It’s a horrible feeling and one that is all too familiar – the Fall Classic is about to begin and the Dodgers aren’t in it. Lord knows they once again should be in it, but they’re not.

Whether it’s the manager’s fault or the front office’s fault or the bullpen’s fault or a veteran’s fault or a rookie’s fault really doesn’t matter – the other team is in it and the Dodgers are not. Their team moved on and ours went home for the winter. It’s like watching happy people yelling and waving from the deck of a departing cruise ship while we’re standing on the dock. It is the worst, absolute worst feeling in the world for us die-hard Dodger fans. But as they say – as if they think it will make us feel any better – “It is what it is.”

For many Dodger fans Game-5 of the NLDS was the last game they will watch until Opening Day on April 4, 2016 (or at least until spring training games begin) while others will continue to watch until the final out of the World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets. But even those Dodger fans will do so with burning envy in their hearts. “That should be us,” they will say, as they watch the eventual winners celebrating on the field before they hit the off button on their remotes.

Although the off-season won’t officially begin until the final out of the World Series, for Dodger fans it began with the final out of Game-5 of the NLDS. (Google images)

And then it begins – the official start of the off-season (although ours actually started a week ago Thursday), that five-month stretch between the final pitch of the World Series and the first pitch on Opening Day that seems so impossibly far away.

For some, many in fact, there’s college football, professional football, hockey and basketball to occupy their time between now and then. But for us true baseball fans, us dyed-in-the-wool Dodger fans, our sports life goes into hibernation. Oh sure, in the back of our hearts we may want our favorite college team, NFL team, hockey team or basketball team to win, but for us pure one-sport Dodger fans, the only reason we look forward to the Super Bowl (besides the commercials) is because when it ends, it’s only a matter of days until pitchers and catchers report for spring training and life begins anew once again.

But until then, it’s time to decompress. It’s time to let those painful thoughts and feelings of what might have been – what should have been – pass. Soon it will be time to light the Hot Stove and once again debate the moves that the Dodgers brain trust makes or doesn’t make.

And then, finally, after a long, cold, lonely winter, we will once again hear the words that we have so desperately waited for from the man that we so desperately love…

“It’s time for Dodger Baseball!”