Football, autumn colors, hurricanes: omens of the end. Hurry up and finish your four games with Seattle, Red Sox. Hurry up and come home. It’s almost time to deal with the Yankees.

SO: Maybe because all this is happening late at night way out West there isn’t the crazy celebrating like last week, but it almost seems too easy, too calm. It’s quiet…too quiet.

SK: It’s like people are getting used to it. If so, bad people. Bad people. Ungrateful, BAD people. Or maybe, who knows, they’re just not as crazy as we are. Also, they ARE away. And some people DO have to get up and go to work. Not us, I mean, but SOME people.

Tonight in the top-left corner of the country, Seattle throws a rookie lefty I’ve never heard of—Bobby Madritsch, whose route to the bigs included time in the independent leagues, the outlaws of the minors—while Tim Wakefield takes the hill for us. Wake came out flat in his last start (our last loss), so he’s due for a solid game. Wrong. The Mariners score early and often, and when a fly to the track goes off Manny’s glove in the fifth for a two-run error, this one’s done. We lose 7–1 while the Yanks sweep a doubleheader from the D-Rays, the first game of which has an officially reported attendance of zero. Zero, as in no one. Zero, as in one less than the guy sitting at his desk writing this. If the Yankees win and no one sees it, does it still count?

September 10th

SO: I’m definitely making the Tuesday game next week versus Tampa, and if you’re not using the tix, I could see myself there Wednesday and Thursday too. There just aren’t that many games left. Here on Monday I went to the Rock Cats’ last game of the year; after they won, the players tossed their hats and batting gloves and all the balls in the dugout and even the leftover bubble gum to the crowd, and I realized that once the season’s over, that’s it, it’s fall and then winter. I didn’t like the feeling one bit, and I guess I’m doing what I can to stave it off.

SK: You’re so right. Winter’s coming. I felt a change in the weather the day after Labor Day.

Losing two straight to the last-place M’s, with Schilling going, isn’t likely, and I’m uncharacteristically certain of this one from the start. Seattle keeps it close till the fifth, when David Ortiz sneaks a line-drive homer over the wall, and then, after an error by backup second baseman Jose Lopez, with two outs, Bill Mueller singles, Dave Roberts doubles, Johnny Damon triples and Mark Bellhorn singles. The next inning, Manny, who started our scoring with a solo shot, piles it on with his 17th career grand slam, and Schilling cruises to become the majors’ first 19-game-winner.