Thursday, December 31, 2009

Green Fields of the Mind

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. - A. Bartlett Giamatti, from 'The Green Fields of the Mind'.
It does break your heart, doesn't it? Most of the time, it seems. We named this blog 'Misery Loves Company' in recognition of the game's unique grasp on those of us addicted to its love/hate rhythms. And, at the time, because of a shared recent (and not-so-recent in one case) history of dismal returns.

We probably didn't know what we were getting into when we started this blog in the spring of 2003. We knew we loved baseball, knew that we had time on our hands, and maybe that we could write a little bit. But I don't think either of us expected that the simple act of writing it down would serve to enhance our passion for the game as much as it did. MLC helped us think about the game differently, to work for new angles and ideas about our teams. Didn't make us any saner - in fact, at certain moments, it probably contributed to a fair sight of irrationality. Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, anyone? Or the 2005 NLCS?

In other moments, the game proved transcendent. Moreso for one of us (and then two others, after we expanded the masthead in 2008), to be sure. When my time here on Earth comes and I'm making the top 10 list to end all top 10 lists, that 11-day period in October 2004 will command one of the very top spots. Even today, rereading our posts from that time brings back smiles, the memories of that impossible run still vivid. Impossible is not nearly descriptive enough.

That this is a eulogy of sorts is probably obvious by now. That such a post is necessary has been obvious for some time. We're shuttering MLC not because we don't love the game. In a great many ways, MLC has helped us really understand how much we do love it. No, we're shuttering MLC because we haven't been able to put in the effort necessary to do it the way we want to for too long. MLC was never about pageviews or making money (good thing, too) or getting exposure. It was about two (then four) guys watching baseball.

Those guys will still watch baseball (maybe even write about it at Gheorghe: The Blog). But they both know when a good thing has come to an end. So long, and thanks for reading.

May the game continue to break your heart.

6 comments:

I.M. Forme said...

sayonara!

abolish-the-dh said...

All understood. Thanks for all the good reading.

Isabella said...

Tera Online
Runescape Gold
Tera Gold
buy eden gold

Tera Gold
Buy Runescape Gold
Tera Item

Tera Gold Cheap
cheap wow gold
Tera Account
Tera items

Tera Items
cheapest wow gold
Tera Gold

Cheap Tera Gold
Runescape Gold
lotro gold

guo hu said...

electrostatic filter. Those phases of filtration take place beforehand of obtaining on the exhaust filter. The total concept of the multi-stage filter key transponder programming is to allow there with no fail be large air circulation all through the vacuum device. Air sharpening and filtration is probably the most active parts of study and development with Miele vacuums. The rising problems with environmental air pollution are their principal drive. Their continued research can be simply because they are aware that lots of men and women experience from varying degrees of particulate and allergen sensitivities. That's why auto scanners for sale they contain their Energetic HEPA filtration method on their units. Such a HEPA helps make utilization of an electrostatic filter stage that boosts the polish in the exhaust air.
To get More Posts Published By This informative article Writer Relating to Device Advertising And Promoting Appear At That ought to Permit You To obtain Probably the most Advantageous Usage Outside of The ones Vacuum cleaner.


Fall

Unknown said...

mecose|
High-Precision Molding|
hardware mould|
medical mold

mecose|
High-Precision Molding|
hardware mould|
medical mold

mecose|
High-Precision Molding|
hardware mould|
medical mold

mecose|
High-Precision Molding|
hardware mould|
medical mold

Whitney said...

Porfigliano