The Season Fades Like a Long Fly Ball

More than 30 years ago The Dallas Morning News published my baseball analogy ode to all those who haven’t hit their goals - yet. Goal Setters take heart time is on your side. Both the Rangers and the Phillies are in this year’s playoffs.?

THE COFFEE IS WEAK and lukewarm. How could it be otherwise? Here at Arlington Stadium, it's been a long time since anyone wanted any drink save a cold beer or ice-filled soda. Many nights the stadium thermometer hovered in the 90s, although it never felt quite that hot.?Maybe it was the breeze carrying the smell of freshly watered outfield grass or infield dirt. Maybe it was the sweat in the small of your back, cooling as you stood up for the seventh-inning stretch. Maybe it was watching a first-place team.?Whatever.

Even the boys of summer look different this chilly October evening On those nights in July and August, they were coiled and ready, poised on the balls of their feet. Tonight, they seem to lean back on their heels.?

Under the stadium lights, there are no secrets tonight. On this next to the last day of the season, for all practical purposes, this game is meaningless. For weeks, both Oakland and Texas have been playing out the season. Like other teams and their fans, they have already started waiting till next year.

But tonight, they must do their waiting on the field.?Fielding practice is a moot point, and soon the players are clustering and trading stories and slapping each other on the back. They have heard the national anthem so many times since spring training. it is surprising they can hear it at all.?

In places like Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Minneapolis and Toronto, the summer will hang on for a little while longer. But here, among the stadium blankets and long-sleeve shirts, fall has arrived.?The thermometer says 66, and you can almost see your breath, but the air feels much colder. The kids' little hands should be firmly in the weathered Rawlings glove, ready to snag a home run. But tonight, they are crammed into jeans pockets.

A few aisles over some kid is digging into some soft ice cream piled into a miniature A's batting helmet. His jacket is buttoned up to his neck.?There are no long lines at the beer and soda stands. But expect a good 10-minute wait at one of the few places selling coffee. Step right up, no waiting for a lemon freeze.?

Even the outfield grass is showing its age. When the light hits it just so, it resembles a cheap shag carpet in some teenager’s van.?Yet 40,000 people are drawn from college football games and Saturday-night movies. Maybe they've come, like me, to hear the crack of the bat on the ball one more time. To stretch over the railing for a foul ball. Maybe trying for a last breath of stadium air. ?

?I have been through this ritual before. At one of the last games in the old Yankee Stadium (before it was refurbished), we sat, teeth chattering, trying to soak in all the sights and sounds and smells. We were thinking ahead, hoping we could remember what to tell our kids about seeing baseball history before it was rewritten or remodeled.?Several Octobers at Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia, we bundled up, munched on soft pretzels and drank hot chocolate. During the pitching change - always some young phenom up from the minors who was never heard from again - we tried to figure out how they worked in all the extra seats for the upcoming Eagles game.?

On those nights, as tonight, the teams shared the same fate - that of being long out of the hunt but committed to the schedule. It was certainly much colder in those Northeastern cities. But tonight in Arlington, Texas, it seems just as cold.?This brand of October baseball has little excitement. It is not the stuff of pennant races or championship series. It is a ritual without hope but also without despair.

Everyone may be going through the motions on the field, at the concession stand, in the bleachers - but there is a strangely satisfying peace in this limbo. There is a sense of things being put in order, not forever, but for a time.?

It is the taste of weak, lukewarm coffee on a clear October night.?

It tastes fine.