Never before in the history of major league baseball had a team missed out on a playoff spot when they lead by 8 games entering September. This year it happened twice. What utter collapses. The Braves couldn't win a game to save their life, and the Red Sox weren't much better. To make it even more ridiculous, the Braves and the Red Sox both cough up their leads (which would have seen them in a one-game playoff for the Wild Card) in the ninth inning. And to make it just completely frigging bonkers, at the same time the Rays come back from a 7-0 deficit against the Yankees, of all teams, to win 8-7 in extra innings and take the Wild Card.

I just don't know what to say. It's madness.

I know why the Braves lost, at least. A few years ago I decided to cheer for the Mets. As soon as I did, the Mets had a terrible late-season collapse and missed the playoffs, then the next year as I continued to cheer for them, everything that could possibly go wrong did, and I gave them up for dead.

This year I decided to start cheering on the Braves in early September. We see the results.

I am the kiss of death.

(For a small fee, next year I will cheer for the Yankees.)