9-News: 39.091 – Like It Has the Other Times

[RonCo]

And it ends. Again. Like it has the other times.

We all know the story. For the 12th time in 14 seasons, the Yellow Springs Nine has made the post season only to come up empty—this time in the form of a 4-game sweeping by the Calgary Pioneers. Yea, verily, though I walk in the shadows of Utopia Fields, I will expect no respite. Thy bat and thy curveball shall have to comfort me, for, alas, victory never shall.

At times like these it is human to want to point blame.

The front office brings players to the city who simply cannot win. The manager slotted a rotation no one expected, throwing tired arms into the mix as if it might be some kind of insane sneak attack. The players achieved throatal constriction of the most glorious type. The Gatorade was spiked. The groundskeepers didn't get the field in shape. Pick your poison, we suppose.

The more metaphysical of fans might point to powers outside the known: curses, geas, a step upon a crack made in your mother’s back. Did I hear a mirror breaking? Did you happen across a feline the color of midnight, perhaps while stepping under a ladder?

But in the end, the collective that are the YS9 fan base simply sighs and moves on.

Since the time of this current administration’s first pass through the playoffs in 2026, the Nine have won 2,108 regular season baseball games. Only the club in Vegas has seen more success. The Hustlers have a Landis in that period, the Nine, alas, do not. One is tempted, then, to suggest that this is a factor of the current team’s organization, that GM Ron Collins’s shit just doesn’t work in the playoffs. Rational people cannot disagree there, anyway. And, yet, a wider lens says the other side of the coin seems to be in play, too.

By that I mean that before this reign of unmitigated post-season disaster, the franchise that is the Yellow Springs Nine had been to the playoffs nine other times—and come up empty each one, specifically including a loss in the Landis to New Orleans in 2019. By this I mean that adding these experiences to the mix, YS9 faithful have seen their club step into the post season a total of twenty-three times, and never won a Landis.

Let that number sink in, twenty-three.

The club has played 166 post season games. More than a full season. Let that number, too, sink in.

Without winning a Landis.

I’m not sure what I’m saying here. Not sure what it all means. Baseball, like life, is sometimes better thought of as being here to kick one in the shin. There is, after all, and assuming a certain sense of safety, something joyous in that skinned shin. Something beautiful in the struggle to heal and to find strength after such skinning. This is baseball, as it is life. The capacity to hope and to long and to dream as the world beats down upon one's simple will to live is, in itself, something to be considered.

So, today, as the world goes along and as we drink our cooling coffee and ponder what the team will look like next year, it seems useful to spend a moment thinking about those numbers: twenty-three and one-hundred-sixty-six.

As if they mean anything at all.

[usnspecialist]

Since the time of this current administration’s first pass through the playoffs in 2026, the Nine have won 2,108 regular season baseball games. Only the club in Vegas has seen more success. The Hustlers have a Landis in that period, the Nine, alas, do not. One is tempted, then, to suggest that this is a factor of the current team’s organization, that GM Ron Collins’s shit just doesn’t work in the playoffs. Rational people cannot disagree there, anyway. And, yet, a wider lens says the other side of the coin seems to be in play, too.

Rational people may not be able to disagree that your your doesn't work in the playoffs, but they can disagree with that win total over that time span.

[ae37jr]

Got to give credit to Calgary for parting with prospects for Lynch and Puckett rather then sitting on their hands, hoarding their glorious stockpile, and depending on luck. If Yellow Springs truly wants to win a Landis, they have all the tools to get it done.

[RonCo]

Very true. Kevin made a set of big acquisitions. Hat tipped.

All I can say is that I had irons in a lot of fires. Obviously, though, what I wanted to give wasn't enough seen as big enough.

[HoosierVic]

A poetic cry to the baseball gods if ever there was one. Losing may be painful, but it makes for good reading. Alas ...

[handaspencer]

Ohio teams don’t win titles. Take it from someone who lives in the state. This is like our history.

[7teen]

Ohio teams don’t win titles. Take it from someone who lives in the state. This is like our history.

I don't live in Ohio but I pull for the Reds and Bengals so.......... Yeah, they don't win.