My basketball game ends around 8:30 PM on Tuesday nights. Always check the Yankee score before I get on the train. Then, when I get off at 207, I sneak a peak into the bar on Broadway, which is sure to have the game on. If I can’t catch the score there, I’ll definitely get a glimpse in the cigar shop, where five or six guys will be huddled around their old school TV set.
Last night the end of the season hit home for the first time. No score to check. Nothing interesting at the bar and the cigar smokers blowing smoke at each other instead of Derek Jeter.
The baseball season, a constant presence for such a lengthy part of the year, functions as an adhesive to life in the city for a lot of people. I’m one of them. And when it’s gone, especially in those years the Yanks don’t win it all, it’s an effort to move on without it.
I was watching parts of the MLB All-Stars exhibition series against the Chinese Taipei national team last night - Grandy w/the grand slam...and I wasn't surprised.
...but it just wasn't the same as a regular season game :::sigh:::
True, just not the same. And re-watching old games doesn't do it either. The season is all wrong for it. I wonder if fans in warmer parts of the country have the same feeling. Now, it feels like football weather, and beyond that, with no NBA, a long winter.
That cigar store was always handy for a game update while walking the dog.
[2] You may be on to something. When I lived in Cali (basically all of the '90s. I didn't get as nostalgic after the last out of the Serious. Something about the cold weather encroaching amplifies the loss of baseball.