Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb 2018

65 www.CharlestonBrides.com | www.MPMcalendar.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com feature A s October drifted into November, I watched the Houston Astros claim their first championship ever, outdueling the title-starved Dodgers in one of the most scintillating, heart- stopping World Series’ in recent memory. The seven-game battle royal between baseball’s best featured just about everything a real fan of the greatest game could hope for: a veritable barrage of home runs, solid pitching now and then, questionable managerial decisions, and, of course, controversial umpiring. As the final out was recorded, I sunk deep into my broken down recliner, gasping for air, as if I had just been struck flush in the ribs by an Aroldis Chapman fastball. I switched off the TV and stared aimlessly into the blank screen, fighting back a helpless feeling of utter despair and imagining the pall that would permeate my rudderless, pathetic life for the next three-and-a-half months. The screen stared back, smirking, I thought, seemingly mocking my pitiful predicament and baiting me to push the power button, change the channel and drown my sorrow in a soccer match or maybe a few rounds of something called ultimate fighting. Or so my incoherent mind imagined. TV screens probably are incapable of staring back at you, I think. I’ll Google that later. Most people who call themselves sports fans have the option of immersing themselves in football, basketball or even ice hockey in November, December, January and half of February, and that’s fine. I get it. These second-tier games provide lots of entertainment and gambling opportunities. They, however, are not baseball and never will be. All of us who swear that “Field of Dreams” was the greatest movie ever made were blessed with a magnificent World Series, then cursed, as always, with what will certainly seem like a winter of eternal emptiness. We might as well hibernate and, hence, avoid the heartbreak of waking every morning, tearing open the morning newspaper and searching desperately for box scores, Major League standings and a list of today’s starting pitchers. They simply aren’t there, and they won’t be until the first “play ball” of the 2018 season. In the prescient words of the incomparable baseball writer Thomas Boswell, time begins on opening day. It By Brian Sherman The Winters of My Discontent Learning to Live Without Baseball