Everyone at one time or another gets their heart broken. If you are a sports fan it comes on a weekly basis. We watch our teams do down in glorious defeat and the rest of the week is shot thinking of what could of been.

Did the bad call in the first quarter cause them to lose by 30? Did the ball, called a strike, in the third inning lose us the game by five?

We never accept that on a given day our team played badly or even worse played well and lost. We rationalize every defeat with reasons we should of won. Even worse, some of us or more accurately all of us, at least one time, attack our own team.

We blame the quarterback, the pitcher and the coach more than any other players. These are the people most responsible for success so we think they must be most responsible for losses. We forget they are also the ones who spend every waking moment figuring out a way to win.

While we are enjoying our morning or our night before - they are at work. We flip on the TV to see not the first hour of their game but probably closer to the 100Th. When their last game ended their next game begins. They study opposition plays. They study opposing players. They study every wrinkle that may give them an advantage. They do this for themselves but it benefits us.

When our team wins it makes our week. When our team wins we boast and brag to everyone who will listen. We are elated, we are so smart as to pick the team who won the big one or maybe several small ones. It makes us feel better as people. It makes us feel superior.

Here lies the problem. If we feel that way when we win we as humans feel the opposite when we lose. Our superiority becomes inferiority. We base our worth as humans on what strangers do on grass fields, sometimes thousands of miles away.

Is that smart? Of course not.

Can we help it? NO!!!

We pout and we sulk like twelve year old girls. We don't want to be bothered, nor reminded, of the game our heroes lost. We avoid friends. We avoid news. We avoid our bookies but most of all avoid ESPN.

We are the jilted lovers of sports. The heartbreak kids of athletics. The addicted masses of competition.

I am just glad - my team as never been out played. My team has only lost because of bad calls by the referees. Except the game when the coach messed up and changed the pitcher and quarterback when we had it all but won.

This is why it is much harder for me to be nice on Monday mornings than you. My team is perfect and has bad luck. Your team just isn't as good as the other team sometimes.

So please just leave me alone and turn off ESPN.

P.S. If my bookie calls I am not here!






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J Pat
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