Postseason baseball is when imaginations run like they’re legging out a triple.
Postseason baseball is a potent potpourri; the wafts of Rawlings leather and carved pumpkins and moist leaves and hot chocolate and cold Coors at cold Coors.
Postseason baseball is when every single stat matters more than ever, but then it’s as if they also don’t matter at all, and a one-legged Kirk Gibson can homer off a Hall of Fame closer or a broken-bat hit can win a World Series or 36-year-old Jack Morris can pitch 10 scoreless innings in a Game 7.
Postseason baseball is your best friend sardined to your left in the jam-packed ballpark, and your new best friend sardined to your right.
Postseason baseball is leaving the nail clipper in the medicine cabinet until November.
Postseason baseball is the surviving painful formality of attending work before a night game, and you sit at your desk in your purple necktie, occasionally but obsessively checking your pocket to make sure the tickets are still there, while the clock moves slower than Todd Helton breaking up a double play.
Postseason baseball is when grandfathers and fathers all become sons again — wide-eyed, childlike hero worshipers who would give up their Schwinn for a win.
Postseason baseball is the pleasantries of managers shaking hands at home plate, the two graying men simultaneously respecting the heck out of the other guy, while knowing their entire legacy rides on kicking that other guy’s butt.
Postseason baseball is when the mascot and the wave and the scoreboard blooper videos don’t matter; it’s when even casual fans become die-hards.
Postseason baseball is the bullpen gate swinging open, and the closer making the lonely jog down the outfield grass, and 50,000 breath-holding souls realizing why you hear the word “save” in “savior.”
Postseason baseball is the helpless broadcaster in the winning clubhouse, trying to interview the goggled hero, while fire-hosing champagne and hootenanny hooting interrupt the live shot.
Postseason baseball is pushing your torso against the ballpark turnstile and walking into a dream.
Postseason baseball is here.
