I made a public vow to watch the American League Championship Series games and the World Series games, even though the Yankees were not on the field, because I am a baseball fan. I also made it clear that I could not in good conscience root for that team from Boston.
Yes, I watched all of those games, which seemed to average about four hours or more, and started at about 8:30 p.m. (Why are they scheduled to start at precisely 8:29, anyway?)
I could also rant for a while about the late starting times preventing kids from seeing these games, but I've already done so, as have many other columnists. It does no good. It will never change. It's about the money.
Putting in all those hours watching those long and tedious at-bats gave me a chance to catch up on my newspaper reading and clean out my office files. It was a very productive period for me.
Last night (and into this morning) my 13-year-old daughter, Charlotte, defied the schedule makers and stayed up with me until the bitter end. Maybe this makes me an irresponsible father; I know it was a school night. Look, the kid is a passionate baseball fan; she got that from somebody (certainly not from her mother, who has been catching up on her sleep lately).
So there we were, my daughter and I, pulling for the Rockies, until something like 12:07 a.m. Charlotte baked cookies. We sat there and ate them, while waiting for the Rockies to wake up and win at least one game.
I also drank some red wine (Charlotte did not), to dull the pain of what was happening.
Today we have more bad news: Joe Girardi, not Donnie "Baseball" Mattingly, will be the Yankees manager, according to good sources. That means Mattingly will leave the Yankees organization. I thought he deserved a shot at managing.
And late last night, amid the depression of that last game, we were told A-Rod wants to "opt out" of his contract, which means the Yankees won't negotiate with him, which means he's gone too. The guy hasn't been a hero in post-season, granted, but who's going to hit all of those regular season RBIs next year to get the team to October?
I'm trying mighty hard to visualize spring, and sunshine in Florida. Meanwhile, Boston fans are calling me to gloat; that's true class. "How 'bout those Red Sox?" chimes Dan from Hamden. There have been others, but I won't bother to mention them.
I also took note of a Connecticut Public Radio report this morning from some Boston-backing correspondent, who did his research in a loud bar in or near Amherst, Mass. last night. You could hear the Boston fans shouting "Yankees (blip)!" Even while winning the World Series, they take time to shout obscenities about the Yankees? When we Yankee fans were winning world championships, it never occurred to us to shout, "Red Sox (blip)!"
I guess we're different.