Monday, October 1, 2012

The Worst Series Of The Season

The Mets could sweep this series from the Marlins.  They could score over ten runs in every game.  They could hit home runs in every inning.  Yet I would still despise its existence.  No matter what happens in these games the season will end once they end.  Once the final out of Wednesday's game is made the season is over.

This season shouldn't be ending.  The Mets should have more time to recapture the magic of the first half.  There should be more games to relive Johan Santana's no-hitter and R.A. Dickey's perpetual dominance.  Tomorrow is R.A. Dickey's last start of the season.  The last start of a season nobody wants to see end.  He will take his 20 wins and try to add one more.  After tomorrow his quest for the Cy Young award will be over, there will simply be nothing he can do to change his fate.

The last series of the season brings a helpless feeling to my fandom.  I want to keep rooting deep into October.  There is just nothing to root for.  Fans ten other teams will get to watch at least one more game.  They will have their pre-game and postgame shows with their favorite broadcasters.  But for Mets fans there won't be any more Gary, Keith, Ron, and Kevin until the first episodes of Mets Hot Stove in the dead of winter.

On Thursday night I'll probably be a little lost.  I'll turn on SNY at 6:30 looking for Chris Carlin and Bobby Ojeda.  Instead I'll see Jets highlights or another sign of a night without a game.  But I'll move past that because Thursday is a common off day, the Mets will just be traveling.  So it won't be until Friday when I fall apart.  When I get off the train and into the car and there is no Mets game to put on the radio, and no game on TV when I get home.

This series stinks because it is the last series of a once-spectacular season from David Wright.  It is the last series of Ruben Tejada's emergence as a more-than-reliable shortstop.  It is the last series Ike Davis has to bolster much improved second half statistics.

No matter how poorly the Mets do I always dread the last series of the season.  The series that has nothing after it on SNY's pocket schedule.  I dread it because I know once this abismal season is gone I'm going to miss all the little things I enjoyed.

Let's Go Mets!

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