12/31/11 Shall Be the “Day of Crap”

While those disinclined to ponder the inevitable see the 31st of December as the precipice of a new year — a date rich with the illusion of possibility — those devoted to base and ball will know it as the “Day of Crap.”

Why, you may ask, are those poo-festooned hours festooned with poo? Because 12/31/11 marks not the death in hospice of another year but rather the point at which we are equally distant from having seen baseball and seeing baseball again.

You see, the last out of the most recent World Series — God’s favorite World Series — occurred on October 28, 2011. Actual baseball won’t occur until February 29, 2012, when the Phillies renew hostilities with their august rivals Florida State. That comes to 124 days without that which helps us through the night. Advising us the diseased to find any port in a storm is useful only when there’s a port in view. Tomorrow, there shall be no port in view.

At the moment of Camus’s death by French sports car, he was likely plagued (see what I did there?) by thoughts of Algerian colonialism. Tomorrow shall be 24 hours of that moment.