The End

I spent much too much of the last day of the regular season creeping along the Hutchinson River Parkway toward the mysteriously jammed up toll plaza at the Whitestone Bridge. St. Raymond's Cemetery was on my left as I toggled between two baseball games, each meaningless in itself: the Red Sox-Orioles (Birds won) and the Yankees-Astros (Yanks won).

The real action came in the out-of-town scoreboard updates from Toronto, Minneapolis, and Arlington, TX, as the AL Wild Card race resolved itself.  First, Cleveland beat the Twins 5-1, locking down one of the two Wild Card slots. This put pressure on the Rays and Rangers to win to have a chance at the other slot. The Rays jumped out 6-0 on the Blue Jays. But the Jays fought back, closing to within one run before the Rays finally nailed it down in the bottom of the ninth. That left Texas to come back from an early one-run deficit to beat the As 6-2. That forces a one-game playoff to see who will take on the Indians in the regular one-game Wild Card game. Whoever wins that game faces the Sox at Fenway on Friday. Got it?