When the Pats lost on Sunday to their arch rival, the New York Jets, it was painful to watch, and yet I could not force myself to get out of my seat and do anything else while the game was still going on. An ugly, disaster of a game was being played, and yet I could not pull myself away from the TV.
Why do we put ourselves through such torture?
My theory is that the Red Sox and Bruins have trained Boston sports fans into coming back year after year regardless of how bleak their prospects may look. From the Impossible Dream to Carlton Fisk to Bucky Dent to Grady Little, Red Sox fans always had a strong intergenerational bond that only grew stronger with defeat. There was always a glimmer of promise in the future. Maybe Ted Williams will win us a World Series. Or maybe Yaz. Or maybe Fred Lynn. Or Jim Rice. Or Dwight Evans. Or Roger Clemens. Or Mo Vaughn. Or Nomar. Or Manny. Or Pedro...
At least the Sox pulled it off and won a couple of World Series titles before I got too old. The Bruins still have yet to win the prestigious Stanley Cup since before Watergate (or the end of the Vietnam War or the premiere of SNL. Any sort of historical bench mark to indicate that 1972 was a long time ago). I remember all the excitement over an 18 year old kid named Joe Thornton. Now we can only hope that Tyler Seguin and Tuukka Rask can become champions in Beantown.
Elimination day is a great time to reflect on your commitment to the team. In some cities, when their basketball team is eliminated, many fans leave in the third quarter, or they are too busy texting their friends or trying to spot celebrities to even care. It is hard to be a fair weather fan in a region that only gets fair weather for four months of the year. Standing behind a team when they are at their worst is the fanatical equivalent to shoveling two feet of snow off a driveway while flakes are still coming down and then spending the rest of the afternoon clearing off your backyard rink so you can have a place to celebrate when the sky clears up--it is just what true fans do.
I feel like Charles M. Schultz should have made a TV special about this topic where Charlie Brown is down in the dumps for supporting his local sports franchise when they seem like a lost cause. Looking for guidance, he first asks Lucy for psychiatric help and, after handing over a nickel, she tells him that his faith in such a terrible team is really just a coping mechanism for his own fear of failure. She suggests to him that he try to coach his own team of whatever specific sport the special is about. His ragtag team of misfits (Schroeder, Snoopy, Frieda, Pig Pen, etc.) do not respect him and do not follow the plays he tries to teach them because they think he is too much of a blockhead. Discouraged and resentful of the entire sport, Charlie Brown exasperatedly asks what the point being a sports fan is anyway. Linus quietly and eloquently explains that you need to take the good with the bad and the fans that were their when the team was lousy will feel even more rewarded when they finally turn it around and win. Upon hearing this the rest of the team gets really focused and plays really hard for their dedicated coach who is sulking by himself. The special would end with all the characters humming "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in honor of Charlie Brown.
If that TV Special ever got made, it would make more casual sports fans find the true meaning behind the games they sometimes care about.
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