Tonight, we must be prepared for the end

Here's the worst part. Come the ninth, with the outcome clear, Joe Buck will launch his usual, "let's-comfort-the-afflicted" funeral benediction for the losers - the most craven compilation of bullshit known to humanity. It makes Trump's botched phone call to that Gold Star mom look like Lou Gehrig's farewell address. As the camera pans through the losing dugout, the Bucket will unleash his golden shower of canned praise - "... nothing to feel sad about... great future... so close... successful year all around..." - to linger in our memories like farts after a Shriner's convention. I believe this is why Elvis shot TVs; he was listening to some Joe Buck-type eulogize his team.

No. I won't do that. If the end comes tonight, as I greatly fear, I say we go out listening to The Master and his Acolyte. Their grief will be real, not a retrofitted Gold Globe acceptance speech, and they won't tell us, wait 'till next year, because John and Suzyn understand the nature of predicting baseball. If Suzyn cries, and my guess is she will, the tears will not be culled from Louie Anderson's 1987 stand-up act.

Tonight, the end may or may not come. But if does, we must be prepared. That means keeping a radio or electronic porthole nearby. Do NOT end 2017 being buttered and basted by the corporate pallbearers at Fox Sports, a network whose only sop to the Yankees was to trot out A-Rod, arguably the most hated player of his generation. 

If we are destined to lose, I implore you - for your own peace of mind - not to go through the winter with the piss aftertaste of ginned-up false sympathy from these human Hallmark cards, who couldn't feel the pain of a Yankee loss if it were wedged up their keesters with a pushbroom. Turn down the TV and turn up the radio, the last bastion of electronic communication in our lives. Yes, radio has become the conduit of hate, lies and dogma - (and Celino & Barnes, the injury attorneys! Dial 888-888-8888!) - but in 2017, it was also the home of the world's greatest enduring love story, (aside from the one between a certain moose and his flying squirrel.) If it ends tonight, if we all go down, do not go down with Joe Buck and his ludicrous tribute to the franchise for which he has always shown contempt. Don't let it end with Buck telling you how good you should feel. There are things worse than death in the world, and the loneliness of lying in a cold coffin with Joe Buck talking about you overhead... nope... I can't think of anything worse. (I've always imagined hearing that REM song, "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight...") If we go out tonight, we don't need a phone call from a politician. Let's go out with Mom and Dad.