Halloween Hauntings from an Also-Ran Baseball City Congratulations, Milwaukee. The Brewers earned every damn minute of their remarkable season and postseason.
The best team won.
You deserve the champagne, the parade, the bragging rights and the hangovers.
But spare a thought for the rest of us poor bastards.
Especially San Diego, where another October has ended with the Padres watching somebody else celebrate. Another winter of wondering what went wrong. Another season of hearing that awful refrain, Wait'll next year. And this year we've got a ghost that won't go away.
Ty France. Remember that ninth-inning rocket in Milwaukee? The Padres trailing by a run, a man aboard, and France launching a baseball toward what looked like a miracle. A two-run homer would have put San Diego ahead. Instead, the damn thing hit a cable beneath the stadium roof, dropped into an outfielder's glove, and became an out.
An OUT!
Only in baseball can you hit a ball so hard and so high that the building gets credit for the putout.
Would it have cleared the fence? Nobody knows. But it had a chance, and for a few glorious seconds, so did San Diego. One lousy cable separated a possible victory from another kick in the teeth. And who knows where a Game 1 victory might have taken the Padres? That's the cruelty of baseball.
The season ends, but the possibilities refuse to die. And one more thing, Milwaukee. Before you start claiming your city has never won a World Series, remember 1957. Hank Aaron and the Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in seven games. Different ownership, different franchise, same damn city.
World Series championships belong to cities. Ballplayers get pennants and paychecks. Cities get the glory, the parades and the memories passed from grandfathers to grandchildren. Milwaukee now has two World Series championships to remember.
San Diego? We're still waiting for our first. So are Seattle, Denver and Tampa Bay. Four cities, four empty trophy cases, and enough October finger pointing to fill a divorce court.
Happy Halloween, Milwaukee.
Enjoy the bubbles and the bravado. The rest of us never-winners got another lump of coal. Yes, we're jealous, but wait'll next year. Damn it.
And, when the stingy baseball gods deem the San Diego Padres worthy of a World Series title then all of baseball will see a celebration for the ages!
Until then: Nice going, Brewers!
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