All year long you’re strung along, everyday reminded about the promises made to you and the thought of a perfect ending that awaits.
Then one day, it’s all over.
Walls come crashing down and slowly you begin to fill with anger, all those hopes dashed along with the false promises that weren’t kept. Over the next few days you start to piece yourself back together until you can finally move on.
No, I’m not talking about a relationship with a significant other; I’m talking about the feeling that sports fans feel every single year when our hearts are ripped out by our sports teams.
Every year is the same, we are promised a championship and every day we are reminded that anything short of that is failure. Every week, players talk about team chemistry and how this current team has a different feel than others before.
Over the course of a season your anticipation builds as win after win keeps piling in. Toward the end of the season your team takes over first place and you start to believe that maybe the players and owners were right. The playoffs begin and your team advances past the first round, then an old nemesis is waiting in the wings.
You’ve been promised that this year is different, though. That the past doesn’t matter, all that matters is now.
Then it happens, despite all of the promises and optimism, your team still manages to find a way to lose and gets eliminated again.
Our hearts are ripped out and stomped on as the opposing team celebrates and showers themselves with champagne while your team slowly retreats back to the clubhouse.
Then it begins again, players and anyone associated with the team start to spew out the same promises that next year will be different and that fans will finally get that ring that they’ve been waiting for.
I am a huge sports fanatic and no team has crushed my heart more than the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The last two seasons the Dodgers have been eliminated by the St. Louis Cardinals, not only eliminated but ousted in a soul and heart crushing manner.
I understand fully that teams aren’t going to win a championship every year but sports fans know that throughout the season you see plays and games that give you a feeling that this is the year.
The Dodgers had that look these last two years but standing in their way was a goliath. For some reason when the Dodgers play the Cardinals they forget how good they actually are. Their ace pitcher, who had a record-setting season and blew teams away with ease, had trouble making it out of the 6th inning and the Dodgers lost both of his games, despite only losing three games with him pitching in them all season.
To make matters worse, the Giants have won two World Series in the last four years and are currently working on a third this season. The Giants, with a clearly inferior team and a team payroll of almost $93,000,000 less than the Dodgers, are still in the playoffs.
Why bring up the Giants? The Giants are the nemesis, the team Dodger fans hate and one of the only teams that we root against every single season. Despite the Dodgers unlimited resources and MLB leading payroll, the Giants have celebrated more championships these last couple of years than the Dodgers have in three decades and seem to be heading toward what we Dodger fans fear the worst, a dynasty.
Giants fans have had their promises fulfilled, and they’ve received that ring that the rest of us are still waiting for.
But there’s always next year.
That’s what you always hear when your team is eliminated, but when your team’s championship drought is up to 26 years, that’s the last thing you want to hear.
I’m not expecting a championship every single year, but I want to experience what other fans already have.
I want to see a great season culminate in a championship where players thank the fans and say that this season was for all for us. I want to see our players jumping up and down like kids, not multimillion-dollar players, and I want to see them showering themselves with champagne after finally winning a World Series.
The baseball season is over for me now, and now I root against the Giants.
Slowly I’ll piece myself back together, unless the Giants manage to win a third championship in five years. Then it’s back to heartache and denial.