What a game!

It had everything, a rain delay, a comeback and extra innings.

And it ended at 12:45 AM on the east coast and the younger generation that no longer plays would have been hooked if it had only seen it.

Baseball was everything growing up. I played Little League where you either made the team or you didn’t, you played or you were cut, and trophies only went to the winners. In an era when blacks were disadvantaged, women were denigrated and little light was shone upon the foibles of the famous people.

But we believed.

It was a simpler time. We wanted to be Mickey Mantle. Somehow, we believed Moose Skowron could be our best friend. We wanted to see Rocky Colavito come to bat, never mind Al Kaline. Baseball was the National Pastime. Until football came along and stole everybody’s heart with a violent game played against a clock.

Remember the George Carlin routine? Baseball was pastoral, we had no idea when it might end, it might go on FOREVER!

And now the season does.

There were 162 games because there were ten teams instead of eight.

But these extra layers of playoffs, they were about TV cash and raising the hopes of the wannabes. Whereas way back when, you rode it out for the pennant and then the World Series was played the first week of October. We shouldn’t be playing baseball in November, but that’s what the money demands.

But despite all that, tonight’s game was an epic finish that not only rekindled your belief in the game, but America too.

The most valuable player was a Jewish egghead who never took the field. Theo Epstein reversed the curse in Boston and then brought a championship to Chicago. Most sports are jockocracies wherein if you didn’t play, you don’t get a voice. To the point where the commentators are all has-been oldsters who won’t talk trash unless they’ve got a personal beef. It’s a closed system. You’re either inside or outside, and that just sucks.

And the teams are a rainbow coalition of ethnicities. It’s a white supremacist’s nightmare, not only are there various colors, but immigrants too! And somehow they all get along, they come together as a team, they’ve got a common goal, victory!

What is the common goal in America today? The telecast was riddled with political ads that made one wince. Duplicitous candidates utilizing subterfuge to try and win. Whereas the baseball players had shaggy haircuts, some tattoos, and had to play by their wits, there was little time for thinking, you had to make decisions.

And we can second-guess Joe Maddon’s until springtime. Why did he pull the starting pitcher? But this is not the digital world, where we expect it to work right out of the box, this is humanity, where you make mistakes and they have consequences.

The bad throws!

I’ll argue that way back when the players were better prepared. I don’t remember this many errors at the end of the season. But it kept one paying attention, you had no idea what would transpire.

Like the comeback.

That’s why baseball is the best, it’s never over until it’s over. I was debating getting off the couch, calling it a night, it looked like a blowout, but then the aforementioned pitcher was replaced, the Indians scored and when it looked like they couldn’t come back, THEY DID!

And for a minute there, it looked like they’d come back in the 10th.

Bob Costas says sports are a metaphor for life, and that’s tonight’s lesson… Not only that you shouldn’t give up, but you should continue to play the game because anything can happen. Sometimes you’ve just got to show up, the other person will screw up. Sometimes you have to step up to the plate and create your own destiny.

As much as they’re doing their best to screw up baseball they can’t screw up the game. That’s what’s so fascinating and heartwarming. This is not football, where every year they’re tweaking the rules and it’s hard to catch up. This is not football wherein a subjective judgment, i.e. pass interference, can determine championships. This is just a bunch of guys on a field contesting each other, via their skills and their intellect. Sure, baseball players now pump iron, but the Cubs’ 10th inning pitcher looked like he’d get beaten up in high school, he was a veritable stringbean!

And after throwing a bunch of strikes he could no longer find the plate. The pressure! That’s what success is all about, handling the pressure!

So right now you’ve got a cadre of thrilled baby boomers with their minds blown that this series went to seven, the Cubs came back from a 3-1 deficit, and Chicago earned its first ring in 108 years.

And you’ve got a younger generation that’s shrugging its shoulders if it’s paying attention at all.

Sure, back in the sixties the games were during the day, we were in school, we’d implore our teacher to turn them on. But now they start at 8 PM and are almost guaranteed to go until midnight on the east coast… How did we lose our way?

That’s right, we as a nation have lost our way. Because we put money first and foremost. It erodes all our institutions, it undermines our culture, it makes heroes of zeros. Come on, would anybody be listening to Donald Trump if he wasn’t rich?

But maybe you’re a Trump supporter… You’re gonna vote for him, and when he hopefully loses, you’re gonna say the election was rigged.

But nobody is saying the World Series was rigged. Everybody believes it was fought fair and square. Sure, there were some injustices, but that’s life, perfection is nonexistent.

We can learn from baseball. Not only do you have to run onto the field and play, if you lose, you have to get ready for another day.

If this were politics they’d be screaming about the rain delay, saying it caused the pitchers to go cold and the playing field to get wet.

But nobody did.

One team ultimately ran onto the field in pure joy, disbelieving their long nightmare was over. That after almost a year of effort, never mind seasons previous, they’d triumphed.

The other team was glum, disillusioned.

But the Indians are not going to quit. They’re going to lick their wounds and show up next spring to contest again.

Show up and contest, it’s all we can do.

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, that I’m too jaded, a baseball game reminds me that despite preparation, we’ve got no idea what the future holds. And despite mistakes, we too can still triumph.

Puts a smile on my face and joy in my heart.

I hope you saw it.