Thursday BP, 10/24/18

Fall is here. Crisp, cold mornings. The smell of the chill in the air and the sight of the changing leaves all around. A reminder that the holidays are coming, and with them the end of another year.

These are things that I have, over the course of most of this decade, equated with playoff excitement; seeing as how every other year except for this one, the Giants were in the playoffs.

I guess that era is over now, which is fine. We were blessed with an abundance of success and I knew it couldn’t last forever.

That said, I don’t know if it is because of the teams involved over the last two seasons or the changes the world has faced in that two years’ time, but I just can’t find it in me to get excited about the World Series anymore. Not right now.

Last year was interesting for the chaos. And sure, this year should be interesting for the chance to get to watch the Dodgers lose the World Series twice in two years (oh, the schadenfreude). I enjoy Clayton Kershaw continuing to struggle in the playoffs (though I am well aware that it doesn’t make him any less of a generational talent). And if they lose, I will enjoy that.

But it also feels like the Dodgers winning, maybe even in an unexpected and epic way, is fitting with the general mood over the last two years and seasons. The time of getting nice things feels over, for now.

In my view, two things ended in 2016: a feeling of normalcy and relative calmness in the world, and the Giants’ run as a playoff contending team (or even being a competent team capable of not embarrassing themselves).

And just like with the year that is ending, we will get through this time and can only hope that the next ones (both years and seasons) will be better.