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Looking back: Did DJ LeMahieu’s game-tying ALCS home run make this feel worse?

Before the Yankees came up to bat in the ninth inning and, for the last time, had DJ LeMahieu play hero, I posted this on Twitter. It was a prayer to, not the baseball gods, but ACTUALLY God that the Yankees face Byun-Byun Kim.

I didn’t expect anything to come from this. That was until DJ LeMahieu came up. He had himself a long at-bat before putting one into the seats. This game was tied and, while most of the world sits in unrest and slowly dives into civil war, my prayers were answered.

Maybe this season wasn’t a wash, I began to think? Maybe this was as much of a miracle as we all thought it would be? There was, as our merch says, magic in the Bronx – albeit we were in Houston. (Yankee ghosts travel right?)

Not even ten minutes later though, Jose Altuve crushed our hopes by literally crushing a hanging breaking ball from Aroldis Chapman. It was the type of crack of the bat where, you knew it was gone before it even left the infield. The camera panned high in the sky signifying the end of what was supposed to be THE year for the Yankees.

Now we’re all asking ourselves, how did this happen? Whose fault is it? How could they lose after that? Should they have just laid down and died in the Bronx? Did Hicks really have to play hero against Justin Verlander?

I’m happy the Yankees put up a fight, but there is no doubt in my mind that the hope they gave us made it worse – at least for me it did. Can you be proud of them? Sure. Pride still doesn’t have me watching the Nationals walk all over Houston and not think: ‘Well they don’t look all that tough. How did the Yankees lose?’

Right now I am at a point with the concept of ‘hope’ where Red was in the beginning of Shawshank Redemption:

“Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Like Shawshank but with a bad ending

I can end this talking about how Andy crawled through muck and crap to get to freedom and have it be an analogy about the upcoming season for the Yankees. I can say that Gerrit Cole can potentially be that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately this season’s end has me real sad.

It feels like the part in Shawshank where Andy finds out from Tommy Williams who the real killer is only to have the Warden snuff him out the way Altuve snuffed out the Yankees.

What’s worse is there is nothing to amend the situation. The Nationals are a cool story and them beating the Astros would be awesome but let’s be real. Is that really satisfactory? Another team winning a title?

It just isn’t. As fun as it is, it never could. It’s a temporary fix like most things big pharma makes us take to make the sadness fall back into our belly.

The other day I even tried watching a movie to get better and find some relief. It was called ‘Midsommer.’ The movie began with a girl’s parents getting murdered and she ends up getting sucked into a weird, Swedish sex cult where they throw the elderly off mountains because, well, they’re too old for their society.

The whole thing ends with the girl calling that place home. She has them burn her boyfriend alive and she becomes queen. The cult makes up for her parents getting murdered. The end.

I should have expected Hollywood would offer me nothing either. I wouldn’t recommend anybody watch it unless you want to continue feeling horrible about yourself.