"Just Because Baseball Is Broken Doesn't Mean It Should Be Fixed"

I have already pointed out the fantastic writing Grant Brisbee has been doing for SB Nation during the World Series. I know a tiny bit about writing on deadline and I'm extremely impressed with his ability, especially in the aftermaths of Games 2 and 5, to accurately recount numerous nearly undescribable events and our myriad thoughts and emotions in the wake of those events within a few hours.

Also, you have to appreciate an article that begins (with all sincerity, I believe) "Words fail", but then uses 1,537 words proving the complete inaccuracy of those first two words.

The Astros And Dodgers Broke The Game Of Baseball Into A Million Pieces
Game 5 of the 2017 World Series was baseball. Unless it was another sport entirely.
Grant Brisbee, SB Nation, October 30, 2017

Words fail. Analogies go limp. A common refrain for a game like Game 5 of the 2017 World Series is that baseball is drunk. Baseball is not drunk. Drunk people don't fall up the stairs, through a window, and explode upon contact with the moon. This is not a movie. Movies have plots, logical progressions from A to B. This is not an avant-garde movie, either, where the director was trying to be weird. Both the Dodgers and Astros really, really, really wanted to be normal, and they absolutely could not. ...

I would like you to consider two truths, both equally valid. The first one is that this is the best baseball has to offer. It was lead change after lead change. It was the absence of hope followed by redemption, several dozen times, on both sides. This was a Rocky movie, where the on-screen boxing didn't resemble real boxing, but nobody cared because it was so damned compelling. There were homers when you expected them and homers when you didn't expect them. ...

The second truth is this: That was unbelievably awful baseball. I have here in my hand a list of 205 stupid, dumb, irredeemable parts of this game. It was unthinkable calamity all around. ...

And yet it was the absolute best baseball game. And the absolute worst baseball game. But also the best! ...

Are the baseballs juiced? Or slick? Did the grind grind grind of relievers in the hook-happy postseason catch up to both teams? Does the season-long attention paid to pitch counts affect the stamina of pitchers trying to slog through an extra month of high-adrenaline baseball? Is this just how baseball is now, a cavalcade of unfathomably strong super-athletes waiting for mistakes that will inevitably come because pitchers have reached the upper limits of what the human body will allow?

It's yes to all of the above, unless it's no to all of them. Hell, I don't know. You don't either. It's just different. We'll get used to it just in time for everything to change again. ...

I figured Game 2 was the wildest game we would see for months. It didn't even take a week for baseball to get sillier and dumber.

I Fell Asleep During Game 5 Of The World Series And I Hate Myself
At least I'm well-rested unlike all of you, though.
Charlotte Wilder, SB Nation, October 30, 2017

I fell asleep. I fell asleep in the sixth inning. ...

I fell asleep before the rest of the most nutso, bizarro, insane, nonsensical — and one of the longest — World Series baseball games of all time. What I didn't see was somehow even more batshit crazy than what I did.

How do I feel about this? Terrible. I'm suffering from a horrible case of baseball FOMO, that devastating and crippling knowledge that you missed The Unbelievable Game Everyone Else is Talking About. While your friends, colleagues, and fellow Americans were riding the roller coaster of home runs, high fives, and heartbreak, you were fucking sleeping.

On the other hand, I got a solid eight hours, so I'm doing great.

Look, postseason baseball is a no-win situation when it comes to being a functional human. You either stay up to witness history with low-grade slumber anxiety ... or you go to bed and wake up the next morning ... and self-flagellate through the news cycle as you read about the incredible things you didn't feel.

[F]eeling is the point of the whole damn sport. Yes, you can always find out what happened the next day, but you can't feel it. ...

So you have to make choices. As an adult fan, you either accept that you're going to be a zombie for most of October and hope it doesn't interfere with your job, your family, your mortgage payments, etc. As a kid, you come to terms with the fact that your grades will dip and you might not get into college, but that it will be worth it in the long run ...

Or you could go to bed, be good at your job, get into a good school, and miss the gut punches and the soaring highs.

Whitney McIntosh, also at SB Nation, offers a recap of Game 5. It's entertaining, because just about any accurate thing you wrote about Game 5 would be entertaining, but the real fun is the two comments by Balmy Henry, the first of which (posted at 5:24 AM!) is titled: "Puig needs to issue a correction for his characterization 'f**king baby stadium'".