Losing and that long ride home

During a recent UAAP game, I was watching the UP Maroons get shellacked by the UE Red Warriors when I told a few friends, "These are the games -- in hindsight -- you wish you just stayed home to watch." They all agreed. Some mumbled silently and cussed.

If you were home, and the rout was on in the game's first quarter or so, then you could change the channel, pretend that you have something more interesting to do, pout, or go out. Madrama. Yes, but that's so true.

On the other hand if you were at the Cuneta Astrodome then damn! That's a loooong way home.

I know the feeling, guys. In oh-so many ways.

I have made dozens and dozens of pilgrimages to Yankee Stadium to watch my beloved Yankees play. Thank God for the most part, like 70% of the games I've seen were wins. But can you imagine if they were tough losses? And I wasn't the type who'd get up and leave early even if it was like the 6th inning only.

Evening games at the Stadium start like 7:05pm. And it take anywhere from two and a half hours to three plus to play unless someone's working on a no-hitter. One night, it went up all the way to four-plus hours in extra innings. And I was living in Jersey City then. That's like a 30-minute subway ride down to Port Authority (and I gotta hoof it for like 10 minutes to get to the upper floors where the buses transfer to after 11pm). I'm lucky if there's a short line and the bus arrives within 30-minutes. But if it's later than that, say around 1am, then I have to go to the basement where it's like a one hour wait. The ticket vending machine is so indecipherable and there are no more PATH Trains to Jersey after 12mn.

That's why it was fortitious to be able to move to Manhattan later on. I could stay up all night. My friends marveled at how fast I knew my way around the subway.

But back to those long games where i'ts hard to suck up those losses... all I can say is: Thank God for Comcast with its hundreds of channels.

Imagine... that horrendous loss to the Los Angeles Angels 18-9. Moose lasted one 1 & 2/3 innings. Damn. Think of the loss and that long ride home.

So now, turn off the TV, guys! Now they're six games behind the Red Sox.

I guess you can imagine how I felt after Ateneo's loss to UE in this second round. Thankfully it was at the Araneta Coliseum and I live five minutes away from ADMU.