I don't know if I will ever live this one down

[sangar]

Whatever dulls the pain best.

I still have half a bottle of Percocets left over from my kidney stone. I think I'll take a couple, want some?

[Tbone83]

I refuse to let tonight's crushing blow be the defining moment of the 2012 season. Even if we don't advance much farther, this season will still be the most unexpected and magical sports season I've ever witnessed as a fan.

Totally agree, which is what makes me hate what happened tonight 100x more.

[Mondo Trasho]

Would have rather lost 8-1. I know it's not over, but it's just a crappy way to end the season if it so happens. 96 was fun but will forever be the Jeffery Maier year. This season was soooo fun but is it now going to be the Raul MFing Ibanez year? Say it ain't so.

Totally agree. Losing close games drives me insane as a fan. At least a blowout you know you got your butt kicked by a better team. I fully believe we're a better team than they are. Shame the series doesn't show it.

[Moose Milligan]

You can't blame jones for this. That was a tough fly that was caught in some serious wind.

While I don't blame Johnson... Because I like the guy... This one falls in his lap. That pitch was right down the flippin gut.

I still don't know what just happened.

Is anyone else in a daze right now???

I blame Jones for a lot of it. He got a bad break on it and then to make up for it, he ran along at 3/4 speed.

I never saw Paul Blair play, but I remember reading a post somewhere on here a long time ago...someone said that Blair never met the ball on the run unless he absolutely had to. If he could, he'd be camped out under it when the ball came down.

I remember a game two years ago where Jones was coasting along trying to catch a ball, hell it might have been at Yankee stadium. At the last second, tthe ball curved back behind Jones to his left and he overran it. IIRC, it was a late and close game and that play screwed us.

Had he not been trying to meet that ball on the run, he could have been camped under it and perhaps moved with it. Had he not been trying to meet the ball on the run tonight, he probably would have caught it. He's certainly caught tougher.

[Emory Eagle]

This is the Aaron Boone moment for Oriole fans.

Except we're not built to win 2 World Series championships in the next few years. And Boston hadn't been losing for 15 years straight before that happened. This is far, far worse.

[Emory Eagle]

My girlfriend is hoping and praying it's only for one more day. I'm a crazed person at times like these.

Same here. I'm almost embarrassed. Almost.

[MDK02]

This is the Aaron Boone moment for Oriole fans.

I disagree.. that was game 7, this one ain't over yet.

[Gofannon]

One of the galling aspects of this is if the O's win this game in 9, the media is going berzerk over Girardi pinch-hitting for fragile ARod and what that means, Jeter's foot, and the Yankees playing tight against a heavy underdog. Instead it's another feather in the Yankee cap.

[jjnono]

I blame Jones for a lot of it. He got a bad break on it and then to make up for it, he ran along at 3/4 speed.

I never saw Paul Blair play, but I remember reading a post somewhere on here a long time ago...someone said that Blair never met the ball on the run unless he absolutely had to. If he could, he'd be camped out under it when the ball came down.

I remember a game two years ago where Jones was coasting along trying to catch a ball, hell it might have been at Yankee stadium. At the last second, tthe ball curved back behind Jones to his left and he overran it. IIRC, it was a late and close game and that play screwed us.

Had he not been trying to meet that ball on the run, he could have been camped under it and perhaps moved with it. Had he not been trying to meet the ball on the run tonight, he probably would have caught it. He's certainly caught tougher.

We saw the same thing. He dogged it by professional standards.

[gilligan]

I've never gotten out of a stadium from its upper deck more quickly than I did tonight.

[Don Quixote]

Jones ran probably the worst route to the general area of a flyball I have ever seen. It was pathetic. He had no idea where the wall was. He had no idea where the ball was going. He looked completely lost out there.

I've never been one to jump on him for blowing bubbles while doing stuff, but the fact that he was blowing a big one there was just a Mr. Miyagi flying kick to the balls.

Agree with all of this. I had a better read watching on CRT SDTV than he did in the field. Before even going to the CF-facing shot, I thought, "This isn't hit great but it's gonna get some very decent distance." Then Jones turned into a human cluster-F, didn't do a legit all-out sprint, blew a big-ass bubble, and flubbed the catch. Just incredibly bad.

[Hank Scorpio]

I took a shower during the bottom of the 9th inning.

I couldn't watch it happen. It felt absolutely inevitable to me, was just a matter of how.

[Frobby]

I refuse to let tonight's crushing blow be the defining moment of the 2012 season. Even if we don't advance much farther, this season will still be the most unexpected and magical sports season I've ever witnessed as a fan.

This goes without saying. It has been a fabulous season no matter what happens in this series. But that was a very painful loss, and I will never forget it. It goes right to the top of my list of painful losses to the Yankees, and there have been a lot of them.

[OFFNY]

Frobby, i have the title as the most negative poster on this board. Several years running. I am the champ of doubt and despair. But I'll tell you this if it takes away any of the shattering pain.(Which consumes me beyond mere words):

With all of those stats working for us, and the stakes as high as they are, heartbreak is always in the shadows.

No one, not one person or group of persons can keep those statistics miraculously

intact. It just doesnt happen like that in life. My dad used to say"Dont get too high or too low..because sooner or later..everybody takes their lumps". And then, there is this:

?It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and

then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2,(or Oct 10) a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped and summer

was gone.?

― A. Bartlett Giamatti

One more thing, if poetry ain't your thing.

It AIN'T freaking over!

It ain't over until Dick Motta says it's over. And Dick Motta hasn't said that it's over.

[MDK02]

I don't know if i'll be able to sleep tonight