Last night, in a sad admission that I'm willing to live in the past, I made this .gif:
It's the end of Game 4 of the NLCS, and it's probably my favorite clip from the entire postseason. I'm not sure who the guy is jumping like an idiot out of the dugout, but I'm going to guess Andres Torres. I love the brief jazz hands from Uribe that you can catch from the blimp's vantage point. I love the way the crowd is pulsing and jumping. I love the water cannons. I loved that game.
And after I watched the ninth inning of that game, which I recapped brilliantly using a pen name of "Jeff Sullivan" over at another site, I realized that I'm in full nostalgia mode. I'm ready to watch the DVDs again and talk about how the Giants scored four touchdowns in one game for Polk High. I'm ready to make a bet that the Giants could throw a football over those mountains.
For the first time during the 2011 postseason, I'm feeling melancholy. I was realistic about the Giants' chances of repeating -- it takes a heckuva lot to go right for even a great team to make it to the World Series -- so I wasn't exactly stunned that there was another postseason, and we weren't invited. But it didn't hit home until last night, with my baseball brain in full World Series mode. I'm a little jealous of the Rangers.
Not that jealous, of course. For obvious reasons.
The regular season is such a grind -- 162 games just to get to the short playoff series, where a team is likely to screw it up and have to start all over again four months later. Even if the Giants get a healthy Posey back, get a rebound year from Huff, glue Freddy Sanchez's shoulder together, etc ..., there's still a great chance that the year will end in disappointment, just like it will for 28 other teams.
So I'm wistfully looking at World Series news today, knowing that it might not happen again for the Giants for a long, long, long time. It could happen next year. It could happen 50 years from now. It's definitely not happening now, though, and I'm resigned to caring a little too much, pining for the fjords of playoff fun. It's just a little pathetic, and I'm sorry.
I will say, though, it beats the absolute hell out of being nostalgic for David Bell scoring on a Kenny Lofton hit.