Life After Baseball

There’s this little spot in Hollywood where you can get yourself arguably just about the best burger in town. It’s too trendy for its own good, but how can you fault it, the burger almost necessitates it. There’s a lot that goes in to the perfect burger, but top among those is the ability to choose its contents – the cheese from a list of cheeses, sauces from a list of such, veggie or turkey or beef, veggies and fried eggs and bacon and more. You can never go in there and order the same burger based on the multitude of choice. But I do. Always do I order the same burger – with the same sauce and cheese and additions. It’s far more expensive than any one burger ought to be, but when you take the first bite, it’s obvious why you’ve overpaid.

It’s an amazing hamburger.

Three quarters of the way through the experience, total joy dissipates, and a newer feeling emerges: post patty depression. Sure that I never (although I live only 3 miles from the restaurant) will have a hamburger ever again that tastes as good as that one. I try to make that last quarter last. Like a running back who is trying for the winning game point. If a bit of lettuce drops, I swoop it up, and make sure to eat it. I tuck back in the bacon so it makes a perfect bite. I chew slowly, and I focus very intently on nothing but the now moment. The crowd and clutter, friends and Hollywood fade away, and there’s nothing but me and the now and the last bite I take of that burger. It was delicious, and now it’s over.

Sadness takes its place on my now empty plate and I sigh with mixed feelings of joy and loss. A pound gained, a burger lost.

I’ll snap out of it, most often with the help of liquor and spirits, and come to realize I will eat there again; I will eat a delicious hamburger once more.

Not unlike post patty depression, I mourn the end of Dodger baseball 08. What is there for me now? The warm summer nights give way to the brutal Los Angeles 78-degree winter, an election will give way to thanksgiving, birthdays and vacations, and work, and life will go on, I suppose.

I saw cheap tickets on the internet Wednesday morning and I thought about snagging one and going to game 5. Certain at the start of the LCS, as every sportscaster, sports writer, and sports professional, I too thought the Dodgers would split in Philly, take 2 out of 3 in LA and return the LCS for a decisive two games where they would most certainly clinch the pennant for a chance at the world series title. I would suppose the magic of sports is that it’s never written the way you would write it. Philly was a stronger team, with stronger pitching, and a stronger bullpen, and I ultimately didn’t snag that last minute ticket, because if by chance we couldn’t push the series to Philadelphia I’d have to watch Philly celebrating on our perfectly groomed field, and I’d see the end of a really, quite wonderful season that's better left in it's pristineness in my own imagination.

I went to the gym for innings one through three, one because moving helps, and I could skim the debate happening at the same time on a TV right next to it. After 30 minutes and 3 errors in one inning by an errorless Rafael Furcal, several verbal profane outbursts, I got off and went upstairs for yoga. Yoga gave way to boot camp class, and 2 ½ hours at the gym later all in an effort to avoid the end of the season, I had to read by text message what I didn’t need a blackberry to tell me: Game Over.

Season Over.

Just six long chilly months of doing other things to pass the time.

That last game was difficult, if not impossible to watch because it was a lot like the feeling I have as I finish that burger. But I’ll always come around to accept the obvious, I will eat a delicious burger again, and baseball in LA will be back, in no time at all.