This column was turned in a little late because I’ve been very busy watching the World Series. I don’t know if there will a Game 7 since I had to turn this in before Friday’s game in which Toronto could win it all at home.

This has been an exceptionally exciting Fall Classic. Even a few of the errors were spectacular. So many records being made or matched. And only in baseball could this perfect synchronicity occur: The Blue Jays’ Game 5 starter, 22-year-old rookie Trey Yesavage, who had made it to majors only six weeks before, became only the second pitcher ever to strike out 10 batters in the first 5 innings of a WS game. The other guy who did it was Dodger Sandy Koufax, in 1963. Now about to turn 90, Koufax was there in person at this game, watching Trey tie his record. You can’t make this stuff up. (Unrelated confession: I have a bit of a crush on Addison Barger.)

Neither of my teams (Giants and Yankees) are in it this year, but if you’re a real baseball fan, you watch the Series no matter who’s playing. If your guys didn’t make it through even the wild card round, you can skip the playoffs, but you can’t skip the Series. It’s the law. (And since Fox has the broadcast contract through 2028, there’s the added thrill of listening to Hall of Famer John Smoltz talk insightfully, non-stop, even if a game goes to 18 innings. I swear, he must get paid by the word.)

Every family seems to have its favorite sport. If you haven’t already guessed, I come from a baseball family.

Most of my family rooted for the Yankees. But no one more so than my late brother John. He was somewhat of a baseball savant, able to recall memorable plays, quote any stat long before Google and Statcast. (Do we really need to know the “exit velo” of each hit? No.) John knew stuff about every team, but he was all about the Yankees. He once held a grudge against Joe Torre for two years because he thought Joe went to the bullpen too early one game. For the reception at John’s memorial here, we had a Yankee theme, complete with official logo glasses and napkins.

Some years ago, my mother, brother, and I had our DNA tested for further genealogy research. When I received an Ancestry notification about a celebrity to whom we were related, I phoned my brother. “John, are you sitting down? We share an ancestor with a baseball star.” “Wow! Who?” “Your idol, Micky Mantle!” “No way! The Mick! Really? This is fantastic!” His euphoria persisted for weeks. Then I called about a second discovery, hoping to thrill him again. “John, we’re related to another baseball great!” “Seriously? Who now?” “Pee Wee Reese!” “I hate the effin’ Dodgers.” Like I said, he was pinstripes all the way.

The big exception to the family Yankee pride was my mother’s father, Jack Buckley. He was a Giants man. In the summer of ’56, the next to last season before two of the three NYC teams decamped for California, he took 9-year-old me to the Polo Grounds so I could see Willie Mays play, and to Ebbets Field to watch Jackie Robinson in his last year before retirement. “This is history, Punkin, not just baseball. These are two of the greatest players there ever will be.” Decades later, I was at a tourism event at then PacBell Park and got to meet Willie Mays. I don’t think I washed my hand for a week.

So I’ve been to the Bronx and Brooklyn, and to Hoboken, where the first organized game of baseball was played, in 1846 at the Elysian Fields. I’ve been by the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa where I swear I heard the crack of a bat, although no game was being played, and, of course, I’ve been to Cooperstown. I’ve only gone to a dozen MLB stadiums, but I’ve always lived in a city where there was one. When I was considering a move to northern California, the Bay Area was out of my price range. But it turns out that little ole Marysville has been home to professional baseball teams since 1875. Among the early teams were the Marysville Intrepids and the Marysville Giants. The Marysville Merchants were among the first teams anywhere to take an aeroplane to an away game, in this case in a Friesley Falcon from Gridley to Woodland in 1921. In 1927, none other than Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth stopped in Marysville on their barnstorming tour of the West. Jackie Robinson played an exhibition here, too. And now the champion High Wheelers are making Marysville their home. (Go to a few games next season, everybody.)

You can read more about the town’s baseball heritage in the wonderful book, The Local Nine: A History of Baseball in Marysville, California by photographer-author Michael Jang, himself a Marysville native.

What is it about baseball? I think it’s in the perceived nature of the game. Pastoral, easy-going, forgiving. Even if you whiff or bobble, there’s always another at bat, another inning, another game, another season. Maybe baseball is the metaphor for how we’d like all of life to be. Full of camaraderie, opportunity, surprises, and second chances.

The downside of the Series? It marks the start of baseball withdrawal. Most fans feel exactly like Hall of Famer, Triple Crown winner Rogers Hornsby. He said, “People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

Cynthia Fontayne is a Marysville-based writer who once almost caught a foul ball off the bat of Carl Yastrzemski at Fenway.