Cautiously Optimistic

It's been a while since I blogged about baseball, but that's because being a Phillies fan is like having a bad boyfriend: they're unpredictable sometimes, and they forget to make you happy, and your parents aren't always real crazy about them, and they're tattooed and hotheaded and not always really reliable, and sometimes they go away for your birthday and they don't bring you anything home except a losing streak, and they give you a hard time, and they do stupid shit that even they know they're not supposed to, but even through all that, you love them and you think they love you, and anyway they always manage to somehow come through in the clutch, and maybe one of these days they'll come home with a ring.

I mean, I could go on and on about all the good and the bad and the wacky and the zany and the heartbreaking and heart-stopping things that the Phillies have done this season, but right now, I just want to ... relax a little bit. Catch my breath. It gets exhausting while you're waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I need to settle down and get my bearings. I've been preparing for the worst while hoping for the best since April, and it's made me a little schizo. So I hope you understand that I am ecstatic, and also overwhelmed. An entire city is expecting 25 years of shattered hopes to be erased by a bunch of scrappy guys in baseball uniforms. And so is a little girl. That's a lot of pressure.

Update, from Beer*Leaguer: 'Here it is, the World Series of Blog Entries, the opportunity to swing for the fences instead of sac bunting with a line like “savor the moment.” With hands trembling, a simple “thank you” is all I wish I needed to write. It’s something that hasn’t been ... uttered in 15 years. Thank you, Phillies, for giving us this, with this being the part too wonderful for words, the hard part, the part I knew I must identify when Carlos Ruiz caught the foul pop that brought us to this. To me, this is an escape from past, a reminder that life is right under my nose. How strange it is to be in this place, where all the baggage, accumulated from fandom, and from life, are stripped away until we're left with the feeling of pure joy, and reminds us of the very moment that got us started down this road in the first place. A father, a man of 30, watches Schmitty, a man of 30, in his chair, while his young boy fondles baseball cards on the floor. Last night, that boy, now 30, sat in a chair of his own. Maybe that's why “savor the moment” is used so often, because it’s the very best lesson of all." (Emphasis mine.)

FURTHER UPDATE! Apparently Barack Obama has announced that he is rooting for the Phillies for this series!