It is… GONE!

The 2016 regular season is history. It’s outa here. It’s long gone! It has flown, flown away! It’s not coming back.

Or, as Vin Scully would usually say, simply:  “It’s gone.”  And with it, so are many other things.

Vin Scully’s 67-year career is gone. Maybe Tom remembers a time before Vin Scully, but he’d be the only one in the EFL.  Everyone else was born after Scully began broadcasting.

I learned most of what I know about baseball from listening to Vin Scully (sorry, Bill James, et al.) as a kid in California, my transistor radio under my pillow at night so my parents wouldn’t know I wasn’t sleeping.  I thought for years his name was Vince Cully. I knew Jerry Doggett was his friend because he kept calling him by his nickname, Vin.

I kept listening to Vin Scully after we moved to Oregon before my 10th birthday, except I had to wait for the sun to go down so clear-channel KFI’s signal could skip off the ionosphere to my ears 1000 miles to the north. Sometimes in June even a west coast game would be over before I could get the signal.  When the Dodgers switched to another station without a clear channel, I was bereft, alone in a state full of people indifferent to baseball.

I didn’t listen to him much in recent years, and not at all this year, even though he is my all-time favorite announcer, even over Ernie Harwell.    Scully’s crystal clear voice has gotten fluffy around the edges, and his cadence a little slower and unsteady.  I couldn’t stand it. I know it’s not the right response, but I wanted to remember him as he was in his 50-year prime.  It will serve me right if people ignore me in my old age.

I doubt there will ever be another 67-year career as a major-league baseball broadcaster.  If there is, most of us won’t be alive to know about it.

David Ortiz’ 20-year MLB career is gone. He was a Mariner once, signed as a 16-year old in 1992 under a different name, but they let him go to the Twins in 1997, and then after another five years the Twins let him go to Boston — where he immediately began OPSing over .900.  He finished this year with an OPS over 1.000 for the season, .931 for his career (only .002 short of Edgar Martinez, but without Edgar’s .400+ OBP).

Jose Fernandez’ life is gone. Incredibly sad.

I went to the Thorns’ playoff game yesterday with Melanie.  The Thorns twice fell behind by two goals, and came back 1.5 times — and, with less than 2 minutes left in the second overtime, poked their second game-tying shot cleverly past the goalie… and off the goal post. That’s a lot of drama for a soccer game. But their season is also gone.

The EFL season is gone, too, and as I’ve been telling you for several weeks now, the Haviland Dragons are the champions. Again. Now nine of our 13 seasons have been won by hard scaly things: six by Alleghenys, and three by Dragons.  Will no other team step forward and restore a touch of cuddliness to the league?

Congratulations, John. Twice in a row you’ve improved your team during the season better than anyone else, and have run down my Wolverines, who looked invincible in June before fading in July and August. Our new brand:  The Old Detroit Woeverines — the Dragons’ traditional roadkill.