Every time the Giants have been down by more than, oh, seven runs in a game, folks start thinking how the team could come back. Not just thinking about it, but actively plotting just how it can happen. I know I do. I start thinking, well, if these three players can get on, and that player can get a home run, and if.... And it never works. Of course, it doesn’t. It’s a one-in-a-thousand kind of shot, but it keeps a lot of us interested just enough to continue watching a terrible game.
This kind of game was almost the reward you expect every decade or three. If you quit on this one early, it’s not like you wouldn’t have enjoyed a win as much. But the people who watched every pitch, every inning of this game would have been stupid enough to stick around for similar games for the next few decades if the Giants had won. Heck, they still will be. Kids will become fathers and mothers, fathers and mothers will become grandfathers and grandmothers. Like sands in the hourglass, so are the days of their lives. They’ll waste hours on pointless, impossible games. They’ll be disappointed almost every time. Almost every time.
Pretty much every time. Yeah, every time.
Two camps for this game:
a. The camp that thinks this was soul-rattling. This is a loss that saps the energy from a team. It was unbearable to climb up such a ridiculous peak, only to trip when planting the flag. Gah.
b. The camp that can’t believe the Giants came back at all. This is a loss, sure, but the kind of loss a team can be proud of. It was inspiring to come back, even if a brutal ninth-inning error gave the Reds a win, and the Giants should go into the rest of the season with a reserve of confidence they didn’t know existed.
Choose your camp wisely. This is the kind of thing that will tear Giants fans apart. Brother against brother. People you thought you knew betraying you.
So I'd like to point out that all of the people in Camp A are weenies. C’mon. That was a miserable ending, but an inspiring game. It was five hours of torture, but danged if it wasn’t one of the more exciting games I’ve watched in my life. The Giants didn’t win. Maybe they’ll miss the playoffs by a game, and someone will grumble about this one as a shoulda-won. I can think of about fifty shoulda-wons that I’ll lament before this one. They had no business being in this game. They came back with homers and two-out hits. They almost did it, dang it. They came so close.
Would have been a lot cooler if they had won, though. A lot cooler
Dammit.
Alright, maybe the people in Camp B will have free coffee and pie at their gatherings. Maybe I shouldn’t choose so soon.
I’m a gonna take a nap now.