NEW YORK — Buck Showalter pulled back a chair and eased his 66-year-old frame into its seat. Showalter, the losing manager, was the first to speak in the playoffs. “Owww,” he said as he winced his way behind the dais, a pat but fitting descriptor for how his players, his franchise and its fans felt the wake of a 6-0 defeat to San Diego in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series on Sunday.
The previous 295-day period, since he was first hired to manage it, has been MetsShowalter understood his purpose. He wanted to lead a team that was struggling back to respectability and then to the postseason and finally to a title. Even though Showalter was grateful for achieving two of these goals, it did not lessen the pain of failing to achieve the third.
“It’s like I just told them: It’s not always fair,” Showalter said.
October is when baseball players talk about fairness, cruelty, and the search to find the greater meaning. They think back to the many hours spent without their spouses or children, the sweat that was put into a career built on failure, the hours of sand that went down the hourglasses. Showalter, who has spent 21 years as a manager and had all of them end in a similar way, understood the pain better then most.
“It’s cruel,” Showalter said. “It really is.”
Inside the clubhouse, a chorus of muffled laughters and the sounding of embraces echoed off the walls came down the hall. The Mets shook hands and thumped their shoulders. They were toasting a season, and then saying farewell.
A losing playoff clubhouse atmosphere is quite funny. Sometimes they feel sad. Sunday was more like the end of a great party. The Mets never got to spray Champagne. They did get to spray Champagne once in a while.
