect and embarrassment while simultaneously making my Chavez Ravine driving plans for 2008 World Series Game 3. Let's face it, Wednesday's NLCS Game 5 is twenty years to the day that Kirk Gibson crawled around the bases. Maybe history and fate relish a tasty coincidence. And that would be some delicious second guessing I would savor.

Yet, now. Today. There is a sensation that is as real this year as it was in 1988 at Shea Stadium.

OUCH!!!

Dinner last night: Italian sausage sandwich at the Dodger game.