Do You Think I Could Hit Tony La Russa With a Rock From Here

So here’s something I wrote just prior to Game 3 of the NLDS. A reflection of how things turned out will follow later today, but at the moment I thought it’d be neat to see where my head was at before all of this happened.

What do you mean, “You just don’t feel like writing something new!” That’s not at all what’s happening here.

Its a little past 11. A little more than I thought, actually.

In a few hours, Game 3 of the NLDS will begin and this coffee shop doesn’t even have the internet connection I need to silence the voices in my head.

The Phillies lost the last game. How are they ever going to win another game, ever?

Shut up please.

The Cardinals, that team that needed all 162 games to stumble into a playoff spot, beat us at home. In front of everybody.

Not interested.

They got to Cliff.

Excuse me, could I get another one of these espresso… buckets? Thanks.

He was undefeated in Philly during the post season until Sunday night.

I wonder how Katy Perry stays in such good shape.

Tony La Russa may as well have kicked in the front door of your house and fucked your dog.

… what?

He violated something dear to you, is what I’m saying. Not advocating bestiality.

Right. So I wonder if I can get network access if I click the “connect” button harder than before, even though it says there’s no signal? I’m gonna try it.

Its a vicious battle, fighting for the internet. I tried reading a newspaper, but all anybody wants to talk about in the Philly Sports section is the Phillies, for some reason. That and how the only way to fix the Eagles is to rip Andy Reid’s mustache out of his head and feed it to stray dogs.

So I’m stuck here at the moment, not watching replays of glorious victory, but trying to embed myself in denial’s airless cocoon, hoping I can suffocate the memories of a heartbreaking playoff loss.

Which is harder to do with a snarky, cynical, antagonistic voice in my head taking the time to compose weird metaphors.

“It was announced that when the Phillies open the World Series at Citizens Bank Park, the winner of American Idol will sing the National Anthem,” a DJ says smarmily over the radio.

“D… don’t say that!” I want to shout, leaping to my feet and knocking this small table over. “That’s exactly the sort of overconfidence that can destroy a person!”

“We’re gonna get you going with five feel-good songs in a row, right now!” she replies, and puts on the song from Goodfellas that covers a montage of Robert De Niro gruesomely murdering all of his friends.

So between the DJ, the voice in my head, the lack of internet, and the drawstring from the blinds that I keep thinking is a snake when it caresses the back of my neck, this is one recklessly normal Tuesday morning.

I wonder how Cole Hamels is doing. I wonder if he’s got a pre game ritual to get him up for games like today; if he contains that raw Cole-motion we saw burst out at the close of the NLDS last season and puts it somewhere inside himself to pick away at throughout the game. If he sings along with his Kelly Clarkson Mix into the body mirror with any greater intensity on the morning of a critical playoff game.

Cole is easier to pick on because all of his moving parts are usually exposed. He doesn’t have Doc’s frozen humanity and relentless silence; he doesn’t have Cliff’s loose shoulders and casual shrugs. He’s skin and bones with a vicious circle change. He’s a loose fitting uniform who looks like he’s playing charades on Game Night at the Gundersons when he makes his “intense face.”

He’s grown up right in front of us, and our familiarity with him makes us think we can criticize him harder than any of his colleagues. That should be obvious by now.

So for now, I’m awash in worry; a castaway in the deep end, drowning in questions and finding no answers to any of them.

“Do you ever wonder how Katy Perry stays in such good shape?” asks the radio. ” In a recent interview, she says she doesn’t eat fast food and works out five times a week.”

Whew. Mystery solved.