Short Fall

The World Series began last night, with the St. Louis Cardinals taking Game 1
from the Texas Rangers. I didn’t watch.



I’m still bummed about my Phillies dropping to the Cardinals in the NLDS playoffs, which is a large part of the reason why. As I wrote in the last week of the regular season, 2011 was a banner year for the Phils — which makes it all the more confounding (if not ironic) that they didn’t win a pennant. Charlie Manuel’s team won a franchise record 102 games, by far the best mark in the major leagues, yet as more than one wag put it the team’s ballyhooed four aces were beat in the first round of the playoffs by a wild card; none of the wags, as far as I know, referred to the Phils as royally flushed.

There are those — fans, journalists, and ballplayers, not necessarily in that order —
who believe that a stellar regular season is for naught if you don’t make it to the World Series.

P Funk

I came very close to calling this post “27 and Cry” but decided that, even though
most of the plays on words here are made primarily for my own amusement, referencing an obscure Bowie song from a less-celebrated album was just too far out. Also, there is, famously, a distinct lack of crying in baseball. For a picosecond or so, it was titled “No Joy in Philville” in homage to the well-worn line in “Casey at the Bat”.

Except that there has been joy in Philville, despite the Phillies’ World Series loss
to the New York Yankees this night.