In the quiet of late night, when the wind has died down and the dark blanket of stars covers the nighttime sky, you can almost hear the sphincters tightening from all around Utopia Field. A Heartland division lead that just two weeks ago stood at 14 games has fallen like a rock tossed from an airplane (one assumes, without anything resembling a parachute) to 8.5 games. You can almost feel the auguring that’s coming just around the bend.
“We’re not getting the job done,” said a suddenly shaky manager in Bill Inkster after the club was swept by division rival Twin Cities and lost two of three to a similarly aligned Madison club that’s suddenly looking frisky. “The guys are working as hard as ever.”
And, yet, the ground races ever closer.
And, to be clear, the first guy to blame the rest deserves to be physically removed from the team bus and laid out, Dudley Do-right style, on the road ahead. This is a team issue. Over the past two weeks the offense has been stagnant, hitting only .265 and getting on base at only a .330 clip—both solidly below their season average. The team ERA over this span was over 5.50, worst in the league. Over this span they’ve been thrown out five of eight times they’ve attempted to steal.
Fans, of course, were hoping beyond hope that this collapse wasn’t coming the usual October debacle they’ve all gotten used to. But you can feel it in the bars and the sports restaurants on the strips outside the ball park, in Gaunt Park that sits in symbolic view of the field itself. The fans ask “How about them Nine?” and then drop their gazes.
It’s coming.
It’s coming.
They sense it like a car crash approaching, or like receiving an email link to one of those legendary press briefings from Sarah Huckabee that still make the video rounds. The Night King’s army is surrounding Winterfell, and only those of the greatest intestinal fortitude are thinking they might actually be able to watch it happen…but of course, no one will look away. You can’t, now, can you? That’s the thing about human beings. We love a good car crash. It’s that weird thing about us that kept America’s Funniest Home Videos on the air long after you’d think the average person would get tired of seeing a poor sot get hit in the balls again and again.
The collapse is coming, and it’s going to be ugly.
But, of course we’ll watch.
We always watch.
