By Nic LaPonte
My favorite time of year is officially coming to an end again. The boys of summer are quickly approaching the culmination of a season that has been fraught with upsets, broken records and close calls.
Divisional postseason Major League Baseball play is going on even as we speak. The top contenders in each league are facing off for one of the two coveted slots at the World Series. Unfortunately, my home team, the Seattle Mariners, has once again failed to make the cut for postseason play. Although discouraging, this sad fact is not that unusual for the Mariners - they have yet to make it to the World Series.
One team that has habitually preformed very well in postseason play is the New York Yankees. What remains to be seen this year is how they stack up against the Cleveland Indians. Yankees fans have been able to see their team in the postseason for the last several years.
While I may gripe about my home team failing, once again to make it into the playoffs, some other teams' fans have much more to complain about. Take the Cubs, for example. The Cubs have been without a World Series victory in the last 99 years. This is a feat that Boston Red Sox fans can appreciate, considering that their club went without a World Series victory for 86 years. The "Curse of the Bambino" ended in 2004 with a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
What may make the Cubs's situation more tragic, and the fact that they are reappearing in this year's playoffs against the Arizona Diamondbacks more exciting, is that they were the victims off the cruel spite of the baseball gods during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against the Florida Marlins in 2003.
For those of you out there who felt the hand of fate reach out and snatch victory away from the Cubs, you'll remember that it was a fan named Steve Bartman who made a rather overenthusiastic attempt to grab the fly ball hit by Luis Castillo of the Marlins, preventing the Cubs' Moises Alou from making a play that more than likely would have changed the outcome of the game, and sent the Cubs into the World Series.
This year, with the Cubs getting another chance to break their almost century long World Series drought, one has to wonder whether or not Bartman will be coming to the game. I would consider buying a ground level ticket and avoid thumbing my nose at fate for the second time, were I in his position.
The most controversial event this year has to have been Barry Bonds' breaking of the long-standing home run record set by Hank Aaron 33 years ago. Surrounded by mixed feelings of anger and disapproval over his alleged steroid use, Bonds broke the record when he hit his 756th home run under the night skies of San Diego.
While some do not enjoy baseball, I and certainly many others around the country are always sad to see it retreat from our lives at the end of the season. Watch these last few games, sports fans, and even if your team of choice didn't make it to the playoffs this year, pick a team and cheer at the TV for it. It can't hurt, right?
The close of baseball season is always a bittersweet time for me. Remembering the beginning of the season is like remembering the first taste of summer, and when the season draws to a close the realization that we are about to plunge back into the winter months is more evident than the fact that it's started to rain three days out of the week.
