'The Comeback Kids'

This weekend, the Yankees, yes the Yankees, which I hate as much as any one man can hate any one team, won 3 consecutive games in walk-off fashion. No this didn't make me suddenly start gushing over the thought of Johnny Damon. What it did do was take me back...

Back to a time when I would lay on the living room carpet watching the Braves long after any 10 year old should be in bed (the Braves were in the Western Division then and that made for some really late road games). I'd lay on my stomach with my chin in my hands until my elbows got raw from rug burn, but I wouldn't care because I knew the Braves would win. Down by three going into the 9th, I knew they'd come back... it's what they did.

Don't you remember just knowing Francisco Cabrera was going to lace one into left and slow Sid would score from second? You knew Otis would make a ridiculous catch, Rafeal Belliard would come up with a late inning pinch hit, or the Crime Dog was going deep when we were down.

I'd stay up (and mom would let me) because we knew. We knew the Braves weren't done until the last out was made and more often than not, the Braves were on top.

But now... there's no confidence. I like to think it's going to happen, but noone in the dugout seems to. Mrs. Goat fight's the urge to turn the channel to the 84th season finale of American Idol because she knows I won't speak to her for a week if she does. Maybe it's a perception thing because I was a kid then and I'm grown up now. But really, we all know in Goat years, I'm still just a kid, and I'm dying for that "magic" to return.