FRENCHY'S, CLEARWATER BEACH -- We're tired. All of us. The players, the coaches, the front-office types and, of course, the scribes. We're beaten down to a bloody pulp like an aimless old pug who has taken one too many shots to the dome.
We zig when we should zag. We're awake when we should be asleep. We're in the air when we should be on the ground.
It's a big pile of something.
And the people who aren't tired at this point just aren't trying hard enough. It should ache the bones and one's eyes should be damn near swollen shut...
Cut me Mick... cut me.
But that's what it's really about, isn't it? Perseverance or some type of happy horsebleep like that. Adrenaline and the attempt to grind out the last couple of miles of the marathon. We're almost there, folks. It looks like it's going to end in a blaze of spilled drinks and lots of tears.
Take your pick on the tears: joy or sorrow.
Bloodied and unbowed we keep coming back. Though some of us haven't slept in weeks and only remember the way family members look based on a digital photographs packed into an iPod, there really isn't any other place to be.
Send us to Milwaukee? Yeah, we'll be there.
Los Angeles? What time do we go?
Florida's Gulf Coast? Tell the shuttle to meet me at the B Gate at Tampa International.
And yet as late Wednesday night melted into early Thursday morning in a small, sweaty room filthy with cameras, recorders and note pads and the ol' sage held court on one corner, the pitching coach nursed a Corona on an overstuffed couch and the first-base coach finished a late dinner hunched over on a folding chair in his locker, the thought crept in:
This is what we do. We talk, meander, write sentences, and put off going to bed so we can do it all over another day. Oh yes, we'll get home soon. It's just that we have to ride this out to the end.
And no one wants to be the first one to leave.
*** I should have mentioned this earlier, but there will no more live updates on this site until further notice. When everything gets ironed out, there will be notice... maybe even a press release.
*** Big ups to Kevin Roberts, the stately columnist for the Courier Post, for opening up "Lounge 405" at the Fairfield Bayside in Clearwater. Part after-hours joint and part Algonquin Round Table, the place provided all the comforts of home as well as a complimentary buffet.
The truth is Kev truly is a wonderful host...
And so fastidious! Kevin really keeps a neat room... I, on the other hand, could rival Keith Moon. I don't know how the cleaning lady is going to get that swamp mud off the drapes.