The leaves turn in Loser City.

 

The night is bitter

The stars have lost their glitter

The nights grow colder

Suddenly you're older—

So it's over at last, not only the seasons but the postmortems.  

The Yankees didn't win it all—something most of knew would happen.  They didn't return to the World Series, either, something most of us also expected, nor did they win the division, or a hundred games, or do anything else of note.  

Without the extended extended-wild card system putting the Top 40 percent in the playoffs, the Yankees season would have quietly ended weeks ago—and not much the worser.

The team couldn't win when Judge was hurt or slumping. They couldn't win in the postseason when Giancarlo took a year off, even though Judge came through. Well, hey, that's a tiny variation!

The shortstop we all knew couldn't hit or field well enough to start for a winning team, had another wretched year. Fortunately, for our general manager, he got hurt as well, so that baked-in excuse will keep him in the Bronx until he goes the way of all Gleyber.

The washed-up first baseman we got cheap did no better than the cheap, washed-up first baseman he replaced.  Our catcher of the future looked like our every catcher of the recent past.  Jazz ended the year yawning openly and staring in perplexity at his glove. 

The pitching staff, starting and going, was threaded with huge holes.  So what's new?

What did surprise me, at least, was how the Mets collapsed as well, not even making the playoffs. That will bring changes, at least, but so much else remains the same.

What do we have to look forward to?

The local football teams are already a combined 2-10. Once again, the Jets have brought on a coach wound way too tight for the vicissitudes of New York City.

The Giants seem to suddenly have hope, due to their quarterback with the splendid name of Jaxson Dart. Dare we foresee a 2030s where he is stepping out with our shortstop-of-the future, Dax Kilby, the Mantle and Gifford of their time? The Ax Brothers??

Well, maybe. More likely they'll both flourish elsewhere—as those two QB discards from NYC, Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones, are doing right now. (Have our football teams been taking pointers from Cashie and friends?)

What else is there after football?

The Knicks made the conference finals for the first time in almost 25 years, and promptly fired their coach. (The Liberty, in more proof that the women are catching up to the men, fired their coach, too, one year after winning their first ever WNBA title.)

Here it is only mid-October, and the Rangers have already been shutout three times at home and are the verge of a new NHL record for that. 

Two years ago, they compiled the most points in the NHL. Last year, they didn't make the playoffs. This year, they are chasing some of those amazing, 100-year-old, non-scoring records that we were told the Yankees kept breaking earlier this season.

After the Rangers, well, there are the Devils and the Islanders. The names seem vaguely familiar, but indelibly attached to other decades, in the distant past, like the names of six-day bicycle racers, and silent movie stars.

The Nets? They have reached the black hole of sports in their Goniff Arena, beyond the reach of any meaningful comment whatsoever.

That great beginning

Has seen a final inning

Don't know what happened

It's all a crazy game...

Sure is, especially here in Loser City.

Oh, I know that Doug K. is right, and New York is not "Loser City" when it comes to most of my fellow citizens (Though maybe we should wait to see how this election turns out.) 

But it is Loser City, all right, when it comes to our ridiculously over-subsidized, over-indulged, overpriced, under-performing, under-engaging, generally awful, hopeless—and indifferent—sports teams.

Yes, yes, I know: I have no idea what it's like to live in Kansas City, Miami, Cleveland, Wherever the home teams have fled or just plain stink, year in and year out.

At least, in those places, the fans don't have to put down major money just to hear some front-office monkey like Lonn Trost or Randy Levine or Brian Cashman tell you that you've never had it so good.

The road gets rougher

It's lonelier and tougher...

But not for the nepo magnates who run our teams. They are surrounded by huge, comforting piles of money, and courtiers and fawning "reporters" from the sports media they largely own, telling them all the time what a great job they are doing.

Well, time to get watching our other local clubs make Brian Cashman and the Yankees look good by comparison. No doubt, another five months of watching losing like that, and we'll be chomping at the bit for Opening Day.