Summer is over

Labor Day. The Autumnal Equinox. Lies.
Summer doesn't end when the calendar says so. For me, it ends when the Indians stop playing.
For me, summer ended yesterday. When the final out was recorded in the Indians' 3-1 season-ending and playoff-killing loss to the White Sox, it didn't matter that it was high sky and 80 degrees. Snow started falling. The warm breeze brushing my face Sunday morning turned into a cutting wind.
The Indians betrayed me. Then again, the promises of springtime always turn into the cold reality of fall.
Bart Giamatti was right. Baseball is designed to break your heart. Especially when you pin your hopes to a team with a $41 million payroll and the inexperience it buys.
The Indians choked. Anyone who says so is right to say it. The offense -- the element that betrayed the Indians at the start of the season -- was there to kill all hope in the season's last week.
The Yankees and Red Sox had inferior pitching to the Indians. They also had the cash to buy enough veteran hitters to surpass the weak-kneed Cleveland offense.
While Grady Sizemore, Coco Crisp and Travis Hafner felt the weight of the world on their shoulders, and swung like it, Manny Ramirez took all the playoff lessons he learned in Cleveland a decade earlier and used them to remove all doubt about the Red Sox's playoff fate, clouting a three-run homer to put Boston up 6-0 Sunday, right about the time the game was ending in Cleveland.
There are several schools of thought as to why the Indians lost six of their final seven games. One says the offense was being its usual flighty self, and just happened to hit a downswing at an inopportune time. Another says the loss last Sunday in Kansas City broke their backs. Another fingers the aggressive managing of Lou Piniella. Still another says the Indians played so hard for so long to get back into the playoff race, they simply ran out of gas.
The truth is a mixture of all of them.
Analysis right now is in hindsight, which makes it kind of pointless, at least until the Browns or Cavs take our minds off this sad ending.
Talk will eventually turn to what the Indians must do this off-season, what will happen to Kevin Millwood, Bob Wickman, Bob Howry, Ronnie Belliard, and the other Indians who are eligible for free agency. We'll play hot stove GM, fantasize about trades and free-agent signings while Mark Shaprio likely does something entirely different.
A World Series champion will be crowned. Somewhere else.
Jacobs Field will lie dormant, cold and dark for another winter, and we'll endure the next four and a half months of no baseball like we have to. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Year's. Snowstorms. Bitter cold.
Then comes spring training. March exhibition games. Freezing in April. Rain in May. Memorial Day. Kids get out of school in June. Fourth of July. August heat waves. Kids back in school. Labor Day. September. Roster expand. Then, who knows?
We'll still be here regardless, waiting another year of our lives for the Indians to take one more stab at making our dreams come true.