Any baseball fan can tell you: don't count your team out early. Getting drubbed in the second inning can still lead to victory in the ninth.
Baseball was one of the few common areas the author Wade Rouse shared with his father; they both loved the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rouse's father Ted did not understand his son's queerness or much else about him. But late in Ted's life, with the Cardinals closing in on a pennant, the two had a chance to reconnect, to in fact connect in new ways.
Wade Rouse tells the story in Magic Season: A Son's Story. We hear details of the magic season in this interview.