Frying pan or fire?

Hadn't watched a lick of baseball for a month preceding last night's Yankees-Red Sox match-up. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that from my lack of posts at the end of the season. Is it mid-October already? The last month has seemed like an out-of-body experience as I've been doing my best impression of my father-as-burgeoning-workaholic, burning the candle at both ends. And something had to go and it looks like I missed out on a lot of fun games, as well as the Astros remarkable half-season sprint towards the playoffs (more on this next time).

Baseball's not basketball and it sure as hell ain't hockey; only a choice few teams make the playoffs, teams with mediocre attributes never advance on to the postseason and the disconnect between the regular season and the post-season is much less than in any other professional sports league. Which is to say: there's a purpose to actually watching regular season games, whereas there's no reason to watch hockey until all but two teams make the playoffs and duke it out for what seems like two solid months of contests. I dunno; up until the introduction of the wild card a few years ago, I actually never even saw a point to getting down with the playoffs until the World Series -- even with a personal stake in the proceedings during The Pirates' near-miss runs between 1990-1992.

So: last night. Not a bad game. 6 innings of what seemed like an analog for the regular season, with the Yankees chasing Schilling out of the game early and asserting dominance in every way (though the BoSox retain their slight edge in moral superiority and a massive lead in stupid haircuts). Then: a spark, a fire, a full-on blaze as the Sox pound out 5 runs in the 7th and 2 more in the 8th to pull within one run of the Evil Empire before Bernie Williams knocked two more runs in to widen the gap.

And this, my friends, is what Joseph Campbell was talking about with the power of myth. Bill Mueller -- who the Fox commentators delighted in reminding us has made Mariano Rivera his bitch this season -- up at the plate with two men on and a chance for some more of his regular season heroics. One long ball is all it takes to tie the game and shift the dynamics of the game. Ball, whiff, ball, foul...and Mueller hits into a double-play to end the game. Mueller's no goat, but Rivera's back to being top dog. NY fans rejoice, Boston fans head to the nearest Irish pub. And it ain't over by a long shot.