Being a sports fan ultimately boils down to two things: the unbridled joy of winning and the pain of losing. More times than not, you lose, it comes with territory, we all get that, it's what makes winning that much better. However, in the past 3 years for me, there's losing and then there's being repeatedly kicked in the protective cup. It's not just losing, it's having rivals win too, to pour salt in the wound, which lately has become a cement mixer. I've dubbed this Sports Fan Hell, and allow me to give you a tour. Think of it as a way to understand my incessant pessimism and whining.
It unofficially began on April 3, 2006 when Florida defeated UCLA for the NCAA basketball championship. I hate seeing UF win anything, but I didn't think much of it.Cute, those spoiled kids up in Gainesville finally have a basketball title, that's nice. Little did I know the misery I was in for:
October 19th, 2006 : It officially began when the Mets lost Game 7 of the NLCS in heartbreaking fashion to the Cardinals on a 2-run homer by Yadier Molina in the 9th inning and the season ending with Carlos Beltran striking out looking with the bases loaded. This is actually the most painful loss of my lifetime. 2006 was the season of destiny for the Mets, they had the pitching and the lineup and an 83-78 team took it from them, no one saw it coming. It took me almost til Christmas to get over it.
January 8, 2007 Florida boat races Ohio State 41-14. Great, 2 titles in 9 months, just what the trust fund babies needed. Part of the UF hate comes from being a Florida State fan, part of it comes from my friends who go to UF and never shut up about how much better they are than everyone simply by going to UF. Two titles for them is like pouring another gas can on the fire.
March 2007: Jimmy Rollins declares the Phillies, perennial September swooners, the team to beat in the NL East. When did Jimmy Rollins become good enough to be talkin shit like that? Please, like they have a chance.
April 2, 2007 : b-ball title #2 for UF and title #3 in 364 days. All of a sudden, there's a lot of blue and orange car flags around.
September 14-30, 2007 : The Collpase......already did an entry on this, and I'm not in the mood to do it again.
December 2007: Tim Tebow wins the Heisman and thus, the ballwashing begins. I can say without question that I have never hated an athlete like I do Tebow. The aw shucksness, the phony showbiz christian act, the fact that he's not a great QB and can just simply run over people at 6'5 245, yet people act like he's reinvented the wheel, the Favre-eque way announcers fawn over him. I actually danced a jig when he got that concussion.
January 6, 2008: Bucs lose NFC Wild Card game to Giants. This one doesn't bug me that much since I thought the Giants would win this game anyway and ended up doing what they did a few weeks later.
September 28,2008: The Collpase Part 2 concludes and destroys Shea Stadium. Nice to see 87 wins wasn't good enough for the Marlins this year, just like 89 and 88 weren't good enough for the Mets the 2 years prior. Karma po-lice, arrest this team.
October 29,2008 : Phillies win the World Series. Maybe the baseball gods don't exist.
December 2008: Following Monte Kiffin's announcement that he will be leaving the Buccaneers after the season to go to Tennessee, the defense takes the last month of the season off and the Bucs go from 9-3 to out of the playoffs, including blowing a 10-point lead in the 4th quarter in the final game against the freaking Raiders. I'm starting to wonder if I killed somebody in a past life
January 8, 2009: UF defeats Oklahoma for another national title, and Tim Tebow gets verbally blown by Thom Brennaman on TV for 3 hours......absolute torture.
March 20, 2009: Florida State blows a 13-point lead to Wisconsin in the 2nd half and falls in the final seconds of the 1st round of the NCAA Tourmanet. Ok, I'm reaching here, but at this point I was just hoping for ANY of my teams to come through at this point.
April-September 2009: Mets season becomes wet garbage.
June 11 and 14, 2009: Derek Fisher's daggers in Game 4 and the Lakers clinch it in Orlando. As I've said on here before, it sucked that they lost, but the fun of the Eastern Conference playoffs outweighed the end. That said, screw the Lakers, and I hope Yoko Khloe and her ugly sister Kourtney help wreck the repeat.
*Side note for June 14: The Mets lose 15-0 to the Yankees, where Johan Santana gets tagged for 9 runs in 3 innings in a series that also featured Luis Castillo's game-ending dropped pop-up. If the memory-eraser thing from Men In Black was available, it would definitely be used for that 4-5 day stretch.
The next 2 weeks: Phillies-Yankees World Series: Since my rage over this is approaching a Stephen Jackson in Detroit level, I'll let my friend Anthony sum it up: "It's the Alien vs. Predator World Series, no matter who wins, we lose."
Editor's note: This may be updated again in the coming months for the undeserved Tebow Heisman and another UF title.
No comments:
Post a Comment