A CERTAINPOINT OF V - Baseball, Halloween and raking leaves, oh my

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V

IEW

BY

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER

Well, another October is in the books. The Dodgers beat the Yankees handily in the World Series and seemed primed to continue dominance for the foreseeable future (though baseball is a weird game, so who knows), the annual task of raking leaves commenced (actually managed to get it done before leaf pick up day this year, so a bonus point for adulting there) and Indy got to celebrate his first Halloween with us (we kept him out of the candy, so a win there as well).

The World Series was…well, a bit of a dud unfortunately. After an exciting Game 1 in which Freddie Freeman hit a walk off grand slam in the bottom of the 10th inning, the rest of the games were not nearly as close. The Dodgers rattled off three straight victories before the Yankees were finally able to win Game 4 and then an epic collapse by New York in the fifth inning of Game 5 ended the series in a rout. It didn’t help things that the two best players in baseball, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, didn’t really do a whole lot in the series either.

With another MLB season in the books, Brewers fans are left with the question we always seem to be left with; can this team compete in October next season? The answer often feels like…no. When conversations over whether Milwaukee can afford to pay Devin Williams the last year of his contract and the fact that resigning Willy Adames is all but impossible while Los Angeles being talked about as a possible landing spot for the top five free agent pitchers and even Juan Soto, all while rostering three MVPs in their lineup, the entire situation feels a bit pointless. The entire Dodgers starting pitching rotation was injured at some point this season and in the World Series, only two starters from the beginning of the season pitched. And yet, they still won handily.

But, who knows. Baseball is a strange game and by the time spring training rolls around again, hopes will probably be higher. *** Last year, I did not adequately plan my leaf-raking strategy. The sheer amount of leaves and the time it would take to clear them caught me a bit by surprise and I did not have time to get them out to curb by pick up day. This of course then led to the even more arduous task of putting them in bags and transporting them to the dumping zone myself, a task I would not recommend.

This year, with the power of experience, it would be better. We’d get a head start on the raking and then be done with it by week’s end. Only…somehow I once again underestimated something, this time the size of our yard. Raking leaves all the way to the curb from the furthest corners of our backyard seemed an unfeasible task, so we resolved to just rake them into piles at the time and then we would buy a tarp to put them on and drag them to the curb.

What I didn’t account for was the fact that the days I would have free to actually accomplish this task would be cold and rainy, which ultimately led to us eventually having to take care of it in the dark Tuesday evening when the rain finally let up. Ah, the best laid plans. *** I wasn’t sure how Indy would respond to a bunch of people continuously coming to our door on Halloween night. He gets very excited any time anyone comes over, so to have that on loop for three hours…well, I figured it would be interesting. But he actually did pretty well after the first couple trick-or-treaters, seemingly getting accustomed to the cascade of ghouls and witches approaching our door.

Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that he seemed perfectly fine with the costume that Mikaela had gotten for him; a saddle and little cowboy that were strapped to his back that looked equal parts cute and hilarious. I thought that he would certainly hate it or think the cowboy was a new chew toy or both, but he was content to play bucking bronco while we handed out treats. I guess he was just in the Halloween spirit.

But with that, October was over and we stepped into November. Fall has been desperately clinging on, giving us some nicer days sprinkled among the colder ones, and while I can commend it for that, autumn’s time draws ever closer to its end.