KANSAS CITY, Mo. — I have never been to Wyoming before, so here is my impression: It’s dark.
Driving from California to Missouri for Game 6 of the World Series with Sporting News correspondent Erin Faulk was a silly idea, but also obviously something I won’t ever forget.
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It was, in many ways, like baseball season itself.
Large swaths of nothing particularly memorable, just grinding through, with bursts of things that are totally strange — the world’s largest taxidermy polar bear in Elko, Nevada; the sign that welcomes you to Nebraska proclaiming the state to be “…the good life”; the giant nutcracker standing guard at a gas station just shy of the Iowa border.
And then there are the things that are breathtaking to behold — the fog shrouding the Donner Pass in California; the mountains rising out of the flat landscape on the approach to Salt Lake City; the night sky pipped with billions of stars over central Nebraska.
There was Wyoming, a portion of the drive spent totally at night, winding through mountain passes, and representing all the midseason things that could so easily pass notice: Brock Holt’s four doubles for the Red Sox against the Rays in a game on June 1, Lonnie Chisenhall’s nine-RBI game for the Indians eight days later.
There was an A’s game where Jon Lester had 15 strikeouts, tying Clayton Kershaw’s no-hitter and a Felix Hernandez game for the most in the majors all year. Don’t remember it? That’s because it was against Oakland, for the Red Sox, before they traded their ace out west.
So much happens over the course of the year in baseball, but as you rush to the conclusion in October, so much of it fades into the rearview mirror, and it might take a reminder to remember having gone by it. What was the name of that chuckle-worthy town in Nevada? When was that game that Odrisamer Despaigne took a no-hitter into the eighth inning for the Padres? The answers are Elburz and July 20 against the Mets.
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Then, somehow, after 1,800 miles, or seven months, or whatever amount of time and distance is involved in driving halfway across the country or navigating an entire baseball season and playoffs, you wind up in Kansas City, knowing that it’s the end of the line, and wishing that you had kept at least slightly better notes along the way.
The longest journeys can wind up flying by, and you don’t even realize it in the moment.