"This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."

Just riffing on Duque's Doors quote, here...

Uh-boy.  What a great last game, huh?  Terrible pitching, worse fielding, and no hitting to speak of.  The home run record lost to the Twins.  A straight fastball pitcher, Lynn Lance Lynn, completely dominating.

It was the end of the world, actually—at least, the world of the 2019 season in which the Yanks' gutsy, never-say-die, next-man-up subs beat all and sundry.

Listening to today's travesty of a game, I couldn't help thinking that the wrong guys were hurt or recovered, just as they are going into the playoffs.

I don't wish anyone injured, ever (except for Jason Varitek).  But what a shame the Yanks aren't going into the postseason with, say, Tauchman, Hicks, and a still-puppyish Red Menace instead of Stanton and Judge; Romine and Higgy instead of Sancho; Ford and EE instead of Voit, much as I love him; Betances, for all his faults, and Mike King, instead of CC and Cessa.

I would give that team a chance against the world.

Instead...we are back to the Broken Flailers (Little known fact:  those were the original lyrics for Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted":  "What becomes of the broken flailers?/ Up there swinging like drunken sailors?")

In between their complaint about the 100-degree heat, you could hear the unease creeping into the dulcet tones of The Master and Suzie.  After one particularly awful Torres strikeout, The Master actually burst out:  "What a terrible hack!  Slow and ineffectual!"

The truth will out, as it aways does through great artists.  The Gleyber is hitting .172 with 1 HR and 3 ribbies in the last two weeks, and just .247 for September.  Gio is at .167 for the last two weeks, with 1 HR and 2 ribbies, and .211 for the month.  Didi is at .197 for September, and hasn't hit one out in the last 14 days.

Maybe, just maybe, we could endure the return of the Giant Wind Machines with our infield playing as well as it has all year.  But obviously, these guys are all nursing injuries, great or small, and I doubt if the Yanks will make it past the first round of the playoffs.

At least this dismal end to a great season had the perfect venue.  The Rangers even ran a salute to CC, who owns a lifetime, 5.13 ERA versus Texas.  Rangers players lined up to thank him personally for not retiring so that they could run up so many more hits.

The game happened to be played on the last day of the Rangers' 25-year-old park, with a big commemoration for the fans.  Kenny Rogers, the longtime-choke-turned-playoffs-cheater, caught the ceremonial first ball, from Nolan Ryan, The Man Who Hated New York (I'm not making this up.)

It all left one full of nostalgia for the long-ago, 1990s.  The Master noted that the Rangers had "very good" teams in the 1990s, "they were just beaten by the Yankees."

Actually, the Rangers had very JUICED teams in the 1990s and beyond, including Juan Gone and Pudge II, whose rampant cheating probably cost Derek Jeter an MVP award in 1999, and Jorge Posada a trip to Cooperstown.  Good times.

The park itself was not the worst excrescence in recent major-league history, although it was mostly a hitters' delight, with a turfed batters' eye in center that was immediately dubbed, "the grassy knoll." (Fun-nee!)  Its dimensions—and still more juice—helped convince us all that A-Rod was a truly extraordinary power-hitter.

In its mere 25 years of existence, the stadium was called, variously, The Ballpark at Arlington, Ameriquest Park (after one of the subprime companies that brought America to its knees), and the Globe Life, after a shady insurance and hedge-fund company that changed its name from "Torchmark."  (I wonder why.)  Now it will be turned into a field for the Texas Renegades in the revived XFL.

71 percent of the original Park of Many Names was paid for by the public, or $135 million of the $191 million cost.  The new Globe Life Park the Rangers are moving into next door will cost $1.1 billion when it's finished.  Of that total, "only" half is supposed to come from the public—but Globe Life's "half" will also include tax money leveled on hotels in the area, and parking at the stadium.

We don't believe in taxes in America, save for subsidizing fabulously wealthy, almost ceaselessly cheating ballteams that turn themselves into living advertisements for the worst corporate thieves in the world.

But don't worry:  the Rangers' new park will have a retractable dome!

We don't have the money to deal with the climate change that left The Master and Suzyn sitting in that 100-degree heat today, but we can build more ballparks!  Can't wait until another 25 years down the road, when no one is living in Dallas or Fort Worth or Arlington anymore thanks to the constant hurricanes, dust storms, drought, and probably locust plagues—but Globe Life Park still stands proud amidst the maelstrom.

Ah, Texas!