Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

2003 Wrap-Up

Well, the season has been over for a few weeks now (yes, I know, the Mets' season was over in June, that's just so cleverly funny), but it only required a few seconds of reflection to see that the fates of the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox unraveled just exactly the way they were predicted. Right here (scroll down about 500 screens) and in just about every other two-bit sports journalism medium, two things were forecast: a long, painful season for the Mets and a brilliant season with a quick, painful end for the Red Sox. Oh, sure, there were a few rose-colored "we'll see" outlooks that held out for a light at the end of the tunnel, either in the form of respectability for the Mets or a long-awaited title for the Sox, but we realists/cynics saw the season for what it would inevitably bring us: misery.

So, when we called this experiment "Misery Loves Company," was it a self-fulfilling prophecy, or were we just restating the obvious? Or did we perhaps doom our beloved franchises to more agony? Hard to say. All I know is that, along the way, hairlines, livers and furniture within kicking distance suffered along with Rob and me. Wives and kids were annoyed, brain cells were detroyed, but in truth, countless hours were enjoyed. It's still the best game going.

And it's no small smidgen of solace that neither the Braves nor Yankees won the World Series. Though it will likely trigger the most vulgar Yankee spending spree this winter (I think they nab Sheffield, Colon, and Palmeiro, plus Millwood if they don't retain Pettitte), it was very nice to see George Steinbrenner (I will not call him by Springsteen's nickname) suffer.

And thus ends the 2003 edition of this forum which has escalated my frustrating Mets from pests into pestilence, or at least personal pain. Predicting, then chronicling their futility, has been a self-levied torture I could never possibly repeat while still maintaining any reasonable level of sanity.

See you when pitchers and catchers report.