My boy T.S. Eliot once wrote “April is the cruelest month” but when he cranked that out in 1922, he didn’t really have baseball pennant races in mind (although the Yankees finished one game ahead of the Orioles that year).
But if T.S. were still cranking out those long-form poems today, he might want to make an adjustment to the opening line of his classic “The Waste Land.”
More than 100 years later, fans of various Major League Baseball teams are finding out that April is a piece of cake compared to September (this year) and October (most other years).
Say what you want about the six-month, 162-game schedule that baseball plays, but it takes fans of a team on a journey of ups and downs, streaks, great moments and crushing defeats.
But there is always hope. You get to pull for your team for weeks and months because you never know where you might stand after a nine-game winning streak.
If your team is in it throughout the season, September comes along and it’s time to start paying attention to magic numbers and how the pitching rotation sets up for the post-season.
After that grind, you’ve earned it.
But that’s when the cruelty can set it.
The excitement! The thrill! The playoffs are here! And two days later, it’s all over.
Six months of living and dying with every game and suddenly … poof!
Just doesn’t seem right.
In the NFL, even the worst playoff teams get a week to enjoy their status. In the NBA, where the playoffs go on forever, a sub-.500 team can also hang around for quite a few days before getting excused.
But the MLB season ended on a Sunday, the playoffs started on Tuesday and by Wednesday night, three teams had already made tee times for the weekend.
Ask fans of the Cubs, Red Sox or Astros. There was the euphoria of being in the playoffs one minute and sacking up the bats the next. (Although some might say that should not have been euphoria for the 81-81 Astros.)
For the Phillies, it wasn’t a whole lot better after making it an extra day to play a deciding game in the best-of-three series but still being summarily dismissed Thursday night.
The scary thing is that there was a time when it was even worse. From 2012-21, it was a one-game playoff, highlighted by the classic 2014 game in which Kansas City beat Oakland 9-8 in 12 innings.
For those who continue through the playoffs, the excitement (and nervousness) will build and eventually will be just as crushing upon your team’s exit. But at least you got to hang around and bask in the post-season glow.
Eliot hung around until 1965, when the only teams to advance to the post-season were the American League and National League winners, so he never had to worry about an early exit after playing 162.
The Red Sox players on the bench during the Wild Card playoffs were wearing MLB-issued shirts that read “No Time Like October.”
They never even made it to October.
Now that’s cruel.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com