Game 162 at Yankee Stadium

Great -- and I mean GREAT -- photo of several members of the Marist Running Family at the Big Ballyard in the Bronx last night for Game 162 of the 2012 season. If I am not mistaken, that would be the New York Yankees celebrating their AL East Division title in the background. Most of you know that I am a huge baseball fan, and my team is the Yankees. This season and this pennant race have been truly memorable. Every game has been important and tense for the past month, and I have been enjoying it.

The fact that the Yankees have prevailed in their regular season goal makes it sweet. But really, I have truly enjoyed the drama that has unfolded at the end of the best professional regular season there is. The long, daily grind of Major League Baseball is like no other. They play 162 games, virtually every day for more than six months! Consistency of preparation and effort are what wins out. Luck is certainly involved, but usually the odds even things out and the most consistent teams make it to the long finish line where they want to be. This season has been phenomenal in terms of team and individual races. Hopefully, the postseason will be equally compelling.

I have a Game 162 from Yankee Stadium story to tell, and it was relevant and came to mind yesterday. In 1978, when I was all of 14 years old, the season ended on a Sunday afternoon. The Yankees were leading the Red Sox in the AL East by 1 game on the final day of the season. Sound familiar? It is a similar scenario as 2012, but instead the Yankees were ahead of the Orioles this year. Anyway, back in '78, the Red Sox won their season finale at Fenway (I think against Toronto), while at the same time the Yankees lost to the moribund Indians at an equally dreary Yankee Stadium. I was there, in the upper deck, with my two older brothers. I remember the Stadium being mostly empty and devoid of energy, as Rick Waits of the Indians shut down the Bombers. Fortunately, the outcome was much better this year for the men and women pictured above who enjoyed the game. Although, as a result of that Sunday Yankee loss, we have the Forever Memory of the "Bucky Dent Game" for the AL East, up at Fenway on Oct. 2, 1978.

Anyway, on to the postseason now. Admittedly, it is a crapshoot, but we can hope and root for the best.