As often happens when the Yankees make a long post-season run filled with exciting games that keep me wound up for hours after they end - especially when every game in the postseason seems like a classic, regardless of who played - I've come down with a lousy cold which - coupled with the same pressures that have killed blogging this month - have prevented me from venting about this year's frustrating loss to the Marlins. (I still have trouble comprehending that the Marlins are World Champions, and not just due to illness.)

Though I've promised many undelivered things, I am working on a lo-o-ong post about the State of the Yankees that will be worth the wait. I promise.

For now, I'll just say that this loss feels - to this Yankee fan - much worse than the one in 2001. The parallels to 1964 or 1981 are pretty scary.

And some of us who were eight years old in 1981, for whom Bob Lemon's pinch-hitting for Tommy John in Game 6 is the first managerial move we remember second-guessing, are very annoyed at the constant assertions by non-Yankee fans that we fans feel "entitled" to win or that we "don't appreciate" anything short of ultimate triumph. Like most Yankee-bashing, those sentiments are based on ignorance and jealousy. The truth is exactly the opposite. We remember how easy expectations of continued success can be transformed into despair, Hemingway-style - "gradually and then suddenly." We remember the decade whose high moments were the 1980s "treadmill" (see the 1988 Baseball Abstract), whose frantic attempts to get back to the championship level led to the low moments, a paranoia-fueled frenzy of Chuck Carys and Mel Halls. We see how hard it can be to get back to the championship level once the team has slipped off it - our friends in Boston are glad to remind us if we ever forget. And when the team returned to excellence in 1993, we promised ourselves that we would appreciate every triumph and achievement. It is the prospect of losing those moments - and who knows for how long? - that drives the Yankee fans crazy.

A little bit.

Seriously, congratulations to the Marlins (if only they had a different owner - more below on that); they were an awesome story and played very well. And even the poor, misbegotten Yankees had a great season to get to Game 6 of the World Series, for goodness' sakes.

It is just hard for a Yankee fan to not feel like an opportunity was missed, and who knows when the next one will come?

P.S. Bud Selig handing the trophy to Jeffrey Loria must have represented the greatest concentration of baseball malevolence since Charles Comiskey dined alone.
But I'm not bitter or anything.

UPDATE: In the New Republic, Spencer Ackerman has similar thoughts regarding an editorial by the NYT which endorsed a Cubs-Red Sox World Series:

[L]et me disabuse Yankee haters like Hartford resident Chad MacDonald, who was quoted in the Times as saying that Yankee fans simply "expect to win." That's not true. Yankee fans like myself had our fandom shaped by the miserable drought years of 1980 to 1995, when not even first-rate talents like Don Mattingly, Willie Randolph, Dave Winfield, and Dave Righetti could rescue the team from bitter loss after bitter loss. On the bus to my Canarsie elementary school in 1986, I remember watching formerly stalwart Yankee fans doing the Tim Teuffel Shuffle in the hope that the Mets would win the World Series. Even during the Yankee renaissance that began in 1996, the victories have always felt precarious (well, maybe not in 1998). It might surprise the Times to learn that today's Yankee fans have a sense of tragedy to go with the triumphalism. Maybe the Times will pay some attention next season.

I don't have time to do justice to last night's game. The best summary belongs, as usual, to David Pinto.

For a Yankee fan's perspective, see Irena Paley:

Better than money. Better than sex. Better than your favorite song. Better than ice cream. Better than 'Empire Strikes Back.' Better than the swimsuit issue. Better than the FDNY calendar. Better than the prom queen. Better than the '94 Rangers. Better than the '70 Knicks. Better than Brooklyn pizza. Better than the Beatles.
That's how good last night was.

And for the ultimate Red Sox fan's perspective, see (who else?) Bill Simmons:

Twenty minutes after the Yankees eliminated the Sox, I called my father to make sure he was still alive.
And that's not even a joke. I wanted to make sure Dad wasn't dead. That's what it feels like to be a Red Sox fan. You make phone calls thinking to yourself, "Hopefully, my Dad picks up, because there's at least a 5-percent chance that the Red Sox just killed him."
It's safe to say that Jessica Simpson could have managed Game 7 better than Grady.
Well, he picked up. And we talked it through. We always do. Dad's voice was barely audible. He sounded like he just got out of surgery. Like every other Sox fan on the planet, he couldn't understand one simple question: Why didn't Grady take out Pedro? In the eighth inning, Pedro was running on fumes. Everyone knew it. Everyone but Grady Little.
Little did we know, our overmatched manager was saving his worst for last.

It's not a "Running Diary, but read the whole thing anyway.

In 1996, I would be so wound up after each Yankee magical comeback in the postseason that it would take me a couple of hours after each game to wind down enough to sleep.

That happened again last night. I was so worked up after the eight inning-comeback that I had to drain a bottle of Scotch to settle down.

(Granted, there was about an eighth of an ounce left in the bottle to start with, but still...)

Yankees in 6 in the World Series, although the Marlins could be much tougher than anyone gives them credit for.

Semi-regular blogging will resume early next week.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled silence to bring you some unedited thoughts on tonight's Game 7 between the Yankees and Red Sox.

Will whoever kidnapped Jason Giambi and replaced him with a pale imitation of Reggie Jackson (with Jackson's propensity for strikeouts and greater difficulties against lefthanded pitching, but without the clutch homers) please return him to the Stadium for tonight?

Will the Yankees continue to make Boston's bullpen look like a bunch of Mariano Riveras?

Will Boone or Soriano ever meet a slider in the lefthanded batters' box they don't like?

And finally, WILL JETER, SORIANO OR WILLIAMS EVER CATCH A !&*#%&!ING BALL?

Sorry about that.

I am feeling a lot like Billy Beane in Moneyball, who gets so worked up watching the games that he circles the stadium in his car rather than do so. I might have to find some important errands to do. Though I might be a danger to other drivers on the road...

I correctly predicted last year's World Series outcome (I won't mention that it was my first correct prediction ever). My unpublished prediction for the ALDS & ALCS were the Yankees in 3 and 6, respectively. Since they just took one game more in the ALDS, I'll assume the non-pattern will carry over tonight.

Yankees, 5-3. Four runs off Pedro, one off Wakefield. No fights.

The first man out of the Yankees' bullpen before the 7th inning will be Wells. Contreras will be allowed one baserunner with a multi-run lead.

Only don't expect me to actually watch all of it.

(At least I'm not a Cubs fan. That was bad.)

Blogging on this site may be sparse for a while.

"What else is new?" you probably ask. Well, this time I'm giving some notice.

Nothing bad - just a combination of personal and professional pressures may make it difficult to blog much for a while, and my entries will probably be shorter than usual when they do come.

A good Yom Kippur and Sukkot to all.

And go Yanks!

P.S. No, I am not being deployed to Iraq.