Luck Be a Lady Tonight

After the Toronto Blue Jays lost back-to-back series against the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, dropping 2 out of 3 games to each, most Jays fans had resigned themselves to the fact that the team would probably be participating in the Wild Card play-in game. I tried to convince myself that they would go on a big winning streak and jump over Boston one last time to win the division, but I think that was mostly a deliberately optimistic response to the deluge of overly-negative haters in Toronto (a problem that plagues the city's sports teams), and I think deep, deep down, I mostly knew they were going to the Wild Card game.

This will be a significant episode in my life as a Blue Jays fan because it's something that's never happened before. The stupid, ridiculous, engaging, and exciting one-game Wild Card game was brought in in 2012 with the purpose of keeping more teams in the playoff hunt later into the season and, in the process, keeping more fanbases interested for longer. Despite how silly I might think a one-game playoff is, it has, without a doubt, done what it was intended to. I personally don't think that the game of baseball is well-suited to the "win and you're in" style of the game the way that American Football is. But it is must-watch. I don't want the Jays to participate in it, because any team can be great for just one game and no matter how you slice it, the Jays' chances are 50%. I would love if they had won the division and guaranteed a best-of-5 series. But that chance, the darker 50% chance, is what makes it crazy. You don't know what's going to happen.

Like I said, nothing like this has happened to the Blue Jays before. The Wild Card game is new and this is the first time that the Jays have participated in it, so I'll remember it forever. It'll either be an addition to last year's story of winning and playoff participation led by Jose, Eddie, Tulo, Russ, Josh, or it will be another addition to the much longer story of the team falling just short of contention.

But at least they're playing at home. It will be crazy and it will be loud.

I've really felt the need to write about the end of this baseball season and the myriad feelings it has wrought, but it's hard to do so and make it relevant always and not just tied to one specific weekend in the 2016 season. A sportswriter I am not. I certainly feel like I need to eulogize Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, but maybe I'll wait until the team's playoff fate is decided before I do that.

Beat the fucking Orioles guys. Let's go.