October magic

 So, maybe you're not much into baseball anymore. The NFL has swallowed it whole. The World Series is just background noise to the Shield and big-ticket college football and basketball starting up and hockey starting up.

Maybe it even gets eclipsed by high school football, considering the geniuses who run baseball now decided to start the World Series on a playoff football Friday.

Too bad for you, in that case.

You could have seen one of those throwback moments that used to make the Series appointment viewing. You could have watched October magic happen the way it used to when they still played the World Series in the afternoons, under the burnished light of the October sun. You could have relived all the times you snuck your transistor radio into Mrs. Becker's class to listen when you were supposed to be conjugating verbs and such.

Game 1 brought all that back last night, including the part where you gave yourself away by shouting "Yes!" when the magic happened. Because, yes, the magic did happen.

Down 5-3 at home in the ninth, their bats muffled by the Arizona Diamondbacks' arms, the Texas Rangers suddenly rode again. 

First,with a man on, Corey Seager took D-backs closer Paul Sewald's 94-mph smoke for a ride into the right-field stands, tying the game with one out in the ninth. Then, in the bottom of the 11th, Adolis Garcia -- who doesn't seem to have swung and missed through the entire playoffs -- did it again, clubbing a walkoff home run to give the Rangers a stunning 6-5 win and a 1-0 lead in the Series.

It was the fifth straight game he'd homered, his record 22nd RBI in the playoffs, and first walk-off dinger in Game 1 of the World Series since a hobbled Kirk Gibson hit one of the most iconic home runs in Series history 35 years ago.

The Blob makes no claim to premonitions. But, weirdly enough, I was actually watching a clip of Gibson's blast and Vin Scully's legendary call of it ("And she's gone!") Friday afternoon. 

No, I don't know why. It just popped up on my YouTube feed. And there again was Gibson limping around the bases pumping his arm, and A's peerless closer Dennis Eckersley blanking following the ball as it sailed away, and the whole world, it seemed, going nuts.

Just a nostalgic wallow, I guess, as the 119th World Series waited on deck.

And then, several hours later, Seager and Garcia going deep with Game 1 on the line, same as in 1988.

You don't have to say it was that old October magic, echoing down the years. But I think I will.