At last, the veils of this false world are ripped away, and we come face-to-face with the true, Cthulhulian horror the juju gods have in store for us.

 

After the first game of a doubleheader on August 11, 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers found themselves 13 1/2 games ahead of their great rival, the second-place New York Giants.

This is, as best I can determine—and ZachA might be able to confirm this—the largest, regular season lead that any major-league team has ever squandered.

Ever. 

Single league, division, wild-card, you name it.

Until now.

Those of us who did not watch it, live, learned at their daddy's knee of our miraculous, 1978 comeback against the good old, choke-meister Red Sox, a year in which we overcame a 14-game deficit on July 19th.

But our boys were in 4th, not 2nd. The biggest, latest lead the Carmine Hose had that year was 10 up on the Brewers, on July 8th.

The greatest, season comeback of all time was actually that made by the 1914 Boston Braves, who found themselves 15 games behind the Giants after dropping a July 4th doubleheader to the Brooklyn Robins.

But the Braves were in last place, in an eight-team league. The Giants' lead at the time over the second-place Cubbies was only 4 1/2 games.

So, where do we stand in all this?

Well, just a week ago—seems like an epoch, now!—after watching the BoSox stagger around under their home field, Friday night lights like a bad Texas varsity team...the Bombers were 15 1/2 up on the Tampa Bay Rays.

Take a good look at these standings, because you will be seeing them for the rest of your life:

AL East Division, 7/8/22

Tm	W	L	W-L%	GB	RS	RA	pythW-L%
NYY	61	23	.726	--	439	256	.728
TBR	45	38	.542	15.5	341	317	.533
BOS	45	39	.536	16.0	393	348	.555
TOR	45	40	.529	16.5	391	380	.513
BAL	41	44	.482	20.5	350	369	.476

 

             

Yep, that was the set-up. And now comes the reveal.

Brian "Thane of Cthulhu" Cashman—the man whose leadership brought us the worst ever, only ever, up 3-0 meltdown in a major-league, championship series back in 2004—will now proceed to kick away the biggest ever, regular-season lead, as the horrors of the 21st century continue. 

In many ways, this will be a much more monstrous feat than the October collapse he presided over. 

The 2004 ALCS turned in good part on a few, amazing pieces of luck—a wild pitch bouncing right back to the catcher so he could throw Bernie out at third; Matsui's hard line drive with the bases loaded not quite falling in, etc.—not to mention how Joe Torre suffered a petite mal stroke on the bench, leaving him frozen and unable to call for pitchouts, steals, or all of those baseball-y things.

Hey, anyone can lose 4 straight games. Right? Even if no one else ever has?

But a collapse of the magnitude we are about to see? Only a general manager—and only a general manager named Brian Cashman—could bring it off.

Ever wonder what his Hall of Fame plaque will look like? On those days when they've wiped off enough of the spittle for us to make it out, I suspect we will see that it is not in his image, but that of his master:

On your knees!  All hail the terrible power of the juju gods!  Beg for mercy before we are tossed into the fire pit for a thousand generations!