Last year Cliff Lee shut us down. This year the Rays shut themselves down.

Still, I give Texas credit where credit is due. Their bats are dangerous, and their pitching is effective. If Detroit cannot dispatch the Hated Yankees, the Rangers are my team.

Meanwhile, I won’t be all gloom and doom. I am still proud of my guys. They gave me what I always have said I wanted: a winning season. Contrary to what many predicted at the conclusion of last season, the Rays still made the playoffs, and did it without Crawford, Soriano, Benoit, Garza, and others. They demonstrated an astonishing ability to replace big names with nobodies who play hard for much, much less money. Johnny Damon plays with an energy and attitude I love to watch. And this kid Moore who won big last Friday is extremely promising.

Joe Maddon is a remarkable manager. He did what few expected he could do, by taking a team with few recognizable stars, and finishing second in baseball’s toughest division, knocking out a team everyone assumed would win the World Series this year. But I am sorry he couldn’t capitalize on the big opportunity his team had in the post-season. If the Rays could have won the pennant, he’d be a shoo-in for manager of the year. As it is, I fear the Rays’ second-October-in-a-row loss will come to be seen as inevitable, as though the team didn’t belong in the first place. It’s bad enough that the Rays don’t get the respect they deserve considering their do-more-with-less situation – I don’t want to hear people say, “that’s what we expected”. The talking heads on ESPN, MLB-TV, and elsewhere, in a fawning love for New York and Boston that borders on obsequiousness, display demonstrable lack of enthusiasm for the Rays. It would have been nice to rub it in their faces.

So, farewell 2011 baseball. I will eagerly await your 2012 return.

The Yankees hadn’t lost a 7-0 lead in the eighth inning or later since 1953, and that’s what happened. The Red Sox were undefeated this year when holding leads after the eighth inning, yet they lost. There were four games involving the wild-card races Wednesday, and in three of those, a team came to within one out of victory, and lost. At 11:40 p.m., the Atlanta Braves matched the greatest September collapse in history, and 25 minutes later, the Red Sox set a new standard for September collapses. And Evan Longoria’s game-winning homer was merely the second in history that propelled a team into the playoffs, on the last day of the season; the other belongs to Bobby Thomson.

Olney adds that someday, “somebody will write a book on baseball’s greatest day ever”.

[Addendum: Dave Sheinin at the Washington Post writes, ""What that was, quite simply, was the best day of regular season baseball the game has ever seen".]

Meanwhile, MLB.com has a convenient timeline in text and video format, chronicling what went down last night. A Hollywood screenwriter could not have invented a more dramatic scenario.

And, best of all, at SI.com, Tom Verducci begins his column with this:

Everything had to fall into place tonight. The Red Sox had been collapsing all month. The Rays had been improving. The last three games of the season would find the battle for the Wild Card take place between two very different teams, against two very different teams: Boston would get to play against the last-place Orioles; the Rays against the first-place Yankees. Two days ago, when it appeared the season would come down to this do-or-die scenario, I dubbed today “Baseballmageddon”. But I couldn’t have imagined this ending this way. I am not capable of writing articulately right now.

The Rays and Red Sox entered their respective games tonight absolutely tied. If both won, or if both lost, a tie-breaker game would be required tomorrow. If Boston won, the Rays were done, and vice versa. So when the Rays found themselves down tonight 7-0 in the eighth inning tonight, I told my friend Anthony it was over. In fact, I left his house convinced my baseball watching was done until next year. When he texted me ten minutes later to say the Rays had just scored six runs, I thought he was pulling my leg. I turned the game on in the car to hear that Orioles fans in Baltimore were chanting, “Let’s go Rays!” When the Rays tied the game I was stunned. But as the game dragged on and on, and reports from Baltimore looked grim, I began to lose hope. I went to bed, listening on the radio while the Rays batted, then turning it off while the Yankees batted. Then, out of nowhere, the radio announced Baltimore had stunned Boston in the bottom of the ninth at Camden Yards, which meant, at the worst, the Rays would get another shot if the game against New York didn’t work out. Then, as I listened in near panic, Evan Longoria hit the game-winning home run. I jumped from bed, letting out a scream that terrified my beloved wife. I still can hardly believe it. Everything had to work out just so, and it did.

I have watched and listened to baseball my entire life. I can say with certainty, I have never experienced a day of baseball like this. People will talk about this forever.

How will I sleep?

As I wrote at the time, the frantic scramble fans undertake these days for baseballs has reached a dangerous extreme. I felt certain that things would get worse until someone actually died. I am sorry to report that that has now happened.

Last night at Rangers Ballpark (just an unfortunate coincidence; it could have been anywhere), a fan reaching for a ball fell to his death from the bleachers above the bullpen. This story has an extra layer of tragedy, though, since this fan wasn’t reaching for a foul ball or a home run, but for a ball tossed to him by a generous player. That is something that often happens at games, and even I have been the surprised recipient of such free souvenirs (one is pictured here). But even that is a dangerous practice. My heart aches for the poor young son who watched his father’s fall, and for whom the game of baseball will never be the same.

But, please, let this be a wake-up call to professional baseball. The lust for free balls has become deadly. If parks have to install protective barriers above the fences and along railings to keep fans from reaching too far, so be it. But, as I said before, things cannot go on like this; something will happen.

“It turns out”, writes Lang,

that classical music fans do a lot of the same remembering and measuring as baseball fans. Both baseball and classical music have a great sense of history, a tremendous respect for the past, and a slew of nerdy people like me who want to know all the details. Both are made of people who argue passionately with each other about who was the greatest. We handicap our favorite composers and performers, we buy 20 recordings of the same piece just to be able to argue about interpretations. We want to know as much about where we have been as we can.

The strange thing is that music fans and baseball fans remember the past with very different results; appreciation of the past helps baseball fans enjoy the game in front of them, while sometimes classical music’s illustrious past can keep us from enjoying what is happening right now. Can it be that loving what we have heard before has the potential to make us love what we are hearing now just a little less?

What Lang really argues, then, is that classical music fans, unlike baseball fans, are largely unwilling to go have new experiences—to hear new music—while baseball fans, by and large, embrace the new with the old. Thus, in St. Louis, Albert Pujolz stands side-by-side heroes like Ozzie Smith, Stan Musial, and Rogers Hornsby.

Lang’s logic fails, I am afraid. That is, he has incorrectly framed his analogy. When concertgoers yawn or boo their way through music by new composers, their actions do not correspond to baseball fans rejecting new players or teams. Nor does appreciation of new talent in baseball contrast with rejection of new composers in music. Dyed-in-the-wool fans of classical music might indeed believe that nobody can compare with Toscanini and Furtwängler, Callas and Björling. But those are subjective assesments. Statistics can tell us whether Roy Halladay is better than Walter Johnson based on a variety of criteria, and baseball fans will still argue about it.  The proper analogy is this: concerts and baseball games are the performances; baseball players and musicians are the performers; and baseball itself and music itself are the fundimental elements.

Baseball is essentially the same game it was a hundred years ago. The game your great grandfather watched at Forbes Field was the same one played at Three Rivers Stadium that I watched on television as a child, and it is the same one played at PNC Park today. The stadiums are different, and some say less charming; the uniforms are different, and some say less distinctive; the players are different, and some say less honest; but the game of baseball is the same, and it is the game itself that forms an unbroken line stretching from the present day to the distant past: a national covenant made generations ago, an unbreakable bond with our ancestors, and a legacy that we bequeath to our sons and grandsons.

Classical music today is not the same as it once was. Concertgoers today don’t watch the same “game” they used to. C. Ghallager, recognizing the incongruity in Lang’s argument, puts it far better than I ever could:

Imagine going to baseball games where all the rules changed, to the point where sometimes there were 4 inning games, other times pitchers would throw a square object back and forth to hot dog vendors, there were often no bats or batters, players stood on their heads in the outfield according to their horoscopes, and sometimes there were no players or game at all, just a groundskeeper running from home to first base, over and over and over. Fans would need to be subjected to reams of sports writers’ analysis “explaining” what was and wasn’t happening in complex new terms of basism, playality, and batterificence, with mathematical equations demonstrating why the brand of mustard used at the ballpark was intrinsic to the performance. Oh yeah, and sports critics would deride anyone who actually took the field with a ball and glove as being “derivative.”

As one who loves both baseball and music (including much that would be described as “modern” music), I find Gallagher’s analogy apt.

Friday night I went to another baseball game at UF.  This year the Athletic Association has made an effort to increase student involvement and attendence at baseball games with assorted “Bleacher Creatures” promotions.  These are fun giveaways that make the students feel a little more important.  This stands in stark contrast to the football games, where it is abundantly clear that the alumni matter far more than the students.  The alumni sit in the shade while the students sit in the blazing sun; the marching band faces the alumni at halftime, and so do the referrees during the game.  While there is a healthy contingent of UF alumni at the baseball games, and a good mix of townies, as well, the students don’t get short shrift.  There is no designated “student section”.  Indeed, while students get free general admission tickets, those seats can be found all around the ballpark: above first base, along the entire third base line, and everywhere above Dizney Plaza and the outfield.  Meanwhile, students who sign up online to be part of the “Bleacher Creatures” get free t-shirts, and students (and it can only be students) who get chosen to be “Captain K” also get a free t-shirt for their efforts.

This season, the University has posted about baseball promotions on Facebook.  Last night I finally won one of these promotions.  Late in the game the public address announcer called my name, and I made my way up to the press box to claim my prize, an enormous “Bleacher Creatures” banner.  Although I was glad to win the prize, I was even more excited by the press box itself.  First, it has the most amazing view.  The entire field is visible, and beyond it, the tall pine trees and dormitories.  All around the room are men with laptop computers, either typing newspaper columns or looking up stats.  The PA announcer has a desk, and the radio folks have their own booth.  Meanwhile, many other guys stand around the back, enjoying a variety of refreshments.  The Dazzlers were hanging out up there, too.  Everyone was nice to me, and several people introduced themselves to me.  I had a couple minutes to hang out while a fellow went and retrieved my prize, and I spoke to a guy who admitted that he had a pretty sweet job.  The only bad part, he admitted, is that they cannot cheer while they are up there.

People sitting near me asked about my prize, and even random students who saw me after the game asked what I won.  Anthony snapped a photo of me with the big “Bleacher Creatures” banner in left field.

Today I was reading the UniWatch Blog, one of my favorite internet destinations (for reasons I will explain in the future), and I came upon a story that surprised me.  It was about the same fellow I saw interviewed on television years back.  At this point he’s caught thousands of balls, but, to his credit, he has parlayed his hobby into a fine charitable enterprise benefiting underprivileged youth.  He recently caught a home run ball at Citi Field that had been hit by a young Mets player.  It was that player’s first Major League home run.  On this fellow’s blog, he tells a great story of how he gave the ball to the player, who gave him an unexpected reward for the gesture.  The tale is long and somewhat boastful, but well worth reading.

Huzzah, sport!

At last night’s Florida baseball game, I stood on the deck of Dizney Plaza [at the left on the picture below] overlooking left field and basked in the cool breeze blowing across the diamond.  The temperature was precisely what one would choose if somehow, as with a giant magical thermostat, he could select a permanent outside temperature that would never change.

The afternoon before I had met up with our friend Laura who had never been to a UF baseball game, but was excited to have the chance.  We arrived for the five o’clock game perhaps fifteen minutes early, and took our seats in my normal spot, halfway between third base and the left field fence.  Shortly thereafter we were approached by one of the athletic department staff who asked if we’d like to volunteer to be “Captain K”.  Captain K is the person or persons who sits in the bleachers above the left field wall and hangs up giant posterboards printed with the letter K, signifying a strike out thrown by a UF pitcher.  I had never done it before, and was a bit hesitant, only because I’d be committing to paying perfect attention.  McKethan Stadium does not have a billboard-sized screen offering repeat glimpses of important plays.  Moreover, Captain K is expected to distinguish between strikeouts in which the batter was caught looking or went down swinging.  Nevertheless, Laura and I fulfilled our duty admirably, tallying eight strikeouts during the amazingly brief two hour game.  For our trouble we received a “Captain K” t-shirt and a $25 gift card to the Gator Sports Shop.  I now have a tinge of regret that I didn’t trade Laura for the cool shirt, since it isn’t every day that one gets to be Captain K.

UPDATE: Laura’s Captain K t-shirt was too big for her so she let me have it!  Huzzah!

Miriam and I met up for dinner on campus at five o’clock.  She’s not that into baseball, but our date was lovely.

Quite like last season when I left the station each evening and headed to the ballpark, Friday night I dropped of my backpack at work (since I cannot bring it into McKethan Stadium), and headed over to the park.  The same guy who scanned tickets last season was there again at the south gate.  I flashed my ID and went inside.  It felt great to be back.  Up at Dizney Plaza they were distributing t-shirts to the registered Bleacher Creatures.  I don’t generally sit in the outfield stands with the genuine Bleacher Creatures, but I admire them.  I met up with my friend and fellow History grad-student, Anthony.  He’s a lifelong baseball fan, too.

We enjoyed a terrific, if lopsided game.  The stands were full: announced attendance was over 5,100.  And the weather was absolutely perfect, with clear skies, a nearly full moon, and temperatures in the low 70s.

I could not have been happier to be back.