Today’s Sports Snob focuses on an issue that tortures the essence of my life as a sports fan – losing. It’s every fan’s worst nightmare and it just plain sucks. Some people are lucky and follow teams that rarely lose or only go through short funks before winning again. Others escape the torment of continued misery by only casually following the major American sports leagues.
And then there are schmucks people like me. It’s well documented that I support the Los Angeles Clippers, so there’s no need to say anything else on that front. But I’m also a lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fan. Sure they have a rich history and have won some great championships, but I’m an 80’s baby and unfortunately that means I’ve rooted for two teams that have won a total of zero combined titles during the last 20-plus years.
As a kid who grew up watching Mike Piazza, Eric Karros, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and the rest win Rookie of the Year awards and put up good numbers on an elite franchise, I always had my hopes up. Every year I’d get my glove and pretend to be one of them. I’d rock my Dodgers shirts, bleed Dodger blue and go to games to boo opposing teams and enthusiastically root, root, root for the Dodgers.
And every single year they’d lose, fail to make the playoffs or choke and slowly kill my baseball-loving soul. As the years went by, I’d still go to games and heckle the enemy teams, but it was less than before. Not only was I growing up, but watching the cold-hearted business side lead to trading Piazza and my hero Mondesi didn’t help either.
It got to the point that I stopped going to Dodger Stadium at all. I had lost my connection to the team and the luster was gone. They started to just look like a collection of millionaire athletes and not a group of guys I should admire.
I still had the teams I despised at all costs (the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, etc) but watching your team make the playoffs only six times since 1990 drains you. I’ll even admit that I enjoyed watching the Boston Red Sox finally end the Curse of the Bambino and beat the hated Yankees. Sure my team sucked, but at least another perennial runner-up finally won.
Then Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre came to the Dodgers a few years ago and it energized me and most of the fan base. We had an all-time great hitter in Manny along with promising young talent like Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp. Plus Torre is a legendary manager so it seemed like we might have a shot at a World Series again.
I can’t lie either, a part of me reverted to the 11-year-old version of myself and exuded some blind optimism. Winning the National League West Division in their fist season together and then making the NLCS had me pumped.
But that’s where I messed up. I made the mistake of thinking I’d get to see my team win a championship. I’ll save the extra details and just point out that the Dodgers blew it and went on to lose the series to the Philadelphia Phillies, who ended a drought of their own and treated their fans to a World Series win.
Last year saw the Dodgers win 11 more games and capture the NL West crown again, but it also had the Manny steroids issue and by the time the NLCS rematch with the Phillies was on, deep down I knew we’d lose. True to form, Jonathan Broxton blew another key save and just like that it was all over again.
Fast forward to present day. I’ve been to two Dodgers games this year, one on an invite by a friend who still loves them with an exuberance that I can only remember and the other because they were free and in the all-you-can-eat section.
Yeah I had fun and it gave some life into a part of me that had been gone for way too long. I even got to sing again during the seventh-inning stretch and scarf down some Dodger dogs, but when both games were over the results were the same; they’d lost.
The overall picture is even worse, with the team facing a 12-game deficit in the NL West and being only one game over a .500 record. Manny’s been hurt almost half the year and he’s likely gone after this year anyway. Ditto to Torre, who hasn’t given a long-term commitment? Throw in the nasty divorce between the owner and his wife and it seems like things will never change.
At least we can take one positive from it all though, Vin Scully will be back. Laugh if you like, but at least we’ll lose in style.
- Will.
The Sports Snob will be published once a week here on YouBeenBlinded.com. Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com
