For the first time in nine years, all Rick Honeycutt could do was watch from his Ringgold, Georgia, home. Just like everybody else who wasn't actually inside Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Sunday night for the seventh game of the National League Championship Series between our Atlanta Braves and Honeycutt's Los Angeles Dodgers.
"It was terrible, watching it on TV," said the former pitching coach of the Dodgers, who retired at the end of last season after 14 summers of shaping one of the top two or three pitching staffs in the majors.
"I couldn't do anything but sit in my recliner. At least when I was in the dugout I had a job to do."
In the end, the Dodgers performed their jobs enough better than the Braves - winning 4-3 to advance to the start of Tuesday's best-of-seven World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays - to make for another terrible end to an otherwise terrific season for Braves Nation.
And if you closely follow the Peach State's athletic teams - pro and college alike - the phrase "rinse and repeat" has once more sent you reeling following that Dodgers win.
Just add it to the long list of heartaches, starting with 28-3, Jim Leyritz, Eugene Robinson (who'd just won the Bart Starr Award for high moral character) getting picked up for soliciting a prostitute the night before Super Bowl XXXIII and Tua Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith before anyone knew who those Alabama players were in the College Football Playoff title game against Georgia.
Need we go on? How about the fake punt Georgia coach Kirby Smart tried in the 2018 SEC title game with Bama on the ropes? The botched onside kick recovery by the Falcons against Dallas last month. Once upon a time there was even a sixth game of the NBA playoffs against the Boston Celtics in the Omni - the Bird-McHale-Parish Celtics - the Atlanta Hawks up 3-2. Any guess as to how that series ended? How much sports pain and disappointment must one state take?
"The Braves should be proud of their guys, too," said the 66-year-old Honeycutt, trying to be magnanimous in victory. "The two best teams in the National League put on a tremendous series."
And if you didn't care who won, they did indeed, though Braves fans will long lament their team's mental errors after taking a 3-1 lead in the series last Thursday night. From there, stupendous defensive plays from the Dodgers' Mookie Betts and horrendous base-running errors by several Braves proved too much for Atlanta to overcome.
"I really feel like Mookie Betts has been the missing ingredient," said Honeycutt of the Nashville native acquired by the Dodgers from the Boston Red Sox in the offseason.
"I texted (LA manager) Dave (Roberts) when they got him and said, 'You've finally got a true leadoff hitter,' which was something they didn't have during the 14 years I was involved. The lineup just flows better with Mookie. You've got tough outs all through the lineup now."
But the Dodgers have the marvelous pitching staff they have precisely because of Honeycutt's 14 years developing all those stingy arms. Asked how many of those arms that outlasted the Braves had been coached by him, the Lakeview Lefty said, "All but (reliever) Blake Treinen."
As Roberts told this newspaper a couple of summers ago when asked how important Honeycutt was to the organization: "I'm pretty sure Rick is the only one of us with a lifetime contract. I know I'd hate to have to replace him. He's as good as there is in our business."
But recurring back issues encouraged him to turn in that timeless Dodger Blue uni in order to spend more time with wife Debbie, their children and grandchildren and his long neglected golf clubs.
That doesn't mean the veteran of more than 40 big league seasons as a player or coach isn't following every minute of LA's attempt to win its first World Series since 1988, as well as wash the bad taste from the Dodgers' mouths from their 2017 Series loss to Houston, which was later proven to be bogus due to the Astros' elaborate thievery of signs through technology, a blatant rules violation that many believe should have stripped them of their championship.
"A little revenge could have been nice," Honeycutt said of the fact that the Dodgers would be facing Houston instead of Tampa Bay if the Rays hadn't knocked off the Astros in the seventh game of the ALCS.
"It would have been fitting to see how they'd do against us without that (unfair) help. I know this: I'll never be an Astros fan. It's way deeper than banging on trash cans (to tip what pitch the LA pitchers were throwing). There's still more to it. The fines weren't big enough. Major League Baseball wasn't severe enough."
But that will have to wait for another time. For this time, even with Honeycutt attempting to lower his 4-handicap on the golf course rather than the Dodgers pitchers' earned run average, it's LA versus Tampa Bay.
"I think it will go at least six games," said Honeycutt. "Maybe the distance. But I think we have more offensive talent, more pitching depth. I think we'll win."
And if they do, they ought to send a championship ring to Honeycutt for teaching all those pitchers during those 14 seasons before this one how to be the best in the business.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com