I was envious watching last night’s game on TV. It’s already being called a classic, with good pitching, clutch hitting, and Buster Posey.

It was an important game.

But it didn’t win anything. 

That’s why tonight’s game will have it all. Dueling aces, a Doc, a Freak, sudden elimination, imminent joy. The last out could crown a pennant chamipion.

Now the players have to perform up to expectations. Are the Phils so determined to fight to the death? Or did they get sapped after last night? Is the momentum so heavily weighted for the Giants that a comeback is impossible? 

Tonight’s game should be the classic.  But now they have to play it.

I’ve said Giants in 6. But I now feel Giants in 5 is more than possible.  

That said, who’s winning the midterms?  Are the witches winning? How about that illegal immigrant employer? What’s happening in Afghanistan? Is someone going to call for a moratorium on foreclosures? 

Is  there really anything going on outside the foul lines? Let it wait.

This is why baseball is so important to have.

The game is a safe haven from life. 

You go to the game and see 50,000 members of a real diverse community,a mirror of the Bay Area.  Some will be in various states of consciousness. But what would you expect  from such a sample size.

And if  the Giants win at home tonight, the place will explode with good will and joy,  the likes of which you just don’t see if the talk was about anything that really mattered. 

So we go to the game mostly because that kind of euphoria can and does happen. Live and in person. The great escape.  It’s a good obsession. I have to go.

It’s baseball as drug and I’ve got to have that feeling. I didn’t feel it it 2002. Or even 1989. 1962–that was it for me.

So I’m going tonight. I’ll  stand for every pitch in the cold and hope to feel that explosion to come when the last out is recorded, and everyone as brothers and sisters go crazy over this improbable bunch of underdogs, the Giants.