“Fuck, man.”

There wasn’t much else I could say, as my last text of the 2018 Rockies season to my group chat of guys I’ve talked baseball with for nearly ten years went through.

Fuck, man.

For a season that I counted them out and then nearly bought World Series tickets over 100 times, the fact I could only muster two words about it’s end is probably about right.

It started in April, cold and soggy. It ended in October, cold and soggy. But it got there through late nights, frustrated tweets, and jubilation. That it ends here, at the hands of a buzz saw that hasn’t lost in two weeks, is both fitting and unfair.

Year over year, you just hope sports start to get fair. But they never are. There is never a benevolent God choosing which team is more deserving, no justice that steps in ex machina and saves the storyline. There are no movies to be made out of most seasons and this one is no different. They’ll never be fair and we’ll always hope they start to be.

The world spins on, there are emails to answer and life events to undergo for all of us. There just won’t be any more memories of this team and this moment.

Fuck, man.

From Tapia and a grand slam con mucho swagger to DJ putting one just over the score box, it is difficult to remember a season with more pure moments. So it makes sense that it ends with a slumping offense and a pop fly to center. Justice and fairness are best left to other areas of your life, you won’t find it here.

Fuck, man.

It was fun while it lasted, we’ll say. And we’re right. It was fun, which is all we can expect sports to be. If they’re fun, then they did their job. The Rockies did their job, then. They just didn’t make it fun for long enough. Is it greedy to expect that they make it fun forever? That they never stop being fun? I don’t know, I’ll leave that up to the tweets and the columns that will follow tonight. It was fun while it lasted, that’s all I know.

In a week, in a month, maybe in four months we’ll watch the highlights and smile. We’ll say it out loud “it was fun.” Because it was. But nobody wants to blame anyone who can’t say it right now. Nobody wants to talk about how fun their iPhone was after they just dropped it in the toilet.

Fuck, man.

It ends with 2 runs in 28 innings and 4 runs in 41. It ends with some hits that should’ve landed and swings that shouldn’t have happened. Oh well. It ends like this for most of the teams that have ever made the playoffs. It ends with missed opportunities and bad pitches. Maybe we saw it coming, maybe the flaws were going to get shown no matter what. Maybe this is just the way the game is, brutal and unjust.

I don’t know.

Fuck, man.