Night Owl Cards

This is the only time that I have felt sorry for the San Diego Padres. Matt Holliday's consensus failure to touch home plate in the one-game playoff between the Rockies and Padres helped propel the Rockies all the way to the World Series in 2007. Normally, I laugh when misfortune befalls the Padres (and I laugh a lot). But there was no justice in this particular play. And I like seeing justice done. I also like seeing the Rockies lose. So my sympathies, San Diego. But it didn't occur to me until I received this night card that every team -- not just my beloved Dodgers -- has experienced injustice on the baseball field. For the Padres, it's Holliday not touching home plate. For the Braves, it's Kent Hrbek's wrestling move on Ron Gant in the '91 World Series. For the Cardinals, it's Don Denkinger. For the Orioles, it's Jeffrey Maier. For another team, it's ... umm .. well, I'm sure it's something . I'm just too immersed in the injust...

It's another day of dealing with ugly adult matters in a year of dealing with ugly adult matters. It's days/weeks like these that make me wonder why I'm involved with items as childish as baseball cards, while at the same time running to baseball cards to protect my sanity. As the perfect capper to it at all, there is a good chance that I will be spending the end of a crap-filled weekend by writing a happy newspaper headline declaring another championship for my least favorite team on this planet. It could be the second time out of three years that I have done this and it doesn't get any easier. My hope is that the Tigers will somehow find a way to win the next two games and then it will be someone else's job to write the final headline. But I don't expect that to happen given the Giants' voodoo all regular season and postseason -- balls bouncing off of third base, bunts suddenly stopping dead in their tracks. This is why I called the Giants as Series...