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Did you look yet?
I looked.
Last year I was watching the NL standings like a Hawksworth. It was an addiction really. It was great fun because the Cardinals were winning. I would check MLB’s website in the morning and again in the evening just to make sure no other team was gaining ground.
The Magic Number thing was a mystery last season, my first experience of both playoff fever and Twitter. Suddenly I was surrounded by great baseball fans who were spouting all these new terms and phrases. I was soaking it up like a sponge, but starting from nothing, I had a long way to go. The Magic Number Mystery took a few examples of combination wins and losses, 1st place and 2nd place teams playing each other, and the quirky off-day math for me to figure out the formula. But when that lightbulb clicked on, I was back in the game!
Last September was exciting, and I was absolutely giddy! Or at least that is how I remember it.
This season has sputtered to a close and I gotta admit, I definitely have not been curiously fixated on the complete MLB standings. The Cardinals have been losing, falling behind the Reds, and the ‘games back’ number has been solemnly reported during each and every Cardinals game telecast. I did not have to hunt it out, it was cruelly forced upon me. Watching the dropping Magic Numbers of other teams has been like salt in a wound.
In 2010 my baseball vocabulary has been broadened again.
This time I learned “Tragic Number”- that one sucks.
YESTERDAY was the first time in over a month that I purposely typed in www.MLB.com and clicked on “Standings.” I knew the news would be ugly, but morbid curiosity took over. Plus I was on another mission.
Don’t tell the boys, but I am currently working through the process and accepting the reality of a postseason without the Cardinals. I am also beginning my hunt for an adopted stepteam. Who would have thought, going into the 2010 season, that a Cardinal fan would need to pick some other team to watch in the postseason?!? Certainly not I. Yet here I am, easing into the process and eyeing the multitude of baseball candidates. (Why do I have this awful, horrible, no-good feeling that I am cheating on my Cardinals by saying that?)
It’s a loaner team, just for the month of October, I promise! ;)
Today on i70baseball.com, my article is called “Expanding My Roster” and is more about how a baseball fan moves into the postseason when their team is going home instead. Check it out?
So, who will be your postseason stepteam? I am looking for suggestions. Bonus points for sentimental player background stories and childhood pictures. The sappy stuff gets me every time!
Play Ball! =)
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