Best Birthday Present Ever

THE TIGERS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS!

"They are winners now, and forever will be winners." -Jim Leyland

Good Stuff

A Morning In Autumn
by W.S. Merwin

Here late into September
I can sit with the windows
of the stone room swung open
to the plum branches still green
above the two fields bare now
fresh-plowed under the walnuts
and watch the screen of ash trees
and the river below them

and listen to the hawk's cry
over the misted valley
beyond the shoulder of woods
and to lambs in a pasture
on the slope and a chaffinch
somewhere down in the sloe hedge
and silence from the village
behind me and from the years

and can hear the light rain come
the note of each drop playing
into the stone by the sill
I come slowly to hearing
then all at once too quickly
for surprise I hear something
and think I remember it
and will know it afterward

in a few days I will be
a year older one more year
a year farther and nearer
and with no sound from there on
mute as the native country
that was never there again
now I hear walnuts falling
in the country I came to

Public Grovelling To The Forgiving and Benevolent Gods Of Baseball

Apparently in the blog post before this, when I was celebrating .500 with a little too much enthusiasm, I pissed off the Baseball Gods but good... since then, the Tigers have won only 5 games. They're now in danger of losing the division that they've led since May.

Now, I'm not sneezing at a winning season, really I'm not. We've come an incredibly long way and I'm grateful, oh-so-grateful. But... please. Please please please please please... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Mea Culpa. Don't punish this team for my hubris... they've worked so hard. I'll be a better fan, I promise. I'll watch or listen to every game from here on out, even if we're behind by a gajillion runs, I'll hang in there 'til the end, win or lose.

The dancing Tiger has been removed and will not see the light of day unless/until the Tigers make the post-season. The author of the previous post has been sacked.