1. It’s Thursday, October 20, 2016. The election is 19 days away.

2. Trump really must hate America’s gambling meccas.

He wrecked Atlantic City by building massive casinos and then, amazingly, running them into the ground.

And now, with his performance in the third debate, Las Vegas has become the place where – unless something unthinkable happens in the next 19 days – his presidential ambitions rolled snake eyes.

Much is being made of his biggest gaffe of the night: His refusal to commit to the idea that the 2016 is on the up and up.

Because he’s so self-absorbed, he doesn’t realize why this scares the hell out of people.

It’s a core belief that our elections are fair and above board. We accept the results of elections – as I had to do in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won, and 2000 when, after all the mishegas  in Florida and the Supreme Court, Al Gore conceded to George W. Bush. You’re entitled to start working toward a different result next time the second after the race is declared over.

But you are not entitled to delegitimize the process in progress. It’s not only unethical, but I can’t see how it helps – if I were for Trump, why would I vote if the candidate thinks that vote won’t count?

And yet the election blunder is only one of many Trump made at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

He refuses to decouple himself from Vladimir Putin. I don’t know if he thinks Putin is a popular figure in this country. And maybe he thinks that Putin’s little footsie game with WikiLeaks has support around the nation.

But to defend the Russians against U.S. military and government security agencies time and time again makes him seem like the Siberian Candidate. He looks as though he’s in Putin’s pocket. He sounds as though he doesn’t care how anybody got a hold of the John Podesta e-mails or DNC documents, because as long as it helps him, all’s fair.

It’s a point he could mute Hillary Clinton about. All he has to say is that hacking by foreign governments is a terrible thing, no matter who does it, and that he will make certain Russia or whoever does it pays a price.

Trump can’t bring himself to do that. Maybe he’s not sucking up to Putin. But it sure looks that way.

3. There were lots of other bad moments.

He didn’t help himself with his answer about abortion, and didn’t – as he had previously – backtrack on his assertion made to Chris Matthews that women who have abortions should be punished.

He was ill advised to trot out his one word of Spanish when describing some of the people he’d deport – ‘bad hombres,” as if that’s what the core of those in the country without documentation are.

His wall of denial about women who’ve accused him of inappropriate acts resulted in him saying that he hasn’t even apologized to his wife, Melania, about his action – even though she has said that he apologized.

And, of course, proving Clinton’s point that he’s too thin-skinned to be trusted with nuclear weapons, when she got in a dig about how he would try to avoid paying additional Social Security taxes under her proposal, he interjected “What a nasty woman!”

He can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Bully, first class.

4. Clinton reminded me of Muhammad Ali.

She floated like a butterfly around questions that might have pinned her down – on whether she enabled her husband’s own misbehavior toward women, on whether she told a Brazilian bank that she advocated open borders, and more.

But she stung like a bee when she got under Trump’s skin. Calling him Putin’s puppet, attacking his use of Chinese steel, even by saying that he was hosting “Celebrity Apprentice” while she was helping President Obama nail Osama bin Laden.

Her face didn’t betray much in the way of emotion. There was none of the grimacing and constant interruption that you got from the other side of the split screen.

Is this thing over?

One would think. One would hope.

But who knows what will happen in the next 19 days?

One thing’s for sure: The faster Trump leaves our lives, the better our days will be.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 18, 2016. It’s 21 days until the election.

2. President Kennedy’s success spawned the rise of “Kennedys” around the world – politicians who were young, charismatic and seemed to have a brain. For generations, anyone who fit that bill was that country’s Kennedy.

Now it seems as though there’s a new model for such a leader – Barack Obama.

Canada’s Justin Trudeau – whose father was spoken of as Canada’s Kennedy – fits the bill as a young, dynamic leader in the mould of our President.

And today, Obama is hosting another one, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. After a day of talks about various issues, the President will host the Prime Minister and his wife at what is likely to be the final state dinner of the Obama administration.

What I’d like to see from this generation of leaders is Obama’s determined effort to attack problems. Admittedly, he didn’t get very far with many of them – we haven’t solved immigration, for instance.

But he tried. If the new generation of Obamas cropping up around the world take on such thorny problems as refugees, climate change and economic inequality, that will be an incredible contribution to civilization.

3. Way back in the spring, when the nominees of both parties were chosen, it was easy to see that this campaign would not focus on issues.

The personality of the Republican candidate made it clear that this would be a third-degree mud sling, especially with such a long-standing target as Hillary Clinton.

This is reflected in the fact that there are so many issues that have either been mentioned in passing or not even mentioned at all in the first two debates.

Too much of those debates have been devoted to Trump’s crisis of the moment or one more effort to get Clinton to say something about the e-mail thing. If it wasn’t for the instantly famous Ken Bone, we wouldn’t have had any discussion at all about energy policy.

So, with only modest hope of success, here are ten things I’d love to see come up tomorrow night in the final debate:

— SOCIAL SECURITY: I can’t remember if the words “Social Security” have even been uttered in three hours of debates. But for a generation of Americans (my hand is raised), this is a big deal. It was announced today that recipients will get a 0.3% raise next year. That’s almost in the “why bother” category. I’d like to hear what the candidates have to say about sustaining Social Security as people my age begin to take it – for instance, should the ceiling on income that’s taxed to pay for the program be raised?

— IMMIGRATION: To Chris Wallace’s credit, he has said this will be a subject area he’ll raise tomorrow night. And, given its prominence in this campaign, it’s a wonder it hasn’t come up before. Make Trump defend his idiotic wall. Make Clinton explain how we’ll deal with those who are without documentation in a humane manner while placating those who believe “illegal immigration” is eroding their lives.

— CLIMATE CHANGE: One candidate has a plan to combat the ravages of it. One candidate says it’s a hoax. It would be better to hear pro-and-con ideas about solutions. If Trump persists on pooh-poohing it, let him say it in front of millions of millennials, who believe this is a make-or-break issue.

— SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Chris Wallace has said he will bring up the Supreme Court in the debate – again, a good call on his part. On this particular issue, you might think last year’s ruling resolved it. But would Trump appoint justices who think they can undo that ruling? Does Clinton believe this issue is resolved, or are there other things that can be done to secure this right?

— INFRASTRUCTURE: Both Clinton and Trump have talked about the need to rebuild the country. But what are their priorities? Highways or improvements in alternative transportation? How would they secure and strengthen the nation’s power grid?

— ISRAEL: For all the discussion about Syria, Iraq and ISIS, we’ve heard very little from the candidates about the linchpin of all Middle East crises. Relations between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu are, to put it mildly, strained. Would either Clinton or Trump deal with the Israeli leadership better? Will either of them push to get a two-state solution to the conflict that has plagued this region for 70 years?

— EDUCATION: Other than Clinton’s focus on free college and student debt, what leads up to college has been largely ignored in this campaign – and certainly in the debates. Trump has indicated his support for an expansion of charter schools. Clinton, who is backed by teachers’ unions, wants stronger public schools. Common Core is a major issue in communities around this country – what do these two think about it?

— ABORTION: Yikes! Other than Mike Pence’s attempt to inflict his beliefs on everyone in the vice presidential debate, this hasn’t come up. There was that interview, which Trump eventually walked back, in which he said women should face a penalty for having an abortion. This is his chance to say what he really thinks should happen. And it’s a way for Clinton to say what should be the argument of abortion rights advocates: No woman grows up wanting to have an abortion, and the ready availability of contraception has helped reduce abortion’s incidence. But the option should be there for women who feel the need.

— CRIMINAL REFORM: This has come up briefly in the discussions about race. But there has been a bipartisan effort to reduce the level of incarceration in this country. How do the candidates feel about this? How do they feel about the use of privately run, for-profit prisons? Do they support President Obama’s effort to offer clemency to people who have committed non-violent drug offenses?

— CONGRESS: Capitol Hill’s hostility to Barack Obama ends, by law, on Jan. 20. Will the House and Senate have the same acrimony for his successor? How will they deal with it? How does Trump expect to work with Congress when the man who’s Speaker of the House -assuming the Republicans retain control – has been the subject of some of his tweet blasts? How does Clinton expect to work with Congress when John McCain – assuming he’s re-elected to his Senate seat from Arizona – says Republicans will block any nominee she makes to the Supreme Court?

Maybe you have other issues that should come up in an honest presidential debate. Alas, our chances of seeing the campaign we wanted went out the window when Trump went down the Trump Tower escalator into his miserable campaign more than a year ago.

It’s October 14, 2016. It’s 25 days until the election.

And it’s Friday, which means I’ll ask 20 questions. You can answer them. You can be amused. You can ignore them.

Hear me out:

— Does Michelle Obama really think she’s going to stay out of politics after she leaves the White House?

— Is English a second language for Trump?

— Were there no public speaking opportunities at those military schools Trump went to as a kid?

— Given their passion for the information released by WikiLeaks, do you think Trump supporters also look for bargains on TV sets and jewelry that “fell off the truck”?

— Is there going to be a day this month when there isn’t an October surprise?

— After seeing the “Access Hollywood” tape, is there anyone who’s not going to bust out laughing every time Trump says he has the temperament to be president?

— Tell the truth – did you know the name of Thailand’s king who just died?

— What Bob Dylan song should the Nobel committee play at the award ceremony in December?

— Will Dylan make a speech in Stockholm? Will he wear something formal?

— Can the Cubs overcome the final obstacle – the Dodgers – to get to their first World Series in my lifetime?

— If you’ve read The New York Times’ stories on the victims of U.S. torture in the war on terror, do they make as sick to your stomach as mine?

— Do you grill outdoors all year long, or is there a date when you put the stuff away?

— How long will it take to get North Carolina back to normal after all the flooding from Hurricane Matthew?

— Did the leaves in your neighborhood all seem to start changing color on Monday?

— Are you hoping we can avoid getting further involved in the Yemen conflict?

— Is there somewhere we can nickel-and-dime Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf so that we can get back some of the $130 million he’s taking away in forced retirement? Maybe open some fake accounts in his name?

— Didn’t Samsung test the Galaxy Note 7 for, say, being a fire hazard before putting it out on the market?

— Have you ever heard a rhetorical answer?

— Who let the dogs out? (seventh in a series of song-title questions)

— Will lifting the ban on Cuban cigars raise President Obama’s approval rating into the 70s?

1. It’s Thursday, October 13, 2016. The election is 26 days away.

2. The title is my contribution to the celebration of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in literature.

Has there ever been a Nobel literature winner whose work is as popularly known? Maybe Steinbeck, because so many people have read “The Grapes of Wrath.” Or Hemingway.

You can’t count Churchill, because his fame is as a political leader.

Anyway, Dylan fans have waited faithfully for this vindication of his literary chops. The tendency to dismiss him as “just a singer” never sat well with the true believers.

I’m not as rabid as some. But it’s hard not to like some song this man has written in the past 55 years. His triumph is a reason to smile.

Although, please don’t let that stupid IBM commercial run again.

3. Anti-Trump America is lighting up social media with all the revelations about sexual assault and Trump campaign’s litigious response.

Before we think that THIS is the last straw, remember that the “Access Hollywood” tape was the last straw, that the “that’s smart” he didn’t pay taxes was the last straw, that the phony foundation was the last straw, that the tweet storm against the former Miss Universe was the last straw, that trashing the Khans for a week was the last straw, that threatening to put his political opponent in jail was the last straw, etc.

There have been enough last straws to build a hut somewhere. As odious as Trump is, it doesn’t seem to affect his supporters. They are zombies drawn to his ranting.

So let me say it again: If there’s a tape of Trump trashing the people who support him, let’s see that.

The Lonesome Rhodes moment might be the only one that gets Trump close to being supported only by the racists, xenophobes, anti-Semites and misogynists Hillary Clinton was talking about when she mentioned “deplorables.”

Otherwise, we still have to endure 26 more days of this Trump crap.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 11, 2016. The election is 28 days away.

2. I want to commend Michael Luo, a New York Times editor, for his remarkable restraint.

Because if some dopey woman on the Upper East Side yelled “Go back to China!” to my wife and my two children because we blocked the sidewalk in the rain, she would have needed to make that phone call to police.

If you haven’t read Luo’s open letter to the woman and the reaction to it in the Times, here are the links: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/nyregion/go-back-to-china-readers-respond-to-racist-insults-shouted-at-a-new-york-times-editor.html

Some might think this is Trumpism manifest, even in a liberal bastion such as Manhattan.

But Trump didn’t create the racism. He used it. It’s there, been there all along, and he knew it.

And this doesn’t just apply to Asian-Americans. African-Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Muslims. People who contribute more to this country than it has a right to hope for. They all get to hear this crap on a routine basis.

Trump says we need to stop being politically correct. I’d like to see this country start.

3. So what would it take for the Trump-pets, the people with the yard signs and the red MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hats and even the Hillary-hating T-shirts to turn on this guy?

Insulting Muslims and Mexicans and African-Americans and Asian-Americans and the disabled and everyone else actually inspires these people. So it’s not that.

And while chortling about assaulting women might prompt tsk-tsks from some of them, the true believers seem fine with the language and, some of them, with the sentiment expressed.

So what would finally turn off the people who support this guy?

Believe it or not, there’s a blueprint for it.

It’s the 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd.”

Its central character is a man named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes. He’s an alcoholic drifter from Arkansas who becomes, over the course of the movie, a national media sensation and – unfortunately for him – knows it.

His rampant popularity gives him the ability to advise establishment politicians about how to sell policies that are not necessarily in the people’s best interest.

Now, I’m going to give away the ending. If you’re curious about the film, stop reading here. For you, this blog post is over. You can come back after you’ve seen it – just know, for now, that there’s a Trump comparison coming.

Everybody else staying? OK.

The film’s dramatic conclusion comes when Lonesome finishes a broadcast and begins talking to the rest of the cast. He thinks the microphone is off, and begins ranting about stupid his audience is, calling them “guinea pigs” and “miserable slobs.” But his disillusioned producer/love interest has flipped the switch, and his bitter words are going out to the public.

The audience is furious. The network is swamped with calls demanding Lonesome be taken off the air. He ends the movie atop a penthouse wondering, drunkenly, how this all could have come apart.

So let’s get back to Trump.

He’s a born-and-bred New Yorker. And if there’s one thing I know about most of my fellow New Yorkers, it’s the contempt they have for the rest of the country. New York is the biggest and the best, and the rest of you don’t come close to measuring up.

At his core, that’s what Trump believes about this country. He believes the people in the rest of America are suckers who will fall for his lines of crap. He thinks they’re too dumb not to be impressed by his pseudo display of success and too full of their loathing of others not to suck up the hateful message he spreads.

The good news is – if recent polls are on target – there’s a real chance that a majority of Americans aren’t going to fall for it. Hillary Clinton’s lead has grown since the “Access Hollywood” soured our national discourse.

But for those who might still be with Trump, any evidence of the contempt in which he obviously holds them might – I’ll stress might – make them finally see this huckster for what he is.

I’d love to think that tape is out there somewhere. Somewhere, I’m sure of it, he trashtalks Alabamans and Ohioans and Kansans and Utahns.

Please. If you have a recording of Trump in that mode, share it.

It helps that Trump already has the penthouse.

1. It’s Monday, October 10, 2016. The election is 29 days away.

2. It’s the national celebration of Columbus Day. He and my paternal grandfather were Ligurians. So I celebrate.

3. Because we can’t stand this election much longer, there are a lot of people – myself included – who wanted Hillary Clinton to put Trump away in the second debate. Let him whine to the finish line after another drubbing.

That didn’t happen.

Yes, the CNN post-debate poll showed that she did better by a 57-34 margin.

And, yes, my God, the bastard threatened to throw her in prison – taking a page from the playbook of his buddy, Vladimir Putin.

And, in the initial half-hour he tried to self-destruct by invoking Bill Clinton’s infidelities and claiming as mere “locker-room talk” his captured-on-tape comments that amount to bragging of sexual assault.

But for most of the debate, he was scoring points by ranting about either terrible things she’s done over the years or failing to do things over the years.

And he scored best when she tried to use Lincoln to justify equivocation on Wall Street reform and he turned that around.

I thought there were points in the debate when he had the upper hand. To the point that I had to wonder something.

DId she not want to finish him off?

It’s a real question. If you were watching TV Saturday, you saw the meltdown of Republican officials about the Access Hollywood tape. Senators and Congressmen in tight races condemned him or even bailed on him, saying they wouldn’t vote for him and calling on him to withdraw.

And while I as a Democrat find that duly appropriate, I also have to think that I want Trump – and not some hastily appointed replacement – to lose this election. I want a total rejection of what this imbecile stands for.

That wouldn’t happen if he left St. Louis with his tail tucked between his legs.

So maybe Clinton finishes him off in Las Vegas on the 19th. Or maybe she lets him bleed all the way to the end. Maybe this is the rope-a-dope before the big knockout.

I just hope he doesn’t land a lucky punch between now and Nov. 8.

1. It’s Sunday, October 9, 2016. The election is 30 long days away. The second presidential debate is tonight.

2. As for 2:03 p.m. ET, there are – according to the Census Bureau – 324,669,783 Americans.

On Election Day, 324,669,782 of them will not be elected President of the United States. If there’s any justice and mercy, Trump will be among them.

But then there will be Hillary Clinton.

And that’s the point I want to make about tonight’s debate.

Much has been made about the Trump tape and the GOP meltdown and everything else this jackass says and does.

But when we go into the voting booth or mail in our ballots, we are not voting for who’s not going to be president. It’s not like a no-confidence vote in a parliamentary system, in which members decide the fate of their party’s leader.

We vote FOR president. We are affirmative. This is how we want to face our future.

There’s going to be a lot of crap that we’re going to hear about in St. Louis. We’re going to relive this whole embarrassing tape thing and everything else. Anderson Cooper is guaranteed to bring it up.

Clinton has to get away from this. She has to give people a reason to vote for her, because that’s the question before them. They need to feel as though they are reaffirming their belief in what this nation can do, and rejecting sexual predation and birther cowardice and racist dog whistling.

If Trump starts talking about her husband, she needs to deflect it. Her husband is one of the 324,669,782 – although he’s one of five of them who’s already had the job.

Yeah, she can’t just dismiss it, and I can’t imagine it’s anything she hasn’t heard or wants to hear again.

But she needs to turn this debate back toward issues. And she needs to show how much more of them in command of them he is.

She did that 12 days ago at Hofstra. That’s how the Trump freefall started. She needs to show the world which of the two is a leader, and let the other one show which of the two is an improperly raised 12-year-old in a 70-year-old body.

You can do this, Mrs. Clinton. You can lead. You can get the country to vote FOR you.

Because that’s what we do on Election Day.

1. It’s Saturday, October 8, 2016. It’s 31 days until the election – unless we beg Barack Obama to stick around for a third term.

2. What amazes me is that there are people in this country who are surprised by the Trump tape.

If you didn’t think this, or worse, was (or is) out there, you have not been paying attention to this creep’s campaign.

What about the Miss Universe tweets, the Rosie O’Donnell comments, the Megyn Kelly comments, the leering comments about a 12-year-old Paris Hilton and his own daughter, and a slew of other crap didn’t predict that something like that tape was out there?

The revulsion among Republicans about this tape is almost laughable. They finally found the line that Trump crossed.

It talks to the sensibility of these people that it took blatant bragging about sexual assault and harassment to make them say, hey, maybe we should trust the world’s most powerful military and biggest economy to this 70-year-old with the mindset of a troubled adolescent.

A guy who says he can shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose supporters appears to be putting that idea to the test. Because it’s a safe bet that there’s at least one something else out there ready to add to the curriculum vitae of Donald J. Trump.

3. And yet, there’s a part of me that believes that the people who support Trump, the people with the “Deplorables for Trump” yard signs and the “Make America Great Again” hats and the “Hillary for Prison” bumper stickers, aren’t going to budge.

He’s been saying that we need to end political correctness in this country. (Now do you know why?) They agree. Let’s see how long they stick with him.

If those yard signs start coming down today, we’ll know he’s done for sure.

How will the Trump tape and, perhaps to a lesser extent, any of the revelations in the Podesta e-mails about Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street, affect tomorrow night’s debate?

Will there be a debate?

And how sorry should Democrats be that Tim Kaine didn’t go harder after Mike Pence in the vice presidential debate? Or is it enough that Pence’s denial of all the things Trump said adds to the other disqualifications he has to be president?

It’s October 7, 2016, 32 days before the election.

And, being Friday, it’s time for 20 Questions Friday. It’s my version of leaving something hanging  – actually, leaving 20 things hanging.

Obviously, the biggest things on my mind are Hurricane Matthew and Sunday’s town hall presidential debate. But they’re not the only things.

Here goes. Enjoy your weekend!

— Does anyone remember a hurricane that circled back to hit the places it hit the first time, the way Matthew might with Florida?

— Do hurricanes really need to have names?

— Are they any dolts who saw Matt Drudge’s tweet expressing skepticism about the storm and said, hey, this guy knows more about hurricanes than the National Weather Service, I’m staying put?

— Doesn’t the idea that it seems to get a lot of hurricanes make Florida a little less attractive for older folks trying to escape the winter weather of the north?

— Is Hillary Clinton peaking too soon?

— Will Trump turn on a questioner at the town hall meeting?

— Or will Trump make a spectacular effort at self-control after failing miserably at Hofstra?

— How freakin’ stupid do you have to be to keep insinuating that people – and the Central Park Five, despite Trump’s effort to make them otherwise, are people – who have been scientifically exonerated of a crime are guilty of it anyway?

— Can you believe that the Times story about Trump’s $916 billion tax loss in 1995 was published less than a week ago?

— When Trump talks about ending political correctness, do you think he means something like that racist piece of crap that Fox News put on the air about New York’s Chinatown?

— Do you avoid commercial establishments, such as barber shops and pizza places, that show Fox News?

— Which would Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos rather have, the Nobel Peace Prize he won today or popular approval of the peace accord with FARC rebels that he lost this week?

— Do you see anything good in what Christopher Columbus accomplished? (editor’s note: I do)

— Is it too early to buy calcium chloride to melt ice on a driveway?

— If you could pick a language you don’t speak already, what would it be?

— Is there anything the United States can do to help Aleppo and the rest of Syria without committing troops to a hellish fight?

— Doesn’t a national day of atonement, similar to Yom Kippur, seem like a good idea for a country with a lot of angry people?

— Who let the dogs out? (sixth in a series of song-title questions)

— How long will it take me and my fellow Mets fans to recover from Wednesday’s soul-crushing National League Wild Card loss?

— If your team has been eliminated from postseason contention, which of the remaining eight teams do you want to win the World Series?

1. It’s Thursday, October 6, 2016. The election is 33 days away.

2. Hopefully, Floridians are heeding all the warnings and getting as far away from the danger of Hurricane Matthew as they can.

These storms are not a lark – you can always repair the damage as long as you’re alive to do it.

3. Twelve hours ago, I loved baseball.

At that time, about 10 p.m. as I write this, I was in the middle of all the things I love about the game.

Two great pitchers dominating in completely different ways. One with guile, getting hitters to pop out lamely without working up a sweat. The other with force, routinely overpowering his opponents with 99 mile-an-hour sinkers.

Good defense, including a center fielder holding onto a baseball after banging menacingly into the wall.

A passionate crowd standing anytime the home pitcher had two strikes. High-fiving each other when he got the third one. Chanting his nickname.

And it wouldn’t have been love without having my daughter there. I love baseball because it runs so deep in my family, a bond that connects my grandfather and both my parents to both my children. They’re all in the ballpark with us – you can feel it in the way the two of us jump up and scream and hug at the good moments.

Finally, the game was scoreless. 0-0. No sign of give, but with it the knowledge that the stalemate could shatter with one combination of a mislaid pitch and well-positioned swing.

Of course, that’s what happened. Unfortunately, the pitch was mislaid by my team’s ace closer, and the swing was well-positioned by the other team’s batter.

And so the Mets lost the National League Wild Card game, 3-0 – there were a couple of runners on when 40,000 fans couldn’t will the ball from jumping the fence, but that was trivial.

Crushed hardly describes the feeling. I can’t say I’ve experienced too many punches in the gut in my life. But when you’ve invested so much of yourself into the game before you, there’s almost physical pain that accompanies a massive disappointment.

All the things you love go into that pain. It’s not that you’re disappointed so much as you feel sad for your family, and the thousands of fans with whom you’ve spent three hours, and the players with whom you feel so familiar that, if you met them, you wouldn’t understand why they don’t know that you like mayonnaise on your sandwiches.

So, 12 hours ago, I loved baseball.

And, now, when it’s easy to be bitter and dismissive, I still do. It still entertains. It still inspires. It still impresses. It still instills memories and reminds me of those I love. A great game like last night’s is a reminder.

I still love it. But, right this moment, I don’t like it very much.

I suspect that will change by spring training.