Bart Giamatti Said It Best, 2012 Edition

Bart Giamatti wrote "The Green Fields of the Mind" the day the infamous Boston Massacre was completed by Bucky Efiin Dent, October 2, 1978. Most seasons don't end with such crushing finality, but there is a sadness about the conclusion of any year of baseball--yes, even this year of Mets baseball--that his words captured better than anyone else.

It breaks your heart.

It is designed to break your heart.

The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again,

and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings,

and then as soon as the chill rains come,

it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time,

to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive,

and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most,

it stops.

I used to do annual posts very similar to this one at my own blog. If you can stand it, you can check out "a year in pictures" there for 2009, 2010, and 2011.