Consolation In Defeat

The baseball season ended this evening in disheartening fashion with the Yankees convincingly beating the Phillies 7-3 to win the World Series, an event dreaded this year ever since the New York team pulled out of the doldrums of playing under 0.500 ball with a 9-game winning streak in the middle of May. We look for consolation in this time of loss:

1. Perhaps it is karmic balance for having a Democrat in the White House again; when the Yankees last won the World Series in 2000 Clinton was still president.
2. We didn’t have to witness would-be and perhaps future Commissioner of Baseball George W. Bush present the trophy to the winning Yankees. (Bush did however a couple days ago throw out the first ball at Game 3 of the Japan Series.)
3. Baseball was never meant to be played in November: maybe this oddly late Series will convince the powers-that-be of baseball of that fact.
4. A-Rod didn’t win the Series MVP award.
5. I live far enough from their home base that I don’t have to put up with much gloating from Yankees fans.
6. If September had gone better for the Giants and they had made it into the playoffs and then somehow snuck on through on the basis of stellar pitching from Cain, Lincecum, and Zito to win the NL championship, we didn’t have to just see the Giants being thrashed by the Yankees 4 games to nil, the Yankees outscoring the Giants by a total of 34 to 3 runs.
7. There are only 15 or so weeks left until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training!