Always look on the bright side of life

"Hey, let's look at the silver lining here." I leaned back, resting the back of my neck against the back of my chair. "Now we have, what, six weeks of enjoying baseball for the sheer love of the game."

Laughter and commiseration mingled in response. I spun the chair around.

"I mean, no need to worry about completely unnecessary things. Like, say, winning or even playing well. Who needs a high-fallutin' POSTSEASON, anyway? Ball going to get away from you? Dive! Somersault! Do a split! You've got nothin' to lose! There really is no tomorrow! You're gonna have months to recuperate!"

It hurts. The dull ache of the olden (read: pre-2004) days, mixed with a new fresh agony.

See, back then, we knew to expect something like this. It didn't matter how well the team was playing. They'd do something, and they'd make the breakdown something spectacular. One could make predictions during spring training as to what it was going to be. Offense? Defense? Bullpen? A complicated cocktail of all of the above?

But this team...as N and I lamented this weekend, this team was a well-oiled machine. Purring. And then? Implosion.

Now don't go saying it. I'm not one of those who got greedy after one little (glorious) victory parade. My hopes this season, same as any season, were simple. Postseason.

The shortlist. The invitation to keep on playing as the leaves fall and hats are pulled on above scarves. I often say my favorite season is autumn, but it's not entirely accurate: my favorite season is the Red Sox postseason.

Have I yet joined to Wilburs and Ryans and others who are saying that there is No Way In Hell that the Red Sox will make the postseason? It's the big question, the one everyone who wears a red B on their head has been asking themselves.

Not quite. I'm close, but still fighting it.

It's part of following the Red Sox to complain. You cry out and think occasionally of actually crying (and ometimes you can't help it. Yeah, that's right. I've cried over dem Sox and I ain't ashamed to admit it). You curse and then carry on insightful, informed, surprisingly statistics-driven conversations about the team, it's history and the decisions made over the course of the last season/decade/century.

(Sometimes, because you're a girl, your opinion is ignored and you're left with no choice but to school the people with whom you are speaking. AHEM.)

Even as I find myself accepting the fact that the season will most likely end on Oct. 1, I'm going to keep on watching, keep on cheering/yelling/sighing and see what happens. I have tickets to two more games this season. I might wind up with at least one more.

I intend to enjoy them.

Everyone knows that the Red Sox have a habit of surprising people. So if 99.99 percent of the fanbase expects the continuation of a meltdown...

Hey. Crazier things have happened.

That said, I found myself watching this on repeat a couple of times today. Memories...