Winding down to the end
It was a hot and muggy night. The kind of night where you want to be firmly ensconced in your favourite recliner, in your highly air-conditioned home, lazily grasping a pint of cold beer in one hand, the other manipulating the remote, firmly stationed in front of your television, watching your favourite show or sports team, wondering what kind of fool would be crazy enough to go out in this type of weather and perform any type of strenuous physical activity…oh, wait…that’s us. Never mind. Just another beauty night for baseball.
One more game of the regular season left (perhaps) and as we ease out of the summer months and reluctantly face the days of September, we not only find ourselves fighting each other for a win, but we also begin to fight with the oncoming darkness. As the earth tilts further to the north and the sun more quickly descends from its skyward perch, we find ourselves facing gloom as the innings of the second game dwindle into the last bat, with fielders finding it more difficult to focus on that little yellow ball as it becomes more obscured by the vacating light. But, as always, we mange to struggle through to completion. At least it wasn’t raining. You take what you can get. And more, usually.
Heat, humidity, offsetting darkness not a real difficult problem too overcome and, with only one more regular season game to transpire, we can be grateful of moving into the playoffs, where we can play under the lights and have nought to worry about except for flying insects. Oh, and perhaps the heat and humidity. Oh, and winning through to the completion of a full seven innings. OK, still enough to worry about but, still, not very worrisome. With nearly a full season under our belts, we appear to be closely compatible teams, each trying to limit the number of misconceived errors and struggle successfully through to a win. Close competition, close games, any one can obtain victory. Standings aside. We'll just overlook those. Just another number to ignore as we begin anew in the playoffs and only need to win two straight games. Harder than it might sound but the possibilities are endless. Anyone’s game.
Until then, we have one final game to get through, one final chance to win a couple of points and secure your position on the scoreboard, helping to determine who you meet first in the playoffs and whether you play the early game, under mostly natural light, or the late one, under the cover of darkness, cleverly obscured by artificial light. Either or, always something to look forward to and always sure to be fun. If that’s what you’re after, you’re surely not to be disappointed. Winning would just be a nicely added touch.
