End the Season Now

Cancel the post- season. Put away the balls, bats and gloves. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can come close to duplicating the events that unfolded last night.

The situation was almost mythical. Boston was in the throes of a massive September heart attack and a nine game lead over Tampa had turned to none. All that stood between the Sox and sudden death was last evening. And while the rain fell in Baltimore, and the tarp covered the field, extending the suspense, the Yankees, in Tampa Bay, were doing their best to increase the agony. 7 to nothing became 7 to 6 in the time it took for everyone in Boston to take a very deep breath.

And then, it appeared for just the briefest of moments, that the world was going to find its axis. 2 strikes, 2 outs and a hitter with 1 home run over a 162 game season was all that stood between Tampa and the very probable end of their resurrection. The unlikely, the improbable, the can't be, and one swing later it was tied. On into extra, unrelenting intense innings.

In Baltimore, the rain stopped and the Red Sox closer, the great and revived Papelbon, was one strike away from completing the win and assuring, at worst, one more day and one more game. As the clock struck midnight, it all unraveled. 2 hits, and the game was tied. Then a line drive to left, and the man who had disappointed most of the year, Carl Crawford, found himself inches too far away. As the ball fell from his glove to the ground, at 12:02 AM, all the Sox fans could do was believe in the Yankees.

But their hated rivals had found a way to snatch defeat from certain victory. With a man on third and no one out in the top of the 12th, a minor league team masquerading as the Bronx bombers, botched a play and failed to score. Then, 2 minutes after the Red Sox game ended, and probably 2 pitches after the score was posted in Tampa, the Red Sox died a September 29th death as Evan Longoria's very low line drive barely cleared an improbably small portion of fence just at the shortest part of left field.

What could possibly occur in the coming days to exceed the drama of what happened shortly after the clock struck for the last time on the Red Sox season? How could the baseball planets align to surpass the absolutely absurd ending to one of the most epic September collapses in the long history of this sport? The answer is a simple and unequivocal statement that they can't. Let the spectacle of this moment in time live forever as the lasting, and last memory of this season. Let the unforgettable stand alone, and not be relegated to a footnote by the events of tomorrow.

Let the season end now.