And just like that, it was over.
Every year, at some point, I pen those words. Well, just about every year; when the Cardinals win another title, I will not describe it in this way. The end of the rainbow does not call for a small, bitter smile. But when the season closes short of the promised land, there is always a moment for sadness at the sudden stop.
The end of the baseball season always sounds like Billie Holiday in my head. Most years, it’s the sudden, too-soon end of a long and occasionally too-long season, Valentine’s Day to nearly Halloween, absorbing some small percentage of your brain for eight months of the year, bringing both comfort and frustration, solace and sadness, the expected enjoyment of a June night spent in the company of a 5-2 victory, the sour copper penny taste of a late-inning closer meltdown in late July.