Light up the Havana’s, we were smoked in the eighth!

I’ll admit right up front that I have not exactly been glued to my CBC affiliate (or TSN for that matter) watching all things Olympic. I’ve popped in from time to time to watch an event or two, stuck around when I’ve stumbled across an interesting turn of events (like an American basketball colossus, stumbling under its own self important weight) and have managed to miss a live broadcast of every single one of our gold medal ceremonies (both of them!). I have watched as our talking heads explained what went right and what went wrong, chastised the non believers or tried to make the best out of less than golden moments.

The one event I’ve tried to keep on top of , was the path of our Baseball team. That group of minor league players and all but forgotten former big leaguers, has gamely tried to do what most people thought impossible, bring home a gold medal. With the Americans not even in the Olympic tournament, there were whispers that this team could be the one to bring home the gold. With a close group of team mates, some solid managerial talent and a strong desire to win, I had a feeling this might be Canada’s feel good story of the Olympics. With the news that Australia had eliminated Japan, the road seemed set for Canada to make a run. At least my hopes were riding pretty high with our Big Red Machine.

But as the game moved to the final innings, that little plan came to a crushing end, all in the space of about thirty five minutes of a disastrous eighth inning. Canada went into the bottom of the eighth with a 3-2 lead and came out of it shell-shocked and wondering what the hell happened! Some suddenly shaky pitching and a bout of bad in fielding, (a botched possible double play sparked the Cubans) gave Fidel’s boys enough of an opportunity to load up the runs, scoring six of them, taking a huge 8-3 lead into the top of the ninth.

Until that point Canada had actually been playing some fairly inspired ball, keeping close to the Cubans and at one time taking the lead and holding it through the middle innings. However, a tendency to abandon runners on the bases through the majority of the game came back to haunt the Canadian squad.

Manager Ernie Whitt, who somehow manages to keep his younger players on an even keel, could only watch and wonder what may have been. The Cubans built up the momentum in the eighth to take the lead and sent the Canadians reeling to the dugout.

However, the one thing about this team I liked prior to the Olympics and during the games as well, has been their never say die attitude. And for a while there I thought we might pull this one out of the fire. A determined effort in the top of the ninth, loaded up the bases and threatened to tie the Cubans. With two out, a long, long fly ball made it all the way to the fence before being hauled in. Tantalizingly long to raise our expectations, short enough to crush our hopes.

Kinder Olympic Gods Hello Aeolus) would have summoned up a strong gust of wind to lift the ball over the fence but, alas, once again in what is becoming a rather perpetual Canadian thing we came up a bit short, losing 8-5 and now we will battle for the bronze against Japan on Wednesday.

While you can empathize with many of our athletes as they strive for the top and come up short, I found the drama of the baseball team to be a story within the story kind of Olympic moment. Many of these guys will never make it to the major leagues, some of them have already had their shot and are either on their way down the food chain or already off the buffet table completely. This was to be their one chance to reach for glory and to watch them leave the field having come up short just didn’t seem like a fair shake.

Canada actually won medals on Tuesday a gold and a silver, which should have been a cause for a smile or two. But by the end of the night, the focus was on hurdler Perdita Felicien, who stumbled into the first hurdle of her race and watched her Gold Medal dream crash to the track. Between her misfortune and the baseball team’s heartbreak, the day seemed gloomy and indicative of our week and half in Athens.

Sometimes you need a little luck to go with your skill, for whatever reasons Tyche the Greek God of Luck has not smiled on Canada. In fact it would seem that the Goddess assigned to the Canadian team was Nyx a daughter of Chaos, which seems to define the Canadian path this year..