Rant #2,235: Love Is Like a Baseball Game

Today is October 10, the 283rd day of the year.

My team, the New York Yankees, are now out of it, after a tough 4-3 loss against the Boston Red Sox. There will be no World Series for them this year.

Woe is me, I guess.

But there is basketball around the corner, and if you want the ultimate "woe is me" scenario, just look at people like me, who root for the New York Knicks, a team that has gone 45 years without a championship and by the looks of things, might go another 45 years before they win their next championship.

Thank goodness I don't follow football anymore. In another life, I was a New York Jets fan, and they haven't won anything in 48 years.

Ouch!

But it isn't so bad that it make me a soccer fan.

No way, no how.

No tennis, no golf, no auto racing, no horse racing for me.

None of those things are real sports to me.

And that is not even mentioning hockey, where, also in another life, I never really embraced, but I did watch the occasional New York Rangers and New York Islanders games.

To this date, these teams also haven't done much of anything in years, so if I rooted for them, my suffering would continue.

Also in another life, I was a then-New York Nets fan, when they were in the fabled American Basketball Association.

If you wanted to experience a well-oiled team with the greatest player of his generation, if not ever, then you really had to see this team, led by Julius Erving, go through the rest of that league.

I did, but those days are long gone.

Losing Erving, later moving from Long Island to New Jersey, and now in Brooklyn, I don't really root for the Nets, but I am aware of them.

My son and I usually take in one Nets game a year--we will be going to their first home contest this year later this month against, you guessed it, the Knicks--but I will be rooting for the Knicks to win.

But I really don't mind the Nets.

I do mind the Mets.

Growing up in Queens, it was kind of difficult being a Yankees fan, in particular in 1969, when the Mets came out of nowhere to win the World Series.

I have never liked the Mets, never rooted for them, look at them as a poor second team in New York, and frankly, they have never really come up to the level of the Yankees, except for a few seasons, and today, really aren't a good team or a good organization.

But back to the Yankees ...

I wish they would have beaten the Red Sox and moved into a rematch of last year's League Championship Series against the Houston Astros.

But I guess the baseball gods decided that it was not meant to be.

So right now, I consider myself burnt out from baseball, and my real off season begins.

Yes, I will keep an eye on the teams still in it--including the the Astros, the Red Sox, the Milwaukee Brewers, the team I think has what it takes this season to win it all, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But my heart is still with the Yankees, so for me, it is time to move on to basketball.

And did I mention that pro wrestling and bowling are also on my slate?

But no Roller Derby, that appears to have gone out with President Nixon and pet rocks, although I do know that there are some leagues that are still around.

Charlie O'Connell anyone?