When Your Team Loses…Poor Falcons

February 6, 2017

After the remarkable comeback by the Patriots, I was sad. Sure, Brady and company pulled off one the greatest victories of all time, all at the expense of the poor Falcons. I am not a fan of either, but I felt that was one of the biggest gut punches any team could take. New England wanted that victory more than anything. It preserves their place in the annals of NFL football history. Their fans are euphoric, while the remake of Gone with the Wind was airing over in Atlanta.

When you see the opposing team storm the field after they won the big game, it feels like someone either threw rubbing alcohol on an open wound, or you sit dumbfounded by the turn of events. I acknowledge the bitter taste of defeat, which then turns into anger and manifests into a dumb stupor. The next day, I try to blurt it out of my brain and focus on positive things like puppies and strawberry shortcakes. In reality, I try to ask myself why I did spend so much damn time getting wrapped up in the lives of millionaires while I watch their games in my underwear eating a bowl of cereal. After much introspection, I realize I put up with the silliness of being a loyal fan because the team I follow is part of me.

As much as I don't want to get emotionally sucked in my favorite teams' daily ups and downs, I eventually come around and get concerned if things are not going so well. Hey!  They lost five games in a row; I better listen to sports talk radio and find out what the hell is going on.  The worst roller coaster rides are the NBA and MLB seasons because they drone on forever, and there are mini-seasons that happen within the big season. First, your team starts, guns a blazing, winning and getting everybody excited, then about halfway through the season, they hit a roadblock and skid off the tracks. Players become injured, and now the team has to trade a bundle of young prospects to get a player who might come in and save the day. Sound familiar?   That's the MLB every year, and the NBA is almost the same, except they devote most of their torture for the end at the playoffs. The NBA and the NHL have piled on four rounds of playoffs that they make you endure for three months.

As a loyal fan, if you have lasted through the marathon season and managed to give a damn to the end, you know you get to bite your nails down to the nubs and watch the playoff rounds. If your team manages to move forward into another tier of the playoffs, you get to change your life and normal behavior into the scheduled time of the games. You make arrangements for food choices and who you will watch the game with. If you fly solo and want to be left alone in your living room while you sweat it out, you get the luxury of talking to yourself. I have done this plenty of times and find it liberating to cuss, burp, and yell in privacy. I like to be around a gathering of people during a big sporting event because it distracts you from having to watch every single minute of every single play.

If your team is fortunate to win the big game, you walk on cloud nine for a brief moment in time. You gloat and talk trash against all of the naysayers, and best yet, you get to buy clothing that says your team won the championship. If your team loses the championship game, you have mixed emotions. Those mixed emotions are cross between anger, sadness, despair, and denial. I deny that it happened and try to act as if it was no big deal. But in reality, it hurts, and you first want to blame those athletes and coaches who blew it and choked, and sometimes it's the referees and umpires' faults. This is all part of the deal when you become a loyal fan, and if you are a Cleveland Indian fan, you have endured more abuse than usual. Maybe it's their year, but if it doesn't happen, I suggest you do not watch professional team sports. Decompress and watch another sport, perhaps the X games, but just in case you are interested, spring training is only weeks away.