It's like Deja Vu All Over Again...and Again

Once again as fans of the Vanderbilt baseball program we find ourselves supremely disappointed with the way the season ended. It's never fun to be on the wrong end of a walk-off homerun, especially to end the season.

I was watching the game in the living room of the Summer HQ of Behind Closed Dores on Sunset Place in Nashville with one of my three housemates Dirty* I guess our one run lead had instilled a false sense of security among us and the rest of the Vanderbilt faithful. Hell, Joe Fisher and the radio crew were ready to pack it in. And then it happened. As we watched that stupid line drive home run clear the fence and end our season we just kind of sat in disbelief. Was it really going to end like that? It wasn't even a towering shot clearing the fence by a mile, or even a particularly tense situation. But I guess that's how it goes sometimes.

The whole situation reminds me of the closing stanza of my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

It was that "whimper" of a home run that effectively ended the world as we know it for Vanderbilt Baseball.

This NCAA tournament was the last hurrah for 7 of 8 regular starting position players including Pedro, Flash, Dom, Shea, Feiny and Co. This core of players has been the backbone of Vanderbilt's rise out of mediocrity into national relevance. These are the guys that played well enough to merit the #1 ranking, SEC Regular Season and Tournament Championships and the number one overall seed for the NCAA Tournament in 2007 , and despite losing David Price and Casey Weathers to the draft and playing the bulk of the year sans-Pedro maintained a respectable ranking throughout the 2008 season. These are the guys that really solidified the program as a contender in the SEC. It will be up to the guys who will follow in their footsteps. Mike Minor, Steven Liddle (Franklin Native! Woo!), Andrew Giobbi and the rest of the Commodore underclassmen to continue the push forward to get this team over the NCAA Regional hump and to Omaha.

In other news,

You might have heard the collective moan around 10 o'clock last night as viewers across the country tuned into NBC for what they thought would be the evening news. Instead, the news-seekers were treated to the triple overtime marathon otherwise known as Game 5 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings. Although it was painful to watch at times, my housemates and I turned the game on at the onset of the third period as casual fans, and by the time Petr Sykora netted the game winner a little less than 10 minutes into the third OT we were yelling like seasoned hockey fans. Are Preds games ever that fun?

Also,
Anyone else stoked for the NBA Finals? I'm pulling for the Lakers, but I just want it to be as good a series as it should be.

Finally,
The 2008 UEFA European Football (soccer) Championship (EURO 2008) begins Saturday as co-host nation Switzerland takes on the Czech Republic. The tournament takes place every four years, and serves to determine the best national team in Europe. It's kind of like the World Cup, but it's only European teams. For some reason ESPN is really pushing hard to get American audiences tuned in, and it'll be good to have something to follow after the NBA and NHL wrap up.



As Always,
Go 'Dores!


*Dirty is one of two housemates from Germantown, TN. Although he attends Vanderbilt and supports our athletic programs 99% of the time, he is a dyed-in-the-wool UT football fan. While allegiance to the "school" to the east is often an indicator that a person may be legally retarded or inbred (or both), allow me to assure that Dirty is not one of "those" UT fans. You don't blame ugly people for having ugly parents, do you? (Note: Neither Dirty nor his parents are ugly)