“Keeping traditions and wishes made new
A place where our grandfathers, fathers they grew
A spiritual feeling if I ever knew
And if you ain’t been I am sorry for you”
“All the Way” — Eddie Vedder

Vedder, best known as the vocalist for rock group Pearl Jam, is a well-known fan of the Chicago Cubs, hailing originally from nearby Evanston, Ill. He wrote this song while looking at a 2007 Cubs team that would end up winning the National League (NL) Central division, hoping that they would be the team that would break the 99-year “curse” of the Cubs at the time.

The 2007 club was not the team to do it, and neither would the 2008 club on the 100th anniversary of the drought, but this song became a huge hit during the postseason run for the 2016 Cubs team that did end up winning the team’s first World Series since 1908.

I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of the song until it was played in full on Sportscenter the day after the Cubs won in 2016. I cried, thinking of how much my great-grandmother, one of my biggest inspirations to be a baseball fan, would have loved to see the Cubs win a title.

Many think of fall for the changing of colors, high school football, homecoming celebrations, and, in a rural area like ours, harvest season.

Once fall hits, I’m (even more) heavy into baseball.

Many lament the length of the baseball regular season. Unlike football, which requires your attention for just three to four hours, one time per week to follow your favorite team, Major League Baseball (MLB) is a near-daily occurrence for six months, playing 162 games from late March/early April until late September/early October.

The regular season for MLB wraps up this weekend, and to say it’s been an interesting season for the game is putting it lightly!

No team from New York or Boston will be in the postseason - not the Yankees, Red Sox, or Mets, three of the top 10 payrolls in the game.

In fact, even with the playoff field expanding last year to include more teams, none of the three was even in contention this year, with the Yankees the final team of the trio to be eliminated from the post season with a full week to play.

On top of those three teams, the “other” team that’s always in the playoffs, the St. Louis Cardinals, also is absent from October baseball this year.

Those four teams missing playoff baseball all at the same time has not happened since 1993, before the Wild Card expanded the playoff field - so at least one of the four has been in every postseason of the Wild Card era.

Minnesota Twins fans are hoping that this season is the year to break the team’s 18-game postseason losing streak. The last Twins’ postseason victory was in 2004, though it was their only victory in a 3-1 series loss to the Yankees. The last time the Twins won a playoff series was in 2002, when they defeated the Oakland A’s before falling to the eventual World Series champion Anaheim Angels that season.

The Twins’ starting pitchers are among the best in baseball, which could give them a chance to make a postseason run, though they are currently lined up to face the Houston Astros in the first round of the postseason, a team that has made six straight American League Championship Series appearances.

The only team in MLB history with more consecutive League Championship Series appearances (League Championship Series (LCS) began in 1969) is the Atlanta Braves, who made eight straight from 1991 to 1999 (with no playoffs in 1994 due to the strike).

The Braves are arguably the team story this season in baseball.

While only a few players had ever hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in a season coming into this year, Atlanta’s leadoff hitter Ronald Acuna Jr. has hit 40 home runs and stolen 70 bases this year, something no one in the history of the game has ever done.

Acuna has had his impressive season atop a Braves lineup that is receiving comparisons to the greatest lineups in the history of the game.

The Braves have a chance to hold the all-time team single-season record in slugging percentage and home runs, and they’re doing it in a way that blows away other teams.

The Braves will finish the year with more than 50 more home runs than any other team in baseball. That’s better than the advantage that the 1927 Yankees (considered the greatest lineup of all time) held over any other team that season.

Anything can happen in October baseball, with Wild Card teams consistently making deep runs in the postseason. In fact, in the last 10 seasons (2013 to present), at least one Wild Card team has appeared in the LCS eight times, in the World Series three different times, with two Wild Card teams winning World Series championships (Washington Nationals in 2019 and San Francisco Giants in 2014).

So while many are raking leaves, waiting to dump a load of freshly-harvested grain at the local elevator, or enjoying a crisp fall bonfire, there will be baseball on all month, and hopefully not just at my house!