Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Finis: World Series '05

"So, did you cut him off?" one of my co-workers asked brusquely, the morning after Game 4.

Whaaa?

"Your boyfriend, Ensberg. Did you cut him off? Because he sucked in the series!"

Oh.

After I got through laughing at the idea (like, if Morgan Ensberg were really my boyfriend, would I cut him off? Hel-lo! As if!), I just shook my head. His performance against the Sox was certainly un-Ensberg-like, hitting a dismal .111 after achieving .278 in the Division Series and .238 in the NLCS.

I felt badly for him. He seems like a really nice guy, which is a big part of the reason he's my favorite player. I also suspect that no one feels worse than he does himself. It seems to me that he never really came back from the injury he suffered when he was hit on the hand by a pitch from the Phillies' Brett Myers on Sept. 5. He did manage to finish out September and October with a damn good .294, but he only hit two home runs after the injury, including the post-season.

You think he can develop that memory-span-of-a-goldfish thing before spring training?

Anyway. A lot of people at work asked me if I cried when we lost Game 4. The truthful answer, which surprised some people, was "no." (Now, I did cry during the fifth inning of Game 3 when Roy O gave up those 5 runs. I've seen it happen before to him, but not very often, and not on such a big stage. So sad for him.) But on the day of Game 4, I had to work until early afternoon, and something happened to remind me of my priorities. As you know, I work in health care. One of my co-workers had a problem with a case, in which a potentially life-threatening complication had developed suddenly. Even more stress-inducing, the patient was a child, a six-year-old. This colleague had sent out for assistance, and since I was free at the moment, I was the first to arrive. When I entered the room, our eyes locked. "Start an IV" were the only words he spoke to me, but his expression said it all. I said a quick prayer and popped in a catheter on my first attempt. He pumped some drugs through it before we even taped it down, and the crisis was over.

And that's the sort of thing that's truly important. The health and well-being of someone's child, mother, sibling, etc., not a game. Don't get me wrong, I love baseball. It's a fabulous hobby and has kept me company when I was lonely and opened doors that I never even saw before. But did I cry when the Astros lost the World Series? No.

Of course, when I walked out of the room after starting the IV, I did think to myself, "Hmph. Good thing I'm better in the clutch than the Astros' hitters. . . ."

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