Being a Tortured Sports Fan

Being a sports fan is a special, yet insane thing. On one hand, sports can make you happier than your first girlfriend. On the other hand it can make you sadder than when that girlfriend calls you and says it's over right before the big Snowball Dance and you spend the rest of 7th grade hating her guts.

But I digress. There are casual fans, there are hardcore fans. But right in middle on the Sports Fan Spectrum lies the tortured sports fan. The fan whose teams are batting 1.000 in broken hearts. The team who can dunk your heart at will. A team who can throw your heart all over the field, leaving you looking like a permanent Michael Jordan Crying Face.

2012.

The Cincinnati Redlegs have the best record in baseball. They have the best player in baseball (Joseph Votto). They have the best pitcher in baseball (Johnny Beisbol). They have a young 3rd baseman who'll be cranking out homers and looking like my best friend Tuttle (The Todd Father). And finally, they have a manager whom the players genuinely love and pitchers fear (Dusty Baker).

The Reds go up 2-0 on the San Francisco Giants in a best of 5 series. They literally have to win one more game to advance and win their first playoff series since 1995 (Tupac and Biggie were still alive then). I watched as they lost the next 3 games with nothing but a single tear and a blank expression. The Giants went on to win the World Series.

Now you might be wondering why I wasn't viciously punching the air like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Boyz N The Hood and I will tell you why. Because I've been a conscious Reds fan since 2000, when they acquired Griffey Jr, and when I was old enough to distinguish my left hand from my right hand. You know how bad the Reds have been my whole life? Bad. So you think blowing a 2-0 lead is going to get me down? No sir, I know my team sucks and I know I suck for believing in them every year.

2015. 

The Green Bay Packers, the greatest team in the next 5 galaxies, were 2 minutes away from heading to the Super Bowl. Two minutes. We have Jesus Rodgers throwing the ball with his eyes closed and being the greatest QB to ever think about playing QB. We have Clay "the Bae" Matthews concussing Russell Wilson. We have Eddie "Baecy" Lacy running all over the Seacocks. Two minutes.

In two minutes, the Packers lost the game. Russell Wilson had a gnarly concussion to the point where he forgot how to add 2 + 2, and beat the Packers who LITERALLY needed to just not be stupid for 120 seconds. I sat there at work that day again looking like the MJ Crying Face.

That one stung a little more because the Packers are actually good at sports, but since 2011 I had grown used to them letting me down and choking mightily in the playoffs. The Seahawks loss still stung worse than when you have to dig a pimple out with your nail, but after 2 months I moved on from it.

2012. 

Boston Celtics. My favorite team since 2004 when I watched Ricky Davis (the greatest Celtic of all time) play like he didn't care about basketball. They were up 3-2 on the Heat. THE HEAT! There was no way they could lose. Rondo was playing out of his mind, Paul Pierce was playing like he was 30 again, and Ray Allen was...never mind. Oh and KG was playing like it was 1998.

LeBron James was on the ropes, game 6 was back at the Garden, and the Celtics had allllllll of the momentum. I watched in my room, sweating bullets, ruining my deodorant. Ruined my D.O. With my B.O.

Even my girlfriend was into the game!! LeBron took his headband off and I laughed at his receding hairline. But it was LeBron who got the last laugh. He had 45 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 assists while at the same time coming out of my TV screen and laughing in my face.

Once again, I was watching with the MJ Crying Face. After game 7 (the Celtics lost), I turned the TV off and my girlfriend patted my back and I cried a little. The Celtics shortly blew up the team and now I gotta watch that idiot Kelly Olynyk forget how to play basketball for my beloved Celtics.

But it could be worse. I could be a Knicks fan (haven't won anything since the Vietnam War), or a Cleveland sports fan (eww), or a Bengals fan (never will win anything) or a god forsaken Buffalo Bills fan (poor guys).

Those are just 3 small examples of sports ruining my life. But in the end, I'm okay. Being a sports fan is the most fun you don't want to have. And while my favorite teams will inevitably break my heart every year, I just keep coming back. <3

Talking Baseball With My Dad

My dad is the smartest dude alive. And I mean that with absolutely no hyperbole, he really is the smartest guy ever. He's a small business owner that has been successful for over 20 years. He was also majorly good at sports, good enough to play college baseball. My dad rocks and the talks we've had over the years have always centered around one thing: baseball.

When I was 10, we had just gotten home from practice. He was on the phone with my mom and they were talking about something that made me really upset (I don't remember what) and I told him he sucked and I ran to my room. While sitting in my room for an hour playing video games, he knocks on my door. 

"What do you want?" I say like a little shithead. 

"I want to talk to you." He replies.

I reluctantly turn around in my sweet ass swivel chair and look this man straight in the eye. He sits down next to me and looks around. He finds a special edition Tony The Tiger baseball and starts tossing it in his hands. He grips the ball like a pitcher would whenever they are throwing a 2-seam fastball. 

"Greg Maddux throws a nasty fastball. It dips." He says, staring at the ball.

I look up from the floor and stare at him and realize what a special moment this is. We talked about Greg Maddux and then we talked about the Reds, and then we talked about Pete Rose and David Concepcion. We never discussed the actual problem and for that I'm thankful because talking about sad feelings only makes me sad, but talking about something interesting makes me forget ever being sad.

Talking about baseball had become a staple in our relationship from that day forward. Those kind of talks about baseball got me through my first break up, my nana's cancer diagnosis, moving away from home for the first time (easily the worst day of my entire life), etc. 

Even 2 months ago, I had come to visit dad one day and I sat on the couch. I had been feeling kind of bummed out and he could sense it. He looked at me and said, "Walt Jocketty, he'll never be Billy Beane." I looked back at him and smiled and we talked about Billy Beane, Joey Votto, The Big Red Machine, and the concept of Moneyball.

3 years ago, I was rummaging through some items and I found something I thought dad had lost. It was the scorecard from the 1976 Reds World Series I had bought him for Father's Day when I was maybe 8 or 9. I smiled, put it back and then sat down with dad and we talked baseball for the next hour.