I stopped watching the regular season shortly after the trade deadline when my Mets threw in the towel on the season. I love the game, but it’s harder to watch when the games are meaningless. The Mets did not have a good season obviously, and it was hard to watch the guys get traded away. I know it’s the business of baseball, and I understand and accept it. As Jerry Seinfeld once pointed out, we’re basically rooting for laundry. Whoever is wearing the shirt of our team is who we love. The same player may come back next season wearing some other shirt and we don’t love them anymore.
I did jump right back into the TV viewing once the postseason started. Playoff baseball is thrilling, with every at bat magnified. Hell, every pitch is magnified. The playoffs did not disappoint and I was very pleased to see the Dodgers and Astros make it to the finale, mainly because they were the best two teams in the game all year. You could argue the Indians should have represented the AL as they were 1 game better than the Astros, but you get my point.
The World Series thus far has produced exactly what you should expect when the two best teams in the game face off against each other. Close games with standout performances and epic levels of tension and drama. Last night’s Game 4 was a 0-0 tie in the 6th, and I adore a tie game in the late innings. The Dodgers didn’t take the lead until the 9th, and by doing so, tied the series at 2 games apiece. It really doesn’t get much better.
I anxiously await tonight’s Game 5 and I have to hand it to the Houston fans: that place rocks!
While I have no particular dog in this fight, I do have reasonable, logical reasons to support either team, but I can’t pick one. So I do what I always do in those situations: I let my brain decide who it’s rooting for. It happens at some point during the game when I suddenly cheer for a spectacular catch or a dramatic RBI hit. How my brain chose the team to get behind isn’t completely clear, but it became clear in Game 1 that I had chosen the Houston club. It would be awesome to get to a Game 7, but I won’t get ahead of myself.
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