Good morning, baseball fans!
As I am writing this, the San Francisco Giants are currently losing 10-0 to the San Diego Padres in the fifth inning of Wednesday’s game. At this point, my lone hope is that they might score a single, solitary run.
Which is actually a pretty good transition point to my topic for today’s post. Which is about finding meaning in a season when the odds of sneaking into the playoffs are increasingly diminishing.
Speaking for myself, it’s easy to find joy when the team is winning. I find it even easier to do so when the team is atrociously bad and not trying to hide it. Some of my favorite recaps that I’ve ever written were about terrible, horrible losses that I will never forget during seasons I will never remember.
I was brought on to this site under Grant Brisbee, and his style of over the top melodrama after horrendous losses is a huge part of what made me want to get into sports writing as a creative outlet.
But one thing I really struggle with is when the team outwardly states that the goal is to be competitive and then they produce the most feckless, uninspiring pas de deux with the .500 line that they possibly can. And I know it’s not on purpose! I know these guys don’t want to get their butts handed to them by the Padres! I know they don’t want to get swept by the Miami Marlins, no one wants that. Not even the Marlins.
However, whether the fecklessness is intentional or not, for me there’s little joy to be found in aggressive mediocrity that persists over the better part of a decade. But one can find bright spots. For me those bright spots include debuts, first hits, first strikeouts, excited families in the stands, and other human elements of the game. And for today’s question, I wanted to know what brings you joy when we approach/pass the point of no return on a season?