Yawkey League News & Action

"Swing and a pop up . . ."

I can hear Joe Castiglione's voice in my head.

That's how it ended for the McKay Club this season. On a pop up to the shortstop.

35 games, three-plus months, and a multitude of emotions later, I have to say with some gusto that I had fun this year. Sure, we didn't even make the playoffs. We went 19-16. Ask Rob Linn, Chris Deane, or anybody else on the team and they would have told you that we should have won five or six more games than that. I agree. I can't disagree so by elimination I have to agree. But that's not the point here. The point is that even though we lost the biggest game of our season 9-1 and didn't make the playoffs, the push for the playoffs was pretty sweet.

I should probably tell everyone right now what I've been thinking about for the past two or three weeks now (it might make the previous paragraph easier to absorb for some of the guys). All my life, through Little League, Babe Ruth, Senior League, and through High School ball and everywhere in between, I have never been on a good team. Little League might have been .500, but I think that's about as good as it got. Babe Ruth was bad, Senior League was worse and my high school didn't even have a baseball team until my sophomore year. I don't think I even need to tell you how bad those couple years were.

What I am trying to say is that, even though we missed the playoffs in 2007, I got a taste of what it means to be in the hunt. I smelled the blood, I was ready to face Somerville in the first round. Like Rob Linn said to me last night "St. Peter's Field baby." St. Peter's is right. He was still pissed about Tuesday's game, and I wasn't pissed, but it had been on my mind all that day, along with how shitty I felt.

I always loved playing baseball because even when I was losing, it was still fun. Now, no one wants to lose all the time, that just sucks. I never really knew what winning felt like on the baseball diamond because it happened to me once every five or six games most of my life.

Until this year.

This season was great. We were right in the middle of what was deemed "the most exciting Yawkey League playoff run in history" by David Treska and Dave McKay. I mean, we had playoff updates every single day in out inboxes. I have to be at work at 5:30 every morning, and I hate waking up, but I woke up extra early just to check my inbox, to see those updated playoff standings. Were we in, were we out, where were we, how many more points do we need, who owns the tie-breakers? The list went on and on, I was so excited.

We ended up losing, like I said. But we worked our asses off to make it to that single-elimination playoff game. Silver lining? Maybe. But I'll take it.

After losing four consecutive in the middle of July, it was finally time to make our playoff push apparently. We reeled off six out of seven to finish tied with the Devils of West Roxbury. During that stretch, I yelled louder, clapped more and high-fived more than I ever have in my entire baseball career. It was a great feeling. Winning, that is.

You've all said it before to me. I'm always positive. it may be sickening to you sometimes. You probably don't want to hear it after you just struck out with two men in scoring position or after you just gave up three hits and two runs, but that's just how I operate. This is me being positive again. If you don't want to hear about it, just stop reading.

If you're still with me, hear me out. If you want to win as bad as I do, you'll think about this season. Think about all the ups we had, but think about the downs too. The one-run losses, the games we pissed away and the games where we just didn't show up to play. Remember those good feelings, but remember the bad ones too. Channel all that into a small section of your brain and store it away for the 2008 season. When we get together again and we start playing games, remember everything.

22 years later, I finally have a taste for winning. But I want more than a taste. Help me get that meal in 2008.